Rock Creek Trip 2010

The whole group: Scott, Jennifer, Aiden, Sam, Susie, Emma, Rachel, Leah, Ian and Hawthorne

Ian and Sam in a cave at Long Lake

Aiden untangling his line in the creek

Scott fishing at Long Lake.

I am taking a break from Europe and bringing you pictures from last week's camping trip to Rock Creek Lake.  We were lucky to get our favorite campsites, #7 & 8 at Iris Meadow and the weather was cool but sunny for the Little Lakes Valley hike.  Sam caught a fish in the creek, Ian and Scott each caught and released a fish, many games of Star Trek Uno were played by all.

Munich

This is the glockenspiel at the Rathaus.  Three times a day the carillon plays a tune for about 15 minutes and mechanical figures act out stories of knights jousting.  it is a big tourist draw to the main pedestrian shopping area.

Donnette and I are rubbing the boar.  It is something you must do in Munich.  Donnette says that if you do you will come back to Munich.  She rubbed it ten years ago, and here she was in Munich again so maybe it is true.

The concierge at the hotel recommended this restaurant for authentic German food.  Pork knuckles cooked slowly on a spit over a wood fire.  We found ourselves here at lunch time and so gave it a try.  The meat was very good.

Here is our whole group!

Outside one of the cathedrals

Skeleton of a early martyr in the cathedral

The famous Hofbrauhaus

Scott and his beer

Donnette, Scott and I took a walk through the Englischer Garden one night.  Pretty sunset picture, huh?  It was great that our hotel was so close to the park, we really enjoyed walking in it.

Fussen and Neuschwanstein

Hurdy gurdy man on the path to the Marienbrucke.  He sang Shenandoah when he realized I was American.  I love Shenandoah...

View of the beautiful countryside from the castle

The quintessential fairy tale castle, just like Sleeping Beauty's,  taken from the Marienbrucke.   There were hundreds of American tourists pushing their way on to the bridge so I just put my camera up and took a picture.  This is what I got!  Lucky I didn't end up in the ravine below.

The first order of business when we arrived in Fussen, the charming town where we caught the bus to Neuschwanstein, was to play in the fountain...the blocks on top of the pillars rotate freely from the pressure of the water.  On a hot German day, wet feels good!  Here are Jay, Kristen and Jaclyn.

The cute shopping street in Fussen with the castle on the hill behind.

Our first view of the castle

There was a long crowded line for the shuttle that takes you up the hill to the castle, so Scott and I, Tim and Kristen decided to walk up.  It is a steep but very pretty hike through the forest, we followed the road taken by the horse drawn carriages so we had to watch where we put our feet!

This is another castle that is down below the famous Neuschwanstein.

Nymphenburg Schloss

Our last day in Munich we spent at Nymphenburg Schloss, an extravagant palace with 3 square miles of grounds.  Since it was the day of the Germany vs  Argentina, there were very few people there and we could wander around as though we owned the place...The formal grounds behind the palace were very neat and tidy and I could imagine princesses in big gowns strolling along the well manicured paths.  But it was too hot to walk in the sun when we were there....

The first little outbuilding we came to as we wandered the shady paths was this little Hexenhus, or Witches House.  There was a playgroup of little naked toddlers playing in the small creek behind the house.

We bought tickets that allowed access to the Hunting Lodge, the Bath House, the Pagoda House, and the Chapel.  But not the main palace.  This is the hunting lodge, which was beautifully covered in ornate silver leaf and blue delft tiles.  We had an interesting conversation with the ticket taker, who recited the California towns that have trees in their names: Redwood City, Thousand Oaks, Walnut Creek, etc.  But he said, Hollywood does not count because holly is a bush not a tree.

Lots of swans, geese and ducks on the lake.

Signs were appreciated so we could find our way out.

The chapel interior was covered with shells, stones, and stalactites.

After we exhausted ourselves exploring we wanted to sit and have a beer or an ice cream, but nothing was open because everyone had closed to watch the soccer game.  So we had to make do with buying an ice cream at the mini mart/ gas station and sitting on the sidewalk in the shade.   The strawberry ice cream bar was SO good...

Munch

We spent a LONG time in the cemetery in Oslo trying to find Edvard Munch's grave.  It was a beautiful cemetery, but the map was hard to follow and when we finally found the grave, we were proud of our accomplishment. The biggest memorial in the cemetery was to martyrs from the Norwegian Resistance to the Nazi invasion in WWII.  We saw memorials to the resistance martyrs all over Norway.  This picture of Munch's headstone is a little strange because the picture looks just like his famous picture, The Scream.  Here's what it looked like after I retook the picture.Mom thinks that our Norwegian family name was Madsen, not Matson.

More Bergen

Our second day in Bergen was rainy, and we happened to see that there was a free organ concert at the cathedral, it seemed like a good idea to stay inside, and the concert was great, classical stuff, not modern like what we heard in Hallgrimskirkja in Reykjavik.  Afterwards we did some walking, walked through the courtyard of the Leprosy Museum, but there didn't seem to be much inside so we didn't go in.  We continued our hunt for wine in several grocery stores, which we never did find.  I don't know where Norwegians buy wine and liquor, stores sell beer and only until 8:00pm. We also got on the free city circle bus, it just travels  in a big loop through the city, to encourage people to park their cars instead of adding to the traffic by driving in the city proper.  It took about an hour, and it was nice to just sit and watch the rain through the window...We did have an umbrella, courtesy of the hotel, a big red one, but it was so wide other pedestrians kept walking into it and poking themselves.  And then giving me a dirty look, like it was my fault...There is a large, shallow lake in a park by the train station, we walked around it and watched the other tourists, mostly Italians from a cruise ship that was docked.  Also lots of teenagers just hangin'.At the top of the hill in this picture you can see where the Floibanen ends up, the big white building is the restaurant on the plaza up there.

Floibanen Funicular, Bergen

Mt. Floyen rises steeply behind Bergen and there are houses all the way up, perched on the hillside.  This funicular takes tourists and residents up and down the hill.  

This is a going down picture with Bergen and the fjord in front of us.

When you get to the top, there is a wonderful plaza of marble steps looking over all of Bergen, the harbor, the ships.  This was still our first day in Bergen, the sunny day.  We were so glad we went up when we did because the next day was drizzly, rainy, cloudy and foggy.  We wouldn't have been able to see a thing from the top of the mountain.  Since it was June 22 when we were there, we could see many bonfires starting up in the distance...a midsummer's celebration.  We watched the Queen Mary 2 sail out to the ocean.

It looks darker in these pictures than it was in real life.  The sky was dramatic and the water was so silvery and mirror like...

There are hiking trails all over the mountain, with lakes and picnic areas.  We did not know that until we got back down, however.  We did hike around some, but since we weren't sure where any of the paths led, we stayed close to the top.

Coming back down...

And at the bottom of the hill, McDonald's, Norwegian style.