FrittStory

We've had an exciting two months here at the Fritts House UK. We spent the first week of March in Germany (the main subject of this post), went on an exciting adventure with our friends Paul and Kelly around Paris and England later in the month (upcoming post), hopped over to Amsterdam for a week (another upcoming post.... I have some serious catching up to do with this blog), and just finished hosting my sister and brother-in-law Becky and Greg last week. Justin's sister Julie and her husband Bart are visiting us this weekend, and mixed in with all of this madness I found a job that I'm starting tomorrow!

Now that I've made a ridiculous number of excuses for not writing a single post in March or April, I'm ready to talk all about our amazing journey to Bavaria. This was initially planned as a spring snowboarding trip, but ended up being more of a sightseeing trip due to unseasonably warm weather (no complaints here... there was plenty to see and do, and we were excited to see some sun after a few cold, dark weeks in England)! We had an amazing time- great food, beautiful sites, interesting history, super friendly people, soft pretzels everywhere (one of Justin's favorite foods) and lots and lots of delicious German beer!

Here are some of our photos from the trip. Enjoy!

We spent the day in London before heading out to Munich. This is us in front of Buckingham Palace.

One of our favorite, chill things to do in London is taking a walk through St. James's park on a nice day. It's famous for its variety of exotic birds, such as the Pelicans pictured below.

This duck is having an amazing hair day. Kind of looks like Donald Trump. Ha!

Now off to Munich! You know you're in Germany when... you get Haribo gummy bears for turndown service.

Some delicious Bavarian treats at a local shop.

Those soft pretzels I was talking about. They did not disappoint!

We had a great time exploring the city. The architecture is beautiful, the buildings are immaculate, and the city is adorned with historic monuments, sculptures, and modern art.

I wasn't as impressed with this sculpture, but Justin was really into it. I do wonder where one can purchase a giant pope hat.

This is us in front of the New Town Hall in Marienplatz in the city center of Munich. That is a mouthful to say!

The New Town Hall was the most impressive building we saw in Munich. The level of detail is extraordinary.

If you look just below the clock in the tower you will see the Glockenspiel. It chimes daily, and the life-sized figures re-enact stories from the 16th century.

A view from inside the courtyard of the New Town Hall. Once again, absolutely beautiful and amazing detail.

We took a break in Marienplatz to enjoy our first proper meal in Munich, which consisted of sausages, pretzels, and beer of course!

We visited the Deutsches Museum (German Museum) on our first day, which is the world's largest museum of technology and science. It was fun but a little underwhelming- entirely our fault because neither of us knew enough German to read museum descriptions and understand the significance of many of the things we were looking at. We still had a great time and have some fun stuff from our visit to share.

Here is the outside of the museum.

Human sundial test right outside the museum. It worked great!

"Fritz" ship. Should be "Fritts" ship!

Evil Robots.

Museum cafe snack break! Mezzo Mix (a delicious combo of cola and orange soda) and some sugary doughnuts.

Justin proudly standing next to a Rolls Royce engine, one of the models he works with. Thumbs up!

This handsome fellow surprised me in one of the space station displays. Creepy!

There were a lot of planes in the museum. This was my favorite plane picture that Justin took.

USA rocket display. 'Murica! Yeah!

A view from the museum, overlooking the city. So many cool towers, we didn't know at the time but you can go up in a lot of them for a good view.

We spent the afternoon checking out the famous German markets.

The markets are filled with a variety of unique gifts, as well as local produce and food stands. We enjoyed shopping all of the quirky stands.

The market surrounds a large beer garden. It's pretty amazing.

As the sun went down we did a little more exploring around the city. This is the beautiful Theatine Church, a Catholic church in Munich.

The Feldherrnhalle in Munich was built as a tribute to the Bavarian Army. It's also the site of a historic clash between Hitler's followers and the Bavarian State Police.

This is the Bayerische Staatskanzlei (the Bavarian State Chancellery). We didn't know what it was at the time, but it looked really beautiful surrounded by tidy landscaping and blanketed in snow.

The parks were a winter wonderland.

I really love this shot. You can tell that this area gets a lot of traffic from all of the footprints, but at this moment it's completely peaceful.

At the end of our day in Munich, we headed to Garmish via the autobahn! Driving in Germany is fun and the way driving everywhere should be.

We had some trouble trying to pronounce this word. He he! So mature...

A beautiful view from our wintery drive around Garmish.

I took control of the camera during the drive.

This is one of the photos I took. I'm so proud of it! That's why I made it bigger than all of the other photos in the blog. Classic Christina...

We spent our first day in Garmish visiting Neuschwanstein Castle, the inspiration for Disneyland's Sleeping Beauty castle.

A closer look at the castle.

The castle is on the top of a large hill and built against a cliff. We are constantly climibing hills around Bath and were in great shape for the hike up.

Inside the courtyard, waiting to tour the castle.

Photography was not permitted during the tour but we managed to sneak in a few photos (explaining why these photos are taken at a strange angle). The interior decoration was theatrical and very beautiful, and we learned during the tour that most of the castle interior was inspired by the operas of Richard Wagner. Ludwig II commissioned the palace, but only lived there for 172 days before his mysterious death.

Scaled down version of the castle.

We spent a little time in the village near the castle, which was nestled in the mountains and lined with charming shops and restaurants.

For dinner we enjoyed a traditional German meal. Roasted pork, potato dumpling, and sauerkraut for me. It was really, really good.

Justin's plate-o-meat. Also quite tasty.

German food is best paired with delicious German beer. Obviously.

We loved staying in Garmish. It's such a charming, adorable little town.

A little church in Garmish.

Local flower shop.

A close up look at the artwork along the buildings.

Justin enjoying a German beer sampler at the end of our first day in Garmish.

On day three of our trip, I unfortunately got really sick (no... not hung over... actually ill). Justin was sweet and spent most of the day with me in the hotel, but did manage to do a little exploring on his own. He attempted to go to Partnach Gorge in the afternoon, but it was closed due to warm weather (which was melting the snow and creating dangerous conditions through the gorge). Sadly a rough day for both of us.

Justin still enjoyed a scenic walk around the area. I was super jealous when I saw these breathtaking photos.

I started to feel better the next day and managed to get a few snowboarding runs in with Justin before insisting he go on without me. It was a little dramatic- I had just bought new equipment and this was our only mountain trip planned for the year.

View from the slopes.

Really beautiful, but you can tell that the snow was melting fast.

Photo Justin took speeding through a concrete tunnel on the slopes. Weeee!!!

We spent our final afternoon visiting The Dachau Concentration Camp memorial site. We expected it to be an emotional experience which it was, but we were also completely blown away by how much we learned during our visit. There was a lot of information covered that put these horrible events into a new context for me, and completely changed the way I view World War II, and the world itself. It was an eye-opening and incredibly moving experience.

This is a plaque at the entrance of the site honoring the U.S. Army for liberating the camp in 1945.

Map of the Nazi camp system during the war.

Map of Europe in 1942 at the height of the Nazi regime. Blue= German opponents; Yellow= neutral states.

Illustrations of overcrowding in the barracks at the camp. The camp was made to house 6,000, but housed over 60,000 by the time it was liberated in 1945.