Sommerfest Stuttgart

Come out and  celebrate summer with 50,000 of your closest friends!

 Saturday was Sommerfest - beer, food, wine, music... pretty much just a reason to drink and listen to music and eat.  We found a place on steps of the palace after we discovered that Sarah is NOT good on crowds.  We hunkered down there, had a drink and listened to a good 80's cover band.  Very entertaining... hard on the bum however.  Next year we'll bring blankets and hang out on the grass and listen to the music from there and just enjoy the evening.

We had taken the train in .... and headed home at dark - so 9:30 ish.

THEN we saw UFO's on the way home... seriously a lot of blinking lights in the sky that evening towards Herrenberg.  My best guess after the fact was and still is a series of paper lanterns released... but I never found anything in the news (translations are hard) about any lantern release... but there they were... I didn't think my phone was able to capture it... but this is my ONE bit of evidence with a star in the lower left (actually this is turned and should be rotated 90 degrees counter clockwise... but the result is the same - a cluster of various brightness of lights in the middle... very weird.  WE weren't the only ones staring up at this...

Triberg - the land of cuckoo clocks.

Friday we (I?) decided we should got to Triberg - not only was it in the Black forest but it was the home of the Black forest Cuckoo clocks.
And off we went.
we're driving down when we came around a corner and our reactions was "what the hell is that????"

 More on this later... yes this is your teaser as we had to look it up... hint it's in Rottweil... really, truly the name of the town.  Website can be found here: https://testturm.thyssenkrupp-elevator.com/en
but don't go look just yet as we really did drive over to find it on our way home :)  I mean, really - who could resist?  We'll take a tour of it in a cooler month - supposedly there is NO A/C in there and it can get to 30 degrees C  which is DANG hot!!! (86 Fahrenheit)  So, not for the faint of heart...

Anyway continue on to Trieberg - which still takes us on some back roads... really?  I need to get our GPS checked.  It takes some JACKED up paths to get us to places.

Checking out the fish while I'm checking out where we're going and best way to get there... in town there were signs to Triberg falls... little did I know just HOW big this thing is...

 CARP!!!

we ended up getting back in our car and driving to the NEXT pull out and walking over to the falls.. well PART of the falls... seriously - BIG thing!!

 MORE giggling at the height challenges we have!!

Checking out the falls... not sure why I can't get this one to load upright... but I gave up.

 Butch hiked down the lower observation deck.  I was a wimp and said NO WAY.  Then again I wasn't wearing hiking shoes as I had see there was observation decks, so assumed there wasn't huge hiking requirements to go to this one.  There wasn't really if you went to the right pull out :)

 first stop for us was the see (lake) to the right - then on up to the pagoda looking entrance in the middle - then walked across to the falls - so we got to see the middle of the falls.  If/when we go back we'll start at the top and hike down instead.  I guess I'll be the driver in that case and pick everyone up at the bottom?  LOL... that would mean I would NOT hike :)

 just ignore the crazy lade trying to do selfies.  I'm sure Sarah was MORE than ready to head on home after dealing with her crazy aunt and uncle for a week!!

And because I wanted to see the clocks - we went to one of them that was "the house of 1,000 clocks"  It lived up to it's name for sure!  It had LOTS of fun stuff in there and now Butch is determined to bring home a cuckoo clock.  OK... but it stays in HIS office... not mine!!

 

 LOL - Even Butch was a good sport about the cut out... Sarah would have NONE of that mess - hahahaa!

It really is such a pretty area - this was right to the back side of the clock place... so peaceful and serene.


And with that we headed on home... and drove by the test facility.
it is to test elevators... we will HAVE to go back and take the tour.  I thought of Mike and Robert for this one... what do you think?  Great idea, right??

you can barely tell this is actually a skin around the round building.  I would have thought the round building would be more aerodynamic than the twists... but I'm not an engineer... interesting place however!  Can't wait to go back and check it out some day!

Neuschwanstein and Hohenschwangau

Neuschwanstein and Hohenschwangau.  Ok, two of the castles from "the list" were these... well, I had already been to Neuschwanstein a few times, but never Hohenschwangau.  Why?  NOT a clue.  Was it worth it?  Sure!!

 view from Hohenschwangau's trek up the hill.  That places looks like it's close.  Good lord it's NOT... I was huffing and puffing, but I did make sure we stopped a few times for pictures because well, 1) I had to catch my breathe and 2) it is SO pretty there!!!! 

 Looking through the woods back towards Neuschwanstein.  Things worked out JUST right on the tours... we drove down fairly early in the morning without a thought in the world about crowds as I had taken the day off and it was Thursday... yeah... 1st of August... beginning of the summer vacations for europeans.  Shoot me now!!! We hadn't been here in the summer EVER.  When Suz and I had been here in the 90's it was September time frame and snowing... when Linda, Mom and company came out it was winter and Liz was in a winter coat!!  Yeah, summer and this is a MAD house!!  We stood in line - I say we as I ducked out to go potty and missed a good portion of the waiting in THAT line, but had another line all together to wait in!!  We met a nice Australian man in line Reagan (REEgan).  He was a younger guy and very nice.  It was good to chat with him and we ended up on the Hohenschwangau tour together but NOT the Neuschwanstein one.  We were on a later one for that, which wasn't bad as it was open later anyway... AND we were driving, so all was good.  Anyway, we had Hohenschwangau first... so opted to hike to it as it LOOKED to not be that horrible.  No worse than hiking to the church in Herrenberg, so couldn't be that bad, right?  I'm SSOOOO out of shape!!!!  BUT I made it and no heart attacks were had... just threats of one!!

 There were a number of hang gliders that were hanging out above the castle for quite a long time.  I guess the updrafts are perfect here for staying for hours.

That doesn't look like it will be that bad, does it?  LOL... yeah, it was!!  Pant, pany, puff, puff... but I made it!!!

 Then I am constantly getting chuckles from Sarah's antics as she is always joking about her challenge in getting IN pictures with us as we're too tall to take the right angles of photos to get stuff and HER in there too... we did squat down a few times and laughed our way through it.

 I never knew there was a lake down there too - geeze, what rock was I hiding under that I never knew about the other end of the tour?  I guess when it's cold and snowy you don't look towards the lakes.  I had grand hopes of a lake side restaurant, but the one that was there had closed down, so no pretty view for lunch, but we did get an outside table and had the following:

 Butch and his white sausages in a broth.  uhm... didn't look appetizing to me, but hey, to each their own.  The pretzel on the other hand looked GREAT!!

 The nuremberg sausages were great and the sauerkraut was great... but didn't do me any favors which was sad as I had had sauerkraut before without negative repercussions... I guess that and walking some 10+ miles and climbing a lot of stairs just did my bowels in for that meal!  It was sure tasty however!!

 Sarah said hers was just as tasty with some mashed potatoes along with it!  Yum!!!

 THEN we opted to ride the horses to the top for Neuschwanstein.  I KNEW I wouldn't make that trek - no way, no how!!  I think the horses was a great idea!!

 walking up the REST of the way I had to tell Butch to LOOK behind YOU..... He had totally missed the view... so after wrangling him in and making him backtrack a bit... we had a few good shots.

The good thing is I made it about 90% of the way through the tour and up all of the flights of stairs before lunch had it's revenge.  I dashed down to the potty telling Sarah and Butch to take their time as I was rushing for my needs, but they were free to look around and take their time... I made it with seconds to spare... came out and they were gone.  I poked my head into the cafe area... nope... so I thought "OK, they continued on"... I walked down the next flighs of stairs only to have to stop at the NEXT bathroom as well - good news is I know where these are now.... bad news is they were needed.  I spent a bit more time there... recouping and such... thought "OK, time to catch up to them again" and started out... past the exit and 1/2 way down the stairs when all hell broke loose.  yeah... I had to make my way out of the castle slowly... down the hill and pray that things were all still good in the "presentable for humans" status.  Good news, I was... thank heavens because my backup clothing was VERY far away at this point.  sigh.  BUT... by then I was DONE.  I texted the others to see where they were - they were just coming out of the castle.  Sigh.. I had to stop at ONE MORE potty at the restaurant down the hill... and opted to take the carriage back down the hill.  There was simply no way I was up for that walk.  I was wiped out.  BUT.  I survived and have checked one more castle off the list. 

AND with this little (?) episode I talked to my oncologist here and got medication finally.  It's been just about 18 months since surgery and things are simply NOT reliable.  So we'll try medications to see if we can control things for short durations so as to NOT have to stop in the middle of a castle tour and/or cut things short because the innards are not happy.... and so it goes.

 Here is the view from our car.... talk a breathtaking place!!

And one final shot as we're heading back to the house.  The trips not that bad.  2.5 hours from our house to here.  Quick day trip!