Our first visitors from the U.S.A. - The Mitchell's do Europe!

We had been anxiously awaiting the arrival of our very good friends from Iowa on Saturday, May 5th for a few months now and were so excited for all of the fun trips that we had planned while they were here.  They got in mid-morning and after a sleepless flight we decided to have a nice low key day around our town and Kaiserslautern.  We took them for their first German meal to one of our favourite places, The Brauhaus am Markt in Kaiserslautern, that has good food and delicious home brewed beer.  They were quite happy with it!  The next day was a bit rainy but we drove up to Bingen on the Rhine River so that we could board a KD Cruise Boat to see some of the most beautiful scenery in Germany - castles galore!  The rain didn't stop us from having a great time, we stayed on the upper deck most of the ride upstream to Boppard.  We had a nice lunch, toured around the cute town then took the train back downstream to Bingen.   It was such a fun day, the slide show below captures it all!

PICTURES FROM THE DAY

 

Monday, while Dave was at work, the Mitchell's and I took the train over to the Weinstraße to visit the towns of Neustadt, Deidesheim, and Wachenheim.  All of the towns along the Weinstraße are so unique in their own way.  There are great places to taste wine, try foods from the area, enjoy a festival or just get lost in the cobblestone streets and find all that the towns have to offer.  We had another fun day!  Taking the train back to Enkenbach, Dave picked us up and we took the Mitchell's to our temporary home when we relocated to Germany - The Barbarossohof Hotel - for another fine German dinner.

PICTURES FROM THE DAY

Tuesday morning we got around early because the Mitchell's and I were headed to Munich for the next 3 days.  We took the train, which was a bit chaotic for a Tuesday morning, but finally made it to Munich after a few switches around midday.  Our hotel was a few stops away from the Main Hbf near the English Garden in Munich.  We checked in, grabbed lunch and explored the beautiful city of Munich.  It was a gorgeous day, perfect for sitting in the Viktualienmarkt Bier Garten drinking the beer of the day and people watching.  We went back to our spacious triple hotel room and rested up for our super early departure to Salzburg (via train) the next morning.  Trains were running behind so we barely made it to Salzburg in time to meet our guide for our Sound of Music Tour with Bob's Tours.  Oddly enough as we were darting out of the Hbf I noticed the yellow van and the guide, Anna Rosa, who Dave and I had when we did the tour last October!  It was a fun tour, just as fun as last time!  I was happy to do it again because it was on Maureen's Top 3 list of things to do!   We spent the afternoon in Salzburg, hopped on the train back to Munich and enjoyed great food, litres, and fun back at the famous Hofbräuhaus!

PICTURES FROM THE TRIP 

Thursday we split up as the Mitchell's were heading to Dachau Concentration Camp and I wasn't sure what I wanted to do! I didn't want to go back to the camp so I decided to visit the Nymphenburg Palace because I didn't see it last time I was in Munich. We've seen so many of King Ludwig II's castles so why not see one more!? It was much like the others - a Baroque palace - but this was was the birthplace of the King and the it served as the summer residence of the royal Bavarian family. It was a beautiful day and I took tons of pictures! I met up with the Mitchell's at the Munich Hbf for our journey back to Enkenbach. That night we dined at our little neighborhood restaurant of choice, Stella's, but unfortunately our favourite little Greek/German Hostess was in the kitchen cooking. It was still nice to be able to enjoy the Biergarten!

NYMPHENBURG PICTURES

Friday was another beautiful day and the last day on the Mitchell's Rail Pass so the 4 of us (DH took the day off!) took the train to Stuttgart for their Springfest. We'd never been but the trains take about the same time as driving there so it seemed to be a good choice. That is until we get on a train that had no air, no air circulation, and no open windows...and boy oh boy was it HOT! We were happy to get out in the fresh air and find our way to the Festival. Stuttgart is quite a big city and we didn't really spend any time sightseeing so it will have to be one that we go back to. The Festival was like most others and I'm glad the Mitchell's got a chance to experience it with the rides, the food, the people watching and the Beer Tents!! Another fun day during Mitchell Mania.

STUTTGART PICTURES




Our last day with our friends was spent in the town of Strasbourg, France.  It was another place that we had not been to before and only a two hour drive away.  It is a very cute town with the enormous Gothic cathedral as it's focal point.  We wandered around, found a lovely little outside cafe for lunch and took a boat cruise on the River L'Ill.  I'm usually right on the ball with picture captions but since I dozed off for half of the boat ride you'll just have to enjoy the scenery!  Dave was in charge of pictures during that time.  We walked through the cute little streets, Mo bought some lovely handmade French pottery and I bought some croissants...wel all choose our souveniers differently :p  It was a great last day with the Mitchell's!

STRASBOURG PICTURES

I made a German farewell dinner for them with different grilled wursts, kraut, and warm German potato salad.  It was delish!  We had a great night at home since we had to get them to Frankfurt pretty early in the am.  It was such a great week with our friends from the Midwest and we thank them for coming all this way for a week of fun and exhaustion.  They said that if they stayed any longer they may have killed me :) but good thing they didn't because I had two days to  prepare for our next guests from the USA!  Fun times indeed!!