Trip to Europe - the final chapter

Dear Family and Friends,

Sadly this is the final blog of our travels in Europe and Australia. Our first day in Munich we went on a walking tour of Munich. 90 percent of the answers to the questions on the walking tour were beer, as Munich is known for their famous beer halls like the “Hofbrauhaus”.  We also learned about World War II history. One scary fact is that there are still lots of unexploded bombs from WWII in Munich; they found a 1455 pound bomb in the ground recently and had to blow it up. The next day we took a tour of the Dachau concentration camp memorial where Jews, Jehovah Witnesses, and many more different groups that the Nazis did not like were made to work very hard under awful conditions. Dachau was the only concentration camp that was open during all 12 years of Nazi leadership. Dachau was originally built for 6,000 people and at one time it had 60,000 people. It seems really unfair to me that all these people were treated so poorly and many ultimately died because of what they believed. 

We spent our last couple days in Kolbermoor, a town 1 hour south of Munich.  We went hiking in the German Alps at Wendelstein Mountain. We went on a cog railway up 5,577 feet in elevation (maximum 23.7% grade) and then we hiked back down. The day after we went to Salzburg, the town where many parts of the movie “The Sound of Music” was filmed. We also took a tour of the Salzburg fortress and had lunch at an Austrian music festival. The next day we went on a boat to some small islands in the middle of a lake – the Chiensee.  We went hiking on the island and talked about the adventures we’ve had and the places we’ve been. Later that day we flew back to Barcelona. The next day we flew to London Heathrow and then back to San Francisco. On the flight home I watched Muppets Most Wanted, The Lego Movie, and Robocop.  We stayed up almost 24 hours straight on the way home so we were pretty jet-lagged.

Travis and Michael with Salzburg fortress in the background

Karen in front of the von Trapp house (in the movie - it's actually Schloss Leopoldskron). For your sake, no audio is provided. 

View from top of Wendelstein

Some reasons I’m glad to be home are I get to see my pets and hang out with my friends. I’m also glad to have some toys such as Lego that I didn’t have Spain. Some things I will remember most from Europe are first of all, going to a Barcelona soccer game. I will also remember going to Sagrada Familia church (designed by Gaudi) because it was so amazing. Another thing I will remember is going to Miniatur Wunderland the worlds’ biggest model railroad. 

Travis