Saturday, October 2, 2010

Munich's Oktoberfest

Tons of people, crowded trains, marginal weather, but...still glad we went. After going I'm not sure we would do it again as the Stuttgart festival is just about the same - just smaller - and not nearly as crowded.

click here...

Oktoberfest

Sunday, April 25, 2010

Stuttgart Spring Fest











Since it's a long time until october...

Spring Fest is similar to October beer festival, but slightly scaled down. Lots of rides, food, and some beer tents. Cory ditched us since he hooked up with some friends from school.

Sunday, April 18, 2010

Cruise over Cory spring break

We took a cruise out of Venice over Cory's school break. Venice is an 8 hour drive from Stuttgart - good thing we drove instead of flying as nobody was getting on a plane when they got off the ship due to the Iceland volcano eruption.

We went to...

Bari Italy - toured the old town area with a guide. Went into a church where a baptisim was going on. When done, everyone ran out - most to have a smoke.

Katakolon, Greece. This was near Olympia - the origins of the olympics circa 100 ad.

Izmir, Turkey. One hour drive from the ruins of Ephesus founded in the 4th century. Very impressive.

Istanbul, Turkey. Lots of mosques, and the Grand Bazaar billed as the original shopping mall (est. 1450, has 3000+ shops).

Dubrovnik, Croatia. Very cool historic port city. We all agreed we could return here someday.
Weather was decent until some drizzle/clouds at the end. Temps were kind of cool at sea with a strong wind.

Venice - spent Friday night there before getting on the ship.

































From the ship






Ephesus




















Goddess of Victory - Nike (notice "swoosh" of dress)































Istanbul










Inside the Blue Mosque -had to remove our shoes (in plastic bags) and women suggested to wear a head covering (they had loaner scarves).













The Grand Bazaar










Apple Tea in the grand bazaar (all locals seem to be drinking this).













Lots of guys selling something like a pretzel.










Dubrovnik


































Bari

Just outside the church...check out the suit and the velvet shoes!













Thursday, April 1, 2010

Skiing March

Verbier, Switzerland







Laax, Switzerland
















Cory flip onto air-bag jump
Post-Ski drive home stop:





Toggenburg, Switzerland





























Couldn't see at thing upper third of mountain.











We made some day trips to a couple of day trips, and Eric & I did a weekend trip to Verbier...all in Switzerland. Had some great weather/skiing some times, horrible weather/skiing other times.

Wednesday, March 31, 2010

Rome - President's Weekend 2010

Flew down for the long weekend. Left the snow in Stuttgart only to find out it snowed in Rome that morning (first time in 30 years). Had a sunny weekend which was great.

Sunday, February 28, 2010

Ski Trips in February

Fellhorn Austria/Germany





Montafon Austria




Finally...some skiing! Eric and I heard the forecast was for sun, so we went skiing at Obersdorf (Fellhorn) on Feb 21st. Fellhorn straddles Germany and Austria. We rode the gondola from the valley on the Austrian side, then skied parts of Austria and Germany. We had a great time with some powder, sunshine, and great views. Horrible bumper to bumper traffic getting out of the area.

On Feb 28th, we had another sunshine day forecast, with some snow the day prior, so Eric & Cory joined me as we headed to the Montafon area (Silveretta) in Austria close to the Switzerland border. We weren't the only ones going as traffic was real ugly when the autobahn changed to a 2 lane road (bumper to bumper). Had A+ weather and conditions, despite hearing the snow depth is about half of the usual amount.

See links above for photos and videos (forthcoming).