Sunday, October 25, 2009

Day at the Plansee

October 25, 2009 Well, after being sick all week I was going stir crazy! Can't say I'm feeling 100% but I had to go somewhere/do something so I drove to the Plansee, a lake in Austria about 30-40 minutes away. The drive was gorgeous....winter might have called but the trees haven't gotten the memo yet and the Plansee was perfect. The fresh air was definitely needed and I got to photograph two of my favorite things - reflections on the water and boats (ok, there was only one boat I liked but still...).




Saturday, October 24, 2009

Bodensee and Halfway House

May 17, 2009 OK. So these pictures go way back...but like I said, I'm a little behind! This was just a random spring/summer day that Matt and I went for a little bike ride to a lake, the Bodensee, close by and then decided we wanted to do something more rigorous so we hiked to the Halfway House, a hut "halfway" up the Kramer mountain....not all that rigorous compared to hiking the entire mountain but still a hike :)

Bodensee

Boat at the Bodensee

View from the Halfway House or St. Martin's Hutte

Historical Walking Tour....Garmisch

August 24, 2009 The community offers a historical walking tour of Garmisch in the spring and fall....here are some normal sites I "see" everyday...I definitely learned some things about the murals and buildings I pass by everyday...whether I remember all the stories is another thing!

So there's a cluster of three buildings that I've heard were important but never quite knew why....well, here they are...except I somehow did not take a picture of the "Blue House" so I'll have to add that later! but the Blue House is famous because the French stayed there for a few nights before invading Austria (they were planning on staying a few months until the homeowner gave the French soldiers an insider tip on how to easily get around the mountain so the soldiers wouldn't stay there for months as planned). The "Blue House" is now an upscale restaurant! Matt and I wanted to go there to say we had dined there so I took him there for his birthday...next time it's his turn! He ordered a really nice King Prawn dish and I had a Thai Chicken Curry dish - both were delicious! and of course, no meal is complete without a bottle of wine! Next to the "Blue House" there's a yellow building (pictured below)....basically the white building (pictured below) is the brewery and the yellow building is the "braustuberl" or the place you drank the beer...makes sense to put them right next to each other!

Brewery

Restaurant to drink the beer from the brewery (white house)

Barns everywhere in Garmisch....they were here first so the "newcomers" just have to deal with the smells!

Frühlingsstraße....the most photographed street in Garmisch...and just minutes from where I live/work

The murals on this building show the means of mail delivery/transportation through the years. Here they are on the river in 1730

Horse and carriage in 1830

and along came the railway in 1930

cute pun on words...Adam bookstore with a mural of Adam and Eve....you can't see it in this picture but there's also a unicorn in the mural! Adam and Eve meets fairytale!

At the Richard Strauss Festival in 2001 this statute was presented as a tribune to "The Women in the Operas of Richard Strauss" ....Daphne, Elektra, and Salome

The evening of the walking tour coincided with King Ludwig's Birthday, August 24th. Every year there are fires on the mountain to celebrate his birthday....there are fires on the mountains for other occasions throughout the year as well! This fire shaped like a crown was on the mountain seen in Oberammergau, a town 20 minutes away.

Pretty Mountains

August 26, 2009 Not much here except the mountains never cease to amaze me....I have millions of pictures of the Alpspitze and Zugspitze...clouds, snow, sun - they're always stunning! Here are two I took one morning from my office terrace that maybe by next summer we will have convinced someone to turn into a beach with a bar and a cabana boy!

Alpspitze...if you click on this picture it gets large enough to see the cross at the top of the summit

The alps...right in my back yard!

Kurpark

August 30, 2009 Well....I'm a bit, ok wayyyyy, behind on posting pictures and stories from my adventures....

Here are some pictures from a random afternoon in the Kurpark....back when it was warm!! After Matt and I were done being kids playing in the water, walking through the foot path and running around the grass maze we stretched out on a big blanket and shared a bottle of wine before biking back home.

cute kid

water wheel....where it all starts...there's a little section of water (ice cold water) that you walk through before walking along the foot path

There's a path for your senses... you walk around this big loop barefoot and feel all the different textures!

more textures

and more...

a maze that Matt and I and all the other kids in the park were running around on!

A