Team VanderPants: Europe, Part 4

Let the relaxation begin! After being on the road and traveling to sooo many different places we were all excited to stop over at the Edelweiss Military Lodge and Resort in Garmisch. Talk about a NICE place. It had every amenity you can ask for: great rooms, spa, pool, hot tub, recreation rentals, shopping, dining, casino, and the list goes on!

We took advantage of the super cheap bike rentals and cruised around town. I insisted that if we were going for a bike ride it was going to be leisurely...yeah right. These two guys were killing me. They're like little mountain goats. It seemed the theme of our trip was that if there was high lookout point we were going to get there.

Lake at the top of the mountain...that we rode our bikes to!

The 1936 Winter Olympics were held in Garmisch. Here is a photo of a ski jump. You can see the judging box hanging of the mountain to the right. Kinda cool!

The water was really clear.

This poor German guy. He's just taking an innocent rest and the guys thought he was the greatest thing ever so they snuck up and snapped a photo.

Downtown Garmisch was just a cute town to walk around in. We bought some chocolate and had a nice lunch.

I took this photo for my Mom. Her name is Lois and this is clearly a retirement home...just saying Mom.

From the Edelweiss Lodge we took a tour of the Griesbrau Brewery. This was so much fun. The guide was very "authentic" as Mike's Mom would say. We just loved it!

Our Guide! Our tour bus even gave him a ride home at the end of the night! The tour was also fun because we were with other military members from around the U.S. Some were staying at Edelweiss for their two week R&R from Iraq and Afghanistan. We met a husband and wife that were both deployed to Afghanistan and met up with each other at Edelweiss to spend their time off together.

The next day we started our journey back to Ramstein. On the way back we stopped at Neuschwanstein Castle. This was one of the only bad weather days we had the whole trip...and it was pouring!

Carriage ride to the castle.

Rain, rain, rain.

Neuschwanstein Castle was built by a Bavarian King for his son. Unfortunately the King's son died for reasons still not known today and was never able to actually live in the finished castle. We couldn't take photos inside the castle, but you can see them on wikipedia here. The castle is cool because it wasn't lived in and still looks brand new. However this was definitely not our favorite place. It was a huge tourist trap and the tour wasn't self guided; we were herded with a gaggle of tourists from one room to the next. Side note though, the castle was Disney's inspiration for the castle in Sleeping Beauty.