Oh, the Places We Went
- Bacharach (pre-tour stop): a quiet, quintessential German town with charming people and local Rhine wines
- Trier: formerly a major Roman city with plenty of historic monuments and a modern, lively market square
- Burg Eltz: unconquerable castle hidden in the woods near the Mosel River with classic fortress features
- Baden-Baden: fun town for bathing and gambling with a rich history of royal tourism
- Black Forest Open Air Museum: stepping back in time to see thatch roofed farm houses and old time grain mills
- Murren: incredible alpine scenery, a fast track to the highest point in Europe, and delicious chocolate and cheese
- Munich: crowded beer gardens, salty pretzels and outdoor bocce courts make for one of Europe's most livable cities
- Neuschwanstein: "Mad" King Ludwig's fairy tale of a castle with fanciful decor and incredible details
- Salzburg: the hills are alive with the sounds of Mozart, the singing von Trapps and a famous folk festival
- Hallstatt: right on the water of Austria's beautiful lake district with the world's oldest salt mine in the hills above
- Mauthausen: lessons from the Holocaust come alive in a concentration camp that is largely unaltered since 1945
- Vienna: sophisticated and cosmopolitan seat of the Royal Habsburgs is as alive as ever
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Why We Chose Germany, Austria & SwitzerlandOK. We admit that we are hooked on Rick Steves Tours. We knew we wanted to go on another European tour but were not sure where our next adventure would lead us. After a short deliberation we decided that Germany, Austria, and Switzerland was the trip for us. We had dreamed of visiting the Alps since we saw Heidi and were drawn to Austria after the first viewing of The Sound of Music. But the fact that we have distant relatives with the last name of Merkel was the deciding factor.
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The Time of Our Lives
Time is a central theme to our trip and scrapbook. We travelled in time from the Roman town of Trier to the timeless Swiss Alps to modern Vienna. Also, the German and Austrian people are very precise and always on time. You can count on events and trains never being late. Lastly, this trip allowed us to see the land of our ancestors. All six of our family have some German heritage. Plus it gave us a good excuse to take pictures of all the cool and interesting time pieces we saw on our journey.
Following Our Journey
If you follow our website in order by clicking the buttons at the bottom of each page, you’ll see the tour as we actually experienced it, visiting a different city every one or two days. As we enter each of the three countries we visited, we’ve created an introductory page that offers some basic facts about the country, a fun drawing of something particularly memorable and a list of five fun things we learned first-hand. Each day we spent in Europe also has its own page with a clock from that city and a brief intro to the day including an italicized “favorite thing” we experienced followed by slideshows or photo galleries showing our adventures from that day, often broken up by activity. Throughout, we’ve interspersed some general comments on important things like our tour group, guides and hotels. Plus, each of us wrote about an experience that took us out of our comfort zone from heights to high temperatures to textile-free baths. Those are featured in the cities in which they occurred. You can get started by: