Babymoon-Germany

Onto Part 3-Germany! Be ready for picture overload today. We both decided Germany was our favorite part of the whole trip! 

We drove into Germany and had our first of many rainy days. We found a rest stop with free toilets, but they were all metal, and it was REALLY COLD!! We drove on the Autobahn, but it took us a while to figure out we were actually on it. Once we did, our commute times greatly decreased!

Our friend, Matt, told us about this cool little town called Rothenburg ob der Tauber that was one of the most favorite places he has ever visited. 

We arrived in time for the night watchman's tour. 

Rothenburg is a preserved medieval town. The tour guide told us all about the history of the town. It was so interesting! The town was founded in the 1200s and nearly destroyed three times.

The views outside the town were gorgeous!

Here we learned about the Nazi's coming in to try and break down the gate. 

We enjoyed walking around the town, it was just so pretty! It was about 20 degrees colder than we planned so we were freezing. People were actually laughing at us walking around with our blanket wrapped around us!

Every hotel room was a little bit different than the last. It seemed there was always something new. This time, instead of sheets, we were each given a "sleeping bag" type blanket and that was it!

The next morning we ate yummy snowballs for breakfast, 

and did a little shopping. 

Is this not the prettiest town ever? We felt like we were on a movie set it seemed so fake!

The town is also known for Christmas so we checked out a couple Christmas stores! They even had a "Christmas mobile" in the street.

Then we climbed up to the wall where the night watchmen used to patrol the town each night. The views were so pretty!

When the town ran out of money people donated money to help keep the town running and were given engraved blocks to purchase a portion of the wall.

We headed on down the road and was able to see some gorgeous views of the German alps. The weather was cold and rainy in Rothenburg, but as we kept driving the weather only got nicer!

We made a quick stop at a grocery store to pick up some water and other snacks. For not knowing any foreign languages, I think we managed pretty well! That afternoon we stopped at a Biergarten for brats and fries.  

Then we took a little hike to tour the Newschwanstein castle.

It was beautiful!

They made Matt switch his backpack around before our tour so I thought it was the perfect opportunity for a great "tourist" picture! 

The views from the castle were gorgeous!!

We headed on down the road but stopped to get a few more pictures of the castle!

We stopped in Garmisch for dinner to eat at this cool place Jill told me about. Unfortunately, it was closed, but we had a great time exploring the town!

We found a German restaurant to stop for dinner. It tasted exactly like Grandma Mark's food, and we really enjoyed it!

We had such a great time in southern Germany; we know it is definitely one place we will be back to! We drove into Austria that night. The mountains were enormous! At one point, we drove down at 16% grade  hill. I didn't realize they ever went above 10%. It was steep! Most night we had a double bed but this night we got a king sized bed! Except, it was actually just two double beds pushed together. Always something new for us to experience!

At this point, I realized I should have set up some Fitbit challenges because I definitely would have won!

Check back tomorrow for Part 4.