Garmisch-Partenkirchen

During Oscar's second week of fall break, we spent four days and three nights in Garmisch-Partenkirchen.  Garmisch-Partenkirchen is a small resort town in southern Germany (it only takes about fifteen minutes to drive into Austria) that once hosted the Winter Olympics (1936).  Since then, Garmisch-Partenkirchen has continued to be a popular ski and/or vacation destination.

Wikipedia reports that Garmisch and Partenkirchen were separate towns until, in 1935, their respective mayors were forced by Adolf Hitler to combine.  Today, the united town is often casually (but incorrectly) referred to simply as Garmisch (much to the dismay of Partenkirchen's residents).

Garmisch will host the FIS Alpine World Ski Championships in February 2011 and is one of three cities that submitted a bid to host the 2018 Winter Olympics (technically the host city would be München (Munich) but many of the ski events would be in Garmisch).  Garmisch isn't the only popular destination in the area -- Innsbruck, Austria has twice hosted the Winter Olympics (1964 and 1976) and is less than an hour away.

Garmisch is an especially popular destination for Americans living in Germany because the United States Army has a military base in Garmisch.  It isn't large, but it has all of the essentials for out-of-towners -- a Commissary (grocery store), a PX (household things), a gas station, and a place to stay (more on that in a minute).  Of course, the Germans sell all of these things too.  But the exchange rate makes it more expensive to pay in Euros.  I wasn't really sure why the Army continued to operate a base in Garmisch when it is so public about its desires to reduce its footprint in Europe (as part of an overall plan to consolidate services and spend less money).  According to military.com, the US military presence in Garmisch has three missions:

1. The George C. Marshall Center for Security Studies creates a more stable security environment by advancing democratic defense institutions and relationships, promoting active, peaceful engagement, and enhancing enduring partnerships among the nations of America, Europe, and Eurasia.
2. The NATO School in Oberammergau conducts courses, training and seminars in support of NATO's current and developing strategy and policy, including cooperation and dialogue with military and civilian personnel from non-NATO nations.
3. The Edelweiss Lodge and Resort (formally knows as the Armed Forces Recreation Center) provides a venue of rest, recreation, and conference facilities for active duty soldiers, civilians, retirees, and their families.

I don't know anything about the first two missions but I do know that most of the Americans who vacation in Garmisch stay at the Edelweiss Lodge and Resort -- it's an English-speaking hotel with prices in dollars.  Guests have to be associated with the military in some way to be eligible to stay there (people like me -- civilian employees of the United States government who are stationed overseas on military orders -- meet the qualification criterion).  The military base and the constant stream of vacationers coming to stay at the hotel combine to create a rather large American presence in this small German town.  I suppose there have been times when the large American presence in Garmisch has created some uncomfortable situations but mostly the locals seems to realize that Americans spend a lot of money on the local economy so they are largely quite welcoming.  They also make it easier for Americans to spend their money -- we saw two McDonald's, a Pizza Hut, and lots of other local businesses with signs in English.

Unlike most Americans, we did not stay at the Edelweiss Lodge and Resort.  The size of our family (five people) means we would have had to get two rooms.  I was able to get a better place for less than the price of one room.  We rented a two-bedroom apartment (complete with living room, dining room, and full kitchen) from a local resident of the town.  The Germans use the word FerienWohnung (literally "holiday home") to refer to this sort of an apartment for rent.  I found the apartment on homeaway.com -- they have over 13,000 rentals listed in Germany.  I offered the lady 40€ per night less than her asking price (thinking that she might prefer less money to an empty apartment) and she accepted.  We were very happy with the arrangements; everything worked out really well.

Day 1: Wednesday, October 20th
The first day was mostly just getting there.  Tina loaded up the car and we left after lunch (I went to work for a few hours in the morning).  The drive was uneventful.  The GPS said it would take five hours but it took us closer to six hours.  We stopped a couple of times to use the bathroom but other than that we made pretty good time.  We arrived around 6PM and went to the Commissary to go grocery shopping.  After shopping, we checked in at the apartment.  I unloaded the car while Tina got dinner ready.  When we went to bed that night, it had started to snow.  I woke up the next morning and took this photo of the Alps from the kitchen window:

Day 2: Thursday, October 21st
We ate breakfast at the apartment and then drove an hour north to München so the boys could see the BMW Museum (BMW has its corporate headquarters in München).  BMW actually has three things to do that are all co-located.  They have the BMW Museum, BMW Welt (BMW World), and the BMW Factory Tour.  Children have to be seven to do the factory tour so we didn't do that (although I think they would have really liked it).  BMW Welt is an open showroom (free) with a discovery area for children (also free; be sure to check the  website for availability -- it is often reserved for school groups).  The boys had a great time looking at the new cars and playing in the discovery area.

Calvin drives the convertible.

Cars with lower gears can carry heavy loads uphill.

Learning about shocks (suspension system).

Learning to use the brake.

Learning about disc brakes.

Calvin got the worn "brake pads" that didn't grip the rotor as tightly.

Combustion makes the ping-pong balls go pop.

Learning about horsepower.

We heard a big noise in the lobby and turned around to discover a man riding a motorcycle up and down the stairs.

Sara on top of the small car.

The boys in the small car.

Next we went across the street to the BMW Museum (family ticket was about 25€).  Having seen it, I can say that only people who care about cars a lot more than me would really enjoy the experience.  Basically it is just looking at cars.  There is nothing interactive; mostly the boys were bored.  We spent several hours at BMW Welt and maybe 45 minutes at the museum.  Here are some photos from the museum:

1939 BMW 335

Here is my 520i...

...and Amrit's M5

The BMW Symbol, 1928

1978 M1

Art car, BMW style

 On the way back to Garmisch, we drove past Olympic Park -- site of the 1972 Summer Olympics.

Day 3: Friday, October 22nd
We went to see two famous Bavarian castles -- Schloss Linderhof and Schloss Neuschwanstein.  Linderhof was only about 20 minutes from Garmisch but it was something of a disappointment.  The castle itself was kind of lame and the extensive grounds (with famous gardens and flowers) were mostly closed for the season.  The light snow that had fallen the day before didn't help the situation.  We were able to walk around a bit and take some photos but it wasn't what I had envisioned.

Snow...

To understand my disappointment, you have to know what I had been expecting.  Here is a scan from a postcard we bought.

This swan came right up to us (expecting food, I'm sure).

After Schloss Linderhof, we drove to see Schloss Neuschwanstein.  We drove through Austria to get there (it was the fastest route).  The drive in Austria was beautiful but I didn't stop to take any photos.

With more than 1.3 million annual visitors, Neuschwanstein is one of the most famous castles in the world.  The palace has appeared prominently in movies and even helped inspire the castles featured prominently at Disney theme parks around the world.

Schloss Hohenschwangau was visible as we approached in the car.

A closer view of Schloss Hohenschwangau (we did not go to this castle).

Neuschwanstein is up on a hill.  Visitors park in parking lots at the bottom of the hill and then have three options to get to the castle -- bus, horse-drawn carriage, or walk.  The buses were not running on the day we went (the earlier snowfall combined with the steepness of the hills made it unsafe) so we either had to walk or pay for the horses (6€ per person on the way up, 3€ per person on the way down).

I didn't want to pay for the horses so we walked.  The brochures said it would take 35-40 minutes.  We did it in 25 minutes.  I bought the boys each a pretzel and they didn't complain.  Along the way we noticed that the horses had been rather prolific in marking their territory.

Once we got to the top, we took some photos.

Most pictures of the entire castle are taken either from a helicopter or from this bridge (Marienbrücke).  I wondered how to get there.  Later I discovered that it is only a 15 minute hike from the castle...

The view from Neuschwanstein is spectacular.  You can see Schloss Hohenschwangau in the bottom right of this photo -- it gives you an idea of how far we walked.

Here is another photo from the castle without using any zoom on the camera.  Our minivan is visible as a spec in one of the parking lots in town.

As we began our walk back to the car, we saw a rather large line of people waiting for the horses to take them back to town.  Even the boys commented that the hard part was coming up the hill.  We got back to town in about 20 minutes and we did not get passed by any horses along the way (we got passed by quite a few horses on the way up the hill).

On the way back down the mountain Oscar noticed a shortcut back to town.  But it was closed.

Sommerweg ("Summer way")

Another photo of Schloss Hohenschwangau.  If we ever go back to Neuschwanstein, we'll definitely stop to see this castle while we are there.

Picture of Schloss Neuschwanstein from the parking lot in town.

Day 4: Saturday, October 23rd
We checked out of the apartment around 10AM and had only a few hours before we needed to start the drive back to Wiesbaden.  We had planned to take the train to the top of the Zugspitze (Germany's highest point) but the day was overcast and we didn't think it was worth the money (about $150 for our family) if we weren't going to have a nice view once we got to the top.  The boys really wanted to ride the train so they were very disappointed.


The trains leave from the base of Lake Eibsee.  We drove there (ten minutes from the apartment) and did a short hike before heading home.

The train station at Lake Eibsee.  Maybe next time...

There is a nice trail that goes around the lake.  We parked by the hotel (three o'clock), walked to the bridge (one o'clock), and then turned around and came back to the car.

Here are some photos of Lake Eibsee and our short hike.

 

 

 

 

 

 

We left around noon to start the drive home.

Four days strapped into the car seat had Sara thinking that there were other places she would rather be.

We made pretty good time on the Autobahn...

In Stuttgart, we passed under the parking lot for the famous Trade Fair.  Wikipedia says the Bosch logo is the second largest illuminated sign in the world.

We arrived home around dinner time on Saturday night.  Sunday was full of church activities and then Oscar went back to school on Monday.  We enjoyed our first trip to Bavaria and expect to return again to see Berchtesgaden, Salzburg (Austria), and more.

Disneyland Paris

German schools have two weeks off in October for a fall break so we decided to do some traveling while Oscar had time off from school.  The first week we went to Disneyland Paris for four days and three nights.  We left on Monday morning and returned late on Thursday night.

One thing I discovered when we were thinking about booking this trip is that the British version of the website consistently had lower prices (sometimes by as much as 50%) and better promotions (ie, kids under 12 are free with paying adults) than any of the other country versions of the website.  So it makes a lot of sense to book through the UK website.  Except the British version of the website requires a British address when booking a vacation.  I was doing some poking around online and I came across a pretty fantastic tip -- it turns out that http://www.expedia.co.uk usually offers the same promotions as http://disneylandparis.co.uk except they don't enforce the address restriction.  So I booked our trip through Expedia and paid the British price (in pounds).

We stayed at the Davey Crocket Ranch -- a set of "log cabins" (trailers) that provide more room for families.  The trailers aren't huge but they do have a kitchen and a living room so they are definitely bigger than a standard hotel room.  Some of the cabins looked to have been recently replaced / renovated but ours wasn't so great.  It was definitely old and it wasn't very clean.  I probably should have complained about it before we unpacked.  After we had unpacked everything, we didn't want to deal with the hassle of moving to a new place when we were only going to be there for three nights anyway.

Cobweb in the front door.  Yuck.

Wad of toilet paper stuffed in a hole in the ceiling.  Nasty!

Baseboard in bathroom is rotting.  Floor isn't clean either...

Wallpaper in bathroom is coming apart.  Is that mold on the wall?

So the trailer wasn't so great.  The parks were better but things there were not fantastic either.  The biggest problem was that lots of rides were closed.

The race cars were closed the last three days of our trip.  Oscar never got to do his favorite ride.

He had to settle for a photo with the car parked on the street.

No Buzz Lightyear for us...

We saw signs like this all over the park.

Even the restaurant Tina wanted to visit was closed.

We were disappointed about not getting to do some of our favorite rides but we still found plenty of other things to do.

Lightning McQueen ride

Slinky has a ride too.

We rode the train.

Captian EO was lame.  At least the glasses were cute.

The "ranch" had a very nice swimming pool.  I took the boys swimming one night.  Afterward, we got our photos taken with Pluto.

We saw several parades...

Buzz Lightyear frames the entrance to Toy Story Playland.  It opened in August. 

Magic Carpet ride...

Sara enjoyed her first trip to a Disney property

She also slept a lot.

There are lots of signs telling people that picnicing in the park is not allowed.  Whatever.  I'm not paying 9 € for a burger and some fries.

The official picnic area (outside the parks).  We walked past this every day and never saw a single person there.  On the other hand, we did see lots of families eating lunch on benches in the parks.

Photos on Main Street

The garden maze was a lot of fun.

The hotel where Tina wanted to stay.

Scenic photo of the big castle.  We decided to take some photos with each member of our family in front of the castle.

Disneyland Paris used to be known as Euro Disney.  I was surprised to see that the rebranding did not include replacing the signage on this clock.

We left on Thursday afternoon and had a five hour drive back home.  On the way home, we stopped at Ramstein Air Base to fill up gas and eat dinner at the food court.

Unlike Germany, Autobahns in France all have a maximum speed limit of 130 kilometers per hour (81 MPH).  They also are not free -- the trip cost us 54€ in tolls (27€ each way)!

Many traffic signs in France use an all-caps font.  Ugh.  This guy isn't a big fan either.

Speed limit signs often feature the word "Rappel."  I had to ask Google what this was all about.

Disneyland Paris was not a bad trip but it could have been a lot better.  Maybe we'll try again next year...

SV Wehen Wiesbaden vs. SV Sandhausen

On a Saturday in September, Tina spent most of the day in Kaiserslautern while she was attending a church  Relief Society event.  That left me with the children.  The boys have been wanting to see a real German soccer game so I took them to see SV Wehen Wiesbaden versus SV Sandhausen (SV stands for Sportverein -- "Sports Association" or "Sports Club").

Like most American sports, German soccer is organized into leagues.  The highest level is called the Fußball-Bundesliga.  The most famous (and, by far, the most successful) team in the German Bundesliga is FC Bayern München.  The Bundesliga is different from American professional sports leagues in an important way -- it operates on a system of promotion and relegation with the 2nd Bundesliga.  In this system, the bottom two teams in the Bundesliga are automatically relegated to the 2nd Bundesliga for the following season while the top two teams from the 2nd Bundesliga are automatically promoted to the Bundesliga (again, for the following season).  The team that finishes third from the bottom in the Bundesliga plays a two-legged playoff with the third-place team of the 2nd Bundesliga; the winner plays the next season in the Bundesliga.  This system of promotion and relegation is designed to ensure that noncompetitive teams do not remain at the highest levels of the sport for 18 consecutive losing seasons (take notice, Pittsburgh Pirates).

The 3rd Bundesliga sits underneath the 2nd Bundesliga and then the regional club teams (Regionalliga) lie underneath the 3rd Bundesliga.  Both of these leagues have promotion and relegation systems (teams from the Regionalliga face relegation to the Oberliga).  Some of the teams in the 3rd Bunesliga consist of reserve players for larger teams in the Bundesliga (for example, Bayern München II plays in the 3rd Bundesliga).  Reserve teams are not eligible for promotion to the 2nd Bundesliga.  When the 3rd Bundesliga began operating in 2008, it replaced the Regionalliga as the 3rd tier of German professional soccer.

SV Wehen (as it was then called) played in the lower German leagues for decades before finally being promoted to the third tier Regionalliga in the late 1980s (this was before the current third tier existed).  In 2002, SV Wehen finished a respectable 6th in its Regionalliga.  In 2005 and 2006, SV Wehen finished 3rd but did not get promoted to the 2nd Bundesliga either year.  Finally, at the conclusion of the 2006-07 season, SV Wehen finished first in its league and was promoted to the 2nd Bundesliga.  For the 2007-08 season, SV Wehen started playing its games at the brand new Brita-Arena in Wiesbaden.  Since future home games would be in Wiesbaden, the team changed it name to SV Wehen Wiesbaden.

The rebranded SV Wehen Wiesbaden finished 8th its first year in the 2nd Bundesliga (2007-08) but the following year (2008-09), Wehen finished 18th and was relegated back to the third tier of the German soccer leagues (the 3rd Bundesliga) for the 2009-10 season.  Wehen remains in the 3rd Bundesliga for the 2010-11 season.

The game we went to see was SV Wehen Wiesbaden vs. SV Sandhausen.  The team offers a family ticket that is good for up to four people.  It only costs nine Euros.  When I showed up to buy the family ticket, there was a man standing outside the box office selling a family ticket for five Euros (he had received it as a no-cost promotional ticket) so I bought that from him and saved four Euros.

The stadium had lots of empty seats -- there were entire sections that were empty.  Whatever local buzz might have existed in 2007 (when the team opened a new stadium and simultaneously qualified for entrance into the 2nd Bundesliga) had long since disappeared.  Although still considered professional soccer, the quality of play was noticeably different from the World Cup games that I watched this past summer.  Fortunately, the boys didn't seem to notice or care.

We got bratwursts at halftime and SV Wehen Wiesbaden scored two second half goals to win 2-0.  Baby Sara enjoyed it so much she slept through the entire second half.

Unfortunately, I do not have any photos of our trip to the soccer game because the camera was in the States for service.  The camera had started putting a black spot on many of the photos that we were taking so I sent it back to Canon for repair.  Fortunately, it was still covered by the factory warranty so the repairs were free.