The Real Fairy Tale Castle

We live with a 3-year-old princess.... So, where did our last trip of this school year take us?  To see the "real" Fairy Tale Castle!

We drove five hours to reach Neuschwanstein Castle, just outside of Fussen, Germany (just minutes from the Austrian border).

This castle was the model for the Sleeping Beauty Castle in Disneyland (California), and the castle in the Cinderalla animated film (the scene where Cinderalla looks longingly through her window at the castle as she dreams of heading to the ball and meeting Prince Charming).

More on our trip through Austria to reach the castle and coming back home later...but for now enjoy the highlights from our fairy tale experience!

Our carriage ride!

Daddy & his princess!
Disneyland / Front of Neuschwanstein

Mommy & her princess!
Cinderalla movie / Back of Neuschwanstein

Front of Neuschwanstein (the picture that was on my napkin at lunch!) / Disneyland
Back of Neuschwanstein / Cinderella movie

View looking out of Neuschwanstein Castle

View from the castle of Marienbrucke (Mary's bridge)
(Normally you can walk out on the bridge to take photos of the castle, but the bridge was closed for repair.) 

Our little prince - trying to save us from the dragon ;)

2 MORE Days in Bavaria

We were very fortunate to spend the last two days in Bavaria with a group of students. This was our third time crossing the border from Austria into the south-eastern state of Germany.  (The first time was to Berchtesgaden and the second was to Dachau and Munich.) This time our route took us from Augsburg to Munich to Altötting.  It was our first time traveling on a double-decker bus and we loved it!  (We rode downstairs where we had a table for the four of us). 

The nine days leading up to our trip we prayed the Novena to Our Lady, Undoer of Knots in preparation for visiting the church of St. Peter am Perlach in Augsburg, which houses the painting of Mary's image.  The painting has been venerated at St. Peter's since 1700.  It was originally inspired by a meditation of St. Irenaeus (Bishop of Lyon and martyred in 202) based on the parallel made by St. Paul of Adam and Christ.  St. Irenaeus, in turn, made a comparison between Eve and Mary, saying: "Eve, by her disobedience, tied the knot of disgrace for the human race; whereas Mary, by her obedience, undid it."

In Augsburg, we also visited the Basilica of St. Ulrich and St. Afra and saw the tombs of these two saints in the crypt. 

It took about four and a half hours to get to Augsburg and we watched the movie Sophie Scholl: The Final Days on the way.  It is a German film (with English subtitles) about the last days in the life of Sophie Scholl, a 21-year-old member of the anti-Nazi non-violent student resistance group The White Rose.  She was found guilty of high treason by the so-called "People's Court" and executed the same day, February 22, 1943.  The movie is excellent, we highly recommend watching it (and you may even pick up some German as you do!)  

In Munich we all had Friday night and most of Saturday to do whatever we wanted. Our family visited the University of Munich where Sophie and her brother Hans distributed the anti-war leaflets that cost them their lives. 

Outside the University building you can see replicas of the leaflets permanently positioned on the ground. 

After visiting the University we walked through part of the huge English Garden. We stopped to play at a playground before seeing the wave that people surf on all year round (it was in the low 30s and snowing shortly after we saw the two men surfing). 

We then walked to the Residenz, which we visited last time, and Brian and Ellie posed for some photos at the monument nearby. 

Here's a closeup view so you can see Brian holding Rainbow Dash more clearly. 

From there we went into Theatinerkirche St. Kajetan. Of note in this church, as pointed out by a friend who used to live in Munich, is the one thousand cherubs - all bearing the same face of the newly-born prince at the time. 

We met up with all the students that afternoon and headed to Altötting.  Altötting is called the "Lourdes of Germany" due to the thousands of pilgrims who visit every year in search of healing.  The shrine's reputation began in 1489 when a three-year-old child drowned in the nearby pond. His mother rushed his dead body to the altar where the statue of Our Lady, the Black Madonna, stood.  As she pleaded for his life to be returned to him, he opened his eyes and was restored to life. Another similar miraculous healing occurred a few years later when a distraught mother brought her child who has been crushed by a cart to the chapel and again the child's life was restored. Today the shrine attracts over one million pilgrims each year. 

No pictures are allowed of the statue inside. However, outside you can see the many paintings of those who have been healed as well as the crutches and other devices left behind by those who have been miraculously healed by Our Lady of Altötting. 

We had Mass at the church right next to the chapel, followed by dinner, and then made the three hour trip back to Gaming. 

Many prayers were said for those in need of healing and a miracle! May God bless you all!

2 days in Bavaria: Dachau & Munich

Hello!  The theme of this post is photo collages :)  I took quite a few pictures this weekend and on our car trip back put them into collages - a great way to pass the time and to make this blog shorter!

Brian had Friday off from work - so we left in the morning for the state of Bavaria, in Southern Germany (a little less than 4 hours away).

Our first stop was the concentration camp of Dachau.  Reading about the concentration camps is one thing...but then to actually walk around and think about the atrocities performed right there is another.  In it's 12 years of existence over 200,000 people from all over Europe were imprisoned there.  Over 41,000 were murdered.  We saw the "showers" (brausebad), the cremation ovens, and the barracks - designed for 200, but filled with about 2,000 people each.  

We didn't really explain to Ellie where we were in Dachau.  We told our next stop would be a castle, and so it was!  We went to Schloss (Palace) Nymphenburg.  It was built as a summer palace to celebrate the birth of Elector Fredinand Maria and his wife Henrietta of Savoy's son.  Sorry, Brian Francis, you are our little prince - but you're probably not going to get any palace in your honor....but feel free to have your diaper changed on the bench out front of one :)

We stayed overnight in a hotel just outside of downtown Munich.  Saturday morning we started touring downtown - well actually it was 11am by the time we actually set foot anywhere exciting....having kids does slow down our travel a bit.  Our first stop was Frauenkirche (kirche = church).  One of it's famous characteristics is the "devil's footstep."  Legend has it that the devil made a deal with the builder to finance construction of the church as long as it contained no windows.  The builder tricked the devil by positioning the columns so that the windows were not visible from the spot where the devil stood.  When the devil realized he'd been tricked, he could not enter the church - and could only stand in the foyer and stomp his foot, which left the dark footprint.

Our next big stop was the Munich Residence - the Treasury and Palace Museum.  First up are the pictures from the Treasury.  Lots of crowns and such, some nice mirrors (look! that's us in the Treasury), holy objects - like statute of St. George, and this green thing...not quite sure what that's about.

The Royal palace and museum was HUGE and fun to go through.  Well, for the most part (check out the Brians' faces), we did have to carry the kids through the huge palace.  The picture of the Brians below is of them in front of the picture of the Nymphenburg Palace - we were all like, oh yeah, already been there, done that.

History of the palace:  Between 1508 & 1918 the Residence in Munich was the principal palace and seat of government of Bavarian rulers from the house of Wittelsbach.  During this time it developed into one of the largest and most lavishly appointed palace complexes in Europe.  Following severe damage during World War II, the buildings were rebuilt after 1945.

For lunch we went to Viktualienmarkt - and outdoor market and had some of the locally brewed Hacker-Pschorr beer.  We also had a huge gingerbread cookie and pretzel (eaten too quickly to be photographed).

As we walked a couple of blocks from the market to Marienplatz (central square in Munich's city center), we went into St. Peter's Kirche.  It's quite the experience to be walking on these busy streets filled with people, vendors, and shops - and then to literally have these magnificent churches right in the middle of everything.  We've been visiting a lot of churches, so interesting to see the different architecture and materials used.  I loved the depiction here of Our Crucified Lord with the Sword piercing Our Lady's Heart at the foot of The Cross.

We're very much enjoying our time here, and pray you are all doing well!

God bless,

the Kissingers

Eagle's Nest

On Friday night we went to the pool in Gaming and were planning to go back on Saturday. But during dinner we decided it could be more fun to leave the country the next day! So we messaged a few friends for their suggestions and decided to cross the border into Germany the next day. Brian figured we might as well stick with a country that also speaks German - because ours is pretty good after one week in Austria ;)

The local pool in Gaming

We traveled two and a half hours just over the border to Berchtesgaden, Germany. We drove our car (one of the University cars that we are able to borrow) as far as we were allowed and then we boarded a bus that took us the rest of the way up the mountain to the Eagle's Nest. This was one of Hitler's houses perched in the middle of the Alps in Southern Germany.  Today it is a privately owned restaurant with breathtaking views. 

Eagle's Nest

Family selfie

Hey, I'm here too!

Nice day trip!  Home and blogged it before 8:15pm :)