Berchtesgaden Escape pt. 1

** Sorry for the insanely long blog, but I had my laptop with me for the trip and I had 9 hours to kill from when we left Berchtesgaden back to our house, lol **

Holy cow. I think Eric & I figured out where we wanna live when he retires from the Air Force. Berchtesgaden is, by far, the most beautiful place I’ve ever seen. EVER.

Prior to making our almost 9 hour road trip to the Germany / Austria border, I had looked up the weather forecast for the next several days… and wouldn’t ya know... it was supposed to rain the entire time we were going to be there. Luckily, the Vacation Gods worked in our favor and it was GORGEOUS the entire time! Given, it’s a vacation so I was ecstatic to be anywhere but home, but, the awesome weather definitely made it a “plus”. Sadly, Dad wasn’t able to join us on the trip due to some medical problem he’s experiencing, but he told us to go ahead and take our trip since: 1). Eric and I haven’t had any “us” time in quite some time since something ALWAYS has popped up and prevented us from going anywhere, 2). I had already made reservations for the tour and kept updating Mr. Bob in terms of our hotel arrangements, not to mention, I found someone to look after John while we’re gone (he would’ve driven my Dad insane otherwise), 3). Eric FINALLY has Leave so we really wanted to take advantage of it!!!

Once we got into town and found our hotel, which was set up by Mr. Bob (http://www.berchtesgaden-accommodation4u.com/), Eric and I unloaded all of our luggage in our room. After experiencing the hotels in Poland and parts of Belgium, I was really skeptical and expecting the room to be the size of a closet with a tiny tiny bathroom. I was wrong! Yay! How often do I admit to being wrong? That’s right, never. We had a double bed (two singled pushed together, ha), a TV, work desk, balcony overlooking the mountain and down into the town, a roomy bathroom and spacious shower / tub. Is it sad that the hotels shower is bigger than the one we have in our own house? Hmmmm. Either way, Eric and I were VERY happy with the room! I owe a huge thanks to Mr. Bob cause the room was very reasonably priced (figure about $114 a night after the conversion rate) compared to some of the other hotels that were $200+ a night and more in the boonies. I highly reccommend using him and we're most definetely going to be giving him a call again since Eric and I are considering going back there for our wedding anniversary this summer.

Our hotel was right in the downtown area and we were able to walk around and check out a lot of the places without having to use the truck to get around. While basking at the wonder of the snow topped mountain scenery, we got a whiff of some delicious Chinese food, so, we wandered off to get some that happened to be right next to the hotel. Truth be told, the place looked rather shady from the outside, but once we sat down and actually ate... it’s some of the best Chinese food I’ve had in quite some time! Gorged ourselves silly and our bill only came to 23 euro! That was surprising considering we’re used to Chinese food in Belgium costing anywhere from 40-50 euro.

Fried banana's with honey

Once we were done there, Eric insisted on getting some Gelato from the corner ice cream place even though we had JUST finished dinner...lol. He ended up getting a stratatella cup combo and got myself a single scoop mango gelato (it was awesome). I already figured at this point...by the time we get back to Belgium, I’m GOING to be living in the gym to work all this gluttony off.

On Saturday, we made our way down to the local shops that we checked out the night before (they were already closed once we got into town) since we were searching for some steins. Every place we visit, we get a stein. I have several of ‘em that I’ve collected from Belgium, Poland, The Netherlands, Germany, England, etc. On our way there, we stopped off at a jewelry that has some really unique pieces...ended up finding a pretty cool necklace / pendant combo that has the top of an acorn as well as a “flask” with the Bavarian lion on it. It’s a very solid piece (not hollow) and definitely has some weight to it! I really fell in love with it, especially since it had a longer chain and I could mix it up with a lot of outfits. Not to mention, it’d be a great little reminder of the trip! Eric ended up getting it for me as a part of my Mother’s Day present, how sweet, hunh? From there, we made our way down the rest of the street to the other shops.

There was one shop that had a stein that I absolutely LOVED, but the gal was asking ridiculous prices for some of ‘em! For ONE stein (it was a 10oz mug), she was wanting almost 65 Euros! Come on! That’s totally gouging your customers! We ended up getting some hanker chefs from her since THOSE were reasonably priced, but after that, we moved onward to another store that we had spotted with a larger selection of steins. The owner of that place was SO nice, very fluent in English & very informative about the stein companies, the process and he even helped us narrow down what we were looking for. We managed to get a stein for my Uncle Tim, Dad, a friend of Dads and ourselves... we ended up leaving with six steins for about 170 euro. Yes, it sounds like a lot, but the quality of the steins are gorgeous, limited edition pieces …and when you think about it; if I got the stein from the other shop, I could’ve only bought two, MAYBE three for the same price verses the six I got with this guy. I remember Mr. Bob talking about a gondola ride you could take up to one of the mountains, but we couldn’t figure out where we needed to go for that...so the stein guy hooked us up with perfect directions and we were on our merry way!

Our official Stein from Bavaria. It's hand painted & apart of a limited edition series (it's number 40 out of 10,000)

My Stein.. I love it cause it's so stumpy, lol. It's Bavaria's colors with it's royal coat.

The Stein I picked up for Uncle Tim. It's another Collector Edition piece that has Oktoberfest collages :)

Dad's Stein

We made our way over to Mt. Jenner to check out the gondola rides since you can go up to the 1800 meter point of the mountain. The price wasn’t “too” bad ( about 40 Euros) considering the view you had once you reached the top, but at least you didn’t have to hike the whole way up! When we were floatin’ along, you could see people braving the incline and trekking their way up the mountainside….noooo thanks…just watching them made my knee scream. Tell ya what, that lil gondola’ cabin we were in was rather claustrophobic...it barely fit myself and Eric!

Perfect example in terms of how "large" the gondala's were

We took a cute picture together "just in case" we died on the way up, lol

The start of our journey!

Then when we hit the joints of the pullies, it’d shake the whole cart and made us sway... a lil unsettling when you’re hovering over steep drops and rocks. Once we passed the middle section of the mountain, it started to get cloudier and cloudier to the point where we couldn’t see towards the top anymore…looked like one of those scenes from “The Mist”.

Cue in more rattling and shaking, swaying and all that good stuff...then we reached the 1800m point in which we got out to walk around. Sadly, it was pretty overcast, so we weren’t able to check out the view, but at least we can say we’ve been to Mt. Jenner, walked around on it and even got to have a snowball fight on there. Not many people can say they’ve done that...so, ne ner ne ner! Did some retail damage in the souvenir store...got myself a cowbell (yes, a cowbell) that says “Mt Jenner 1873m” on it... I figured it’d go nicely with the other cowbell I got back in Kaiserslautern. I like the cowbells since I remember growing up and seeing them in my Grandma’s (she’s from Berlin) house along with the traditional German flower pattern.

LOOKY!

Cuteness :)

I’ve noticed that the locals hype up Marmots a lot…they have stuffed Marmot toys, Marmot post cards and even Marmot “salve”. I guess the salve is to help with your sore muscles and such from all the hiking…I don’t rightly know what part of the Marmot is used to make this stuff, nor do I really wanna know, but I thought it was rather amusing to see Marmots everywhere, rockin’ leiterhosen, alpine hats and even smoking pipes. Interesting stuff. At least on our way down from Jenner, Eric spotted a fatty lil guy (I thought he was messing with me), but in fact, there was a massive Marmot scurrying up a bundle of rocks (he blended in PERFECTLY with ‘em!). They look like massive, overfed ground hogs with ferret like tails.

Once we were back on the base floor of the gondola ride, Eric and I headed over to a lil restraunt that wasn’t too far from there… uhhh mazing food! My eyes were much bigger than my stomach because I ended up ordering way too much food! I got to try out some heavenly Garlic Soup (I MUST find a recipe for it!!) followed up by some Spätzle, then for dessert I had a cheese strudel. Please believe me when I say I couldn’t eat all of it... the only thing I managed to finish was the soup... I got a few pecks of the spatzel in as well as the cheese strudel. Even the waitress laughed at me because she knew I ordered too much for my own good. A LOT of it ended up being take-away because I felt like a jackass to waste all that amazing food. Eric ended up getting bacon dumpling soup, rump steak with fried hash browns and finished up with an apple strudel. He managed to eat ALL of his stuff although he looked rather miserable after the fact (we looked like rollie pollies by the time we left).

Garlic Soup

Amazing Spätzle

Cheese Strudel

Eric's Rump Steak and fried hash browns

Eric's Apple Strudel

While we were eating, our meal entertainment was in the form of some goats. Yes, you read that right…goats. There were a few Nanny-Goats with their Kids that were completely adorable! There was one Kid in particular that Eric and I wanted to “acquire” and name him “Ghost Face Killa” cause of the markings he had. Throughout our meal, the goats twitched, bucked, scurried and even made farting noises (it was rather hilarious)… pretty much imagine looking over a field of flowers, enjoying the sunshine then randomly hearing from time to time “Thhhhpppppp!!”. Between the Nanny-Goats and the Kids, it pretty much sold me on wanting a goat of our own once we finally settle in a place (Eric’s been wanting one FOREVER).

Nanny-Goat that Eric softened up with some strawberries

Ghost Face Killa!

From there, we burned some calories by walking around for a bit by a shopping area that was nearby, checked out a lot of the local shops and found some goodies to bring back for John as well as my Dad. John’s getting a pretty bitchin’ distressed backpack that’s got lots of hidden pockets and straps to go with all of his military looking goodies, we found a nice walking stick for Dad and managed to pick up little “shields” for the places we went to so you can hammer them onto the stick (think of ‘em as bumper stickers in a sense), and yes, we even got some Marmot salve for Dad. I’m a huge fan of Edelweiss (I have several pieces that my Grandma has given me from when she was younger that was given to her by her Father), so when I was able to find some Edelweiss goodies around the shops, I picked up some patches (I’m gonna sew one onto the pack that Eric bought for me as the other part of my Mother’s Day gift) in addition to some little pins and decorative pieces.

(I got the shotglass while we were on Mt. Jenner)

There’s a lake near by that we walked to called Lake Königssee... that’s Germany’s deepest lake ( 650 ft) and it's been said to be their cleanest lake…people are NOT allowed to swim in it. Plus, the boats that are functional on it are electric ONLY, not gas powered. That's been a rule for the lake since 1909! I gotta say..it's very very pretty !

After spending money money money, we made our way back to the hotel to veg out for a bit since we were getting a lil tuckered out. Once we amped up some energy after napping, we ventured out yet again for some dinner. I guess I should say we NEVER really eat this much, lol. It really feels like we were either eating or walking this entire trip. Given, I’m a curvy gal, but this made me look like a super fatty.

After walking around for a lil bit, we stopped into an Italian place since the menu looked pretty promising. Turns out we were the only one in the place! The matradee was really sweet and attentive to us; then again, there wasn’t anyone else in the restraunt to worry about! We both ended up having a lamb plate…Eric’s came with a side of pureed bell peppers in mashed potatoes while mine came with boiled potatoes with lots and lots of garlic. It was delicious! Thing is, the guy kept bringing out more and more food for us (salad, French onion soup, bread, dipping sauce for the bread, more drinks). It was almost a food overload! I managed to have the soup (it was amazing!) and half of my lamb steak .

Fabulous French Onion

Eric's din din

Mine

Tasty side dish they served with our food

By the time I was done, my back pain meds started to kick in full swing and it was making me feel really light headed / tired / nauseated. I think that was our cue to get movin’ since we still had about two blocks back to the hotel and I NEEDED to lay down. Paid our tab, thanked the matradee and tipped him (had to explain what a tip was since he was really confused as to why we wanted to pay him more than what our bill was). I know in Belgium, you don’t tip because it’s considered an insult to the waitor… it means that the owner needs the money to hire better help. When we were telling the guy, we told him in America, we give someone a tip because their service was so good that they deserved a little extra money aside from the pay they already get. Needless to say, he was pretty happy to take the money after the explanation (if someone was trying to GIVE me Euro, I’d take it without any questions, lol). Made it back to the hotel in which I passed out.. thank you back meds. Thanks.