Dachau, Germany and Brugges, Belgium...

On our drive from Garmisch to Kaiserslautern we made a stop to check out the Dachau concentration camp. This was the first concentration camp opened by the Nazis and was used to house mostly political prisioners. It was very sobering to see and read about the experiences of the prisoners there. One of the things we hadn't realized was the large number of concentration camps that were spread across Germany.

(A memorial statue at Dachau)

We stayed a night in Kaiserslautern and then the next day made our way back to London with a stop in Brugges, Belgium on the way. We enjoyed a few hours walking around town and touring the bell tower but most of the other sites were closed that day. The highlight was the fresh Belgian chocolates that we picked up.

We caught the ferry back across the English channel that evening on our way to London to fly out the following day. Luckily, the flight home went smoothly.

Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany

After our jaunt in the Swiss Alps, we headed to the Bavarian Alps to meet up with the rest of the family. The US military has a beautiful resort in the mountain town of Garmisch, Germany at the base of the Bavarian Alps that we stayed at for a few days. Our first day there was rainy and we were recuperating from our climb the day before so we decided to head to see Hohenschwangau and Neuschwanstein castles that were the homes of King Ludwig I and Ludwig II respectively. These castles are relatively new in that they were built in the 19th century. Unfortunately King Ludwig II was only able to live in his castle for 180 days before dying in suspicious circumstances after being declared insane. To this day some of the floors of the Neuschwanstein castle are not finished but the areas that were completed before his death were beautiful. The next day we found a alpine slide to go ride there in town by the old Olympic stadium from the 1936 Winter Games. It took some coaxing to get Whitney to go on the sleds but after dragging her on the first time she loved it and went many more times.

Afterwards, we went on a nearby bungee trampoline which is fun but very tiring after 10 minutes of doing flips. Maren even got in the action and loved it.

Saturday, Jim and I awoke early to head out and climb the Zugspitze (Germany's highest mountain at 2962 m). The approach included a walk through a beautiful gorge and canyon with a glacier crossing and the climb was done along a series of cables called a klettersteig (in Italy they are called via ferratas).

There were some points along the route where you would have to climb an iron ladder that was pounded into the rock or step across on iron spikes. It was a very fun climb with the diversity of scenery and climbing that it provided.

My dad, brother, and the girls rode the tram to the summit to meet us at the end of the climb. I must admit that it was nice to descend the 7,000 feet we climbed that day by tram instead of having to hike back down though it meant sharing the summit with tons of people.

Matterhorn...

After our six weeks in England we headed over to the European continent for a week. We started our trip by heading out from England on a car ferry across the English Channel to France. We drove from France through Belgium to Germany to meet up with my parents and brother there. It was a long day of driving especially after it took an hour to go 9 miles on the motorway around part of London! The next day Jim and I headed for Zermatt, Switzerland while the girls went with my parents and brother to Garmisch, Germany on the Austria border. The drive through Switzerland was absolutely beautiful. Jim was trying to think of a different schemes whereby we could move there and live. We definitely need to go back and spend more time there! One of the funny parts of our trip to Zermatt was that we hadn't looked real close at the Google driving directions until we were halfway to Zermatt and we came upon the directions to catch a car train that went through a tunnel to the other side of the mountain range. Given that we hadn't looked up any information on the train and it's schedule we opted to drive around the mountain instead. No private vehicles are allowed in Zermatt so we had to park a few miles down the canyon and catch a train into town.

Upon arriving in town we walked to the other end of the beautiful mountain village to catch the tram. It was great being able to catch a tram part of the way to eliminate many hours of hiking each way.

(J at the top of the tram)

We still had a steep 2 hour hike from the top of the tram to the hut we were staying at that night. We enjoyed a wonderful hot meal that night while gazing out the window at the Matterhorn before heading to our room we shared with 24 others (12 on the bottom bunk, 12 on the top). Actually luckily the room wasn't full that night so there was one space between us and the party next to us. We could get used to these kind of accomodations when climbing! We celebrated our 9th anniversary the next day by heading out to climb the Matterhorn. (If you've ever seen a Paramount pictures film it's the mountain used in their logo.)

(K all geared up about an hour into the climb)

We woke at 3 am to begin climbing but after about 4 hours the going was too slow and no longer safe due to the large amounts of snow still on the mountain covering the bolts used to protect the climb so we turned around at about 12,000 feet (about 2,6oo feet below the summit).

(Why we climb!--The challenge and amazing views. To truly enjoy the Alps you have to get up high as you can't see much from the villages in the narrow canyons. In the picture of J you can see the town of Zermatt in the lower left.)

We made it about halfway up the technical portion of the mountain. It took us 5 hours to down climb back to the hut due to the melting snow.

(K downclimbing the ridge, and J traversing the narrow, snow-covered ridgeline)

We were surprised that there was so much snow as it was the middle of the typical climbing season for that mountain but this year the snow stuck around later. Next time we'll just have to wait until August to climb. We picked up the rest of our gear at the hut and then headed down the mountain to our car. We then drove to meet the rest of the family in Garmisch late that night.

Northern Wales...

I finally got the pictures attached to this post so here is the entry I wrote in July--We're home after a whirlwind vacation so I'll try to update on the last few weeks of our travels before we take off again. Our last jaunt in the UK was to Northern Wales, it was a beautiful area that was very different from many of the other areas we'd visited. It also felt much more foreign with many of the signs written in Welsh. Some things were obvious to figure out like bws and twnnel (bus and tunnel) but other words were much more difficult. Our first stop was at Conwy castle on the northern coast of Wales. It was pouring rain when we arrived but luckily let up after a while as the castle ruins don't provide much shelter from the elements. It was interesting to climb the towers and look out over the river and walled town that sets adjacent to the castle. This castle was built by King Edward I during the 13th century along with other castles in Northern Wales in order to establish a continued presence in the area during his campaign.

We then headed to Snowdonia National Park to check into the British military lodge we were staying at. If you look closely in the picture below you can see the gray lodge at the base of the mountains. It was located in a beautiful valley inside the park.

The next day we headed out in the occasional drizzle to hike to Idwal Cwm. A cwm is a glaciated valley. The 3 mile hike was beautiful along a river flowing down through pastures from the lake that was surrounded by beautiful mountains with waterfalls flowing down them. Whitney did an excellent job hiking the entire distance.

We then took the scenic route driving through Snowdonia National Park with it's amazing vistas up to Caernafon which is also on the northern coast. Caernarfon is another castle that was built by Edward I during his campaign. This is also the castle where Prince Charles was invested as the Prince of Wales in 1969.

We then enjoyed another beautiful drive through a different part of Snowdonia back to our lodging. The next morning brought pouring rain but that didn't deter us from another 3 mile hike to some beautiful waterfalls however we were soaked to the bone even with wearing rain gear by the time we returned to the car.

On our way back to the base that day we stopped at Ironbridge gorge which has the first iron bridge ever built and is credited with the birth of the Industrial Revolution.

Oh what summer it has been!

We are alive but busy! We just returned yesterday from a trip to Arizona and southern Utah. I'll post some pictures of that trip along with our last two weeks in Europe. I have the posts drafted but I need to get a hold of J's laptop that has all the pictures downloaded onto it. It's been crazy the few days we've been home with our dishwasher breaking and the A/C drain pipe being crushed by a tree root causing water to back up into the house while we were gone. It sounds like the downstairs will continue to be a mess the next week or two while we get it all cleaned up. The joys of home ownership!