Our last week in Germany/ Austria

Visiting with Bro. Stadele and Amy is a wonderful blessing in our lives. Rod baptized him in 1975.
His Spring Wild Flowers
His hobby is bee keeping. Even though he is a retired post master and bee keeper, he has 4 hives in his back yard. We met up with Melody & Gary. Then we traveled onto Beartchesgarden; a beautiful alpine village in southern, Germany- - the birthplace of the 3rd Reicht.
Obersalzberg -- Hilter's Underground tunnels at The Eagles Nest in Southern Germany
Melody coulnt figure out how to get out of the tunnel at the end so she pushed the button. Apparently it was for emergency exit only.
The northern tip of Lake
The Konigssee Harbor and luge run
The actual "Eagles Nest" at the top of this hill was closed for the winter.
But this is the view from the bunker area. Isnt Germany beautiful!
Alpine meadows as we drove into Austria. These are the hills that are alive with the sound of Music-- The VonTrapp family was said to have traveled over these hills for freedom but apparently in truth they took a train out of Salzburg.
The water is so clean and looks so cold.
Hallstatt Austria was on my bucket list. I have never felt such serenity! You can hear a swan glide over the lake!!
Hallstatt is built on the side of a mountain that has the worlds first salt mine inside. Since the arely 1300's this little town has been important for trade

The cemetery is amazing. They bury 3-5 people deep and then dig out the oldest ones and put their cranium in the church


The creaky old hotel we and booked to stay in for 50e per night turned out to be 50e per person! so Rod found us an apartment to stay in where we had our own kitchen and a washing machine!!


And an amazing view from our balcony!!
Driving through the lake district of Austria. It is beautiful!
We decided to visit Mauthausen Concentration Camp. It was a quarry work cam and then towards the end of the war became a death camp as many of the other camps were freed, the prisoners were sent on death marches only to end up deeper in the German hold. This camp was liberated May 5, 1945.






On the lighter side, we visited the church that was used to film Maria's wedding for the Sound of Music

We stayed at a little house high on a hill on a couple of spare bedrooms. They hang a sign on the road that says "Zimmer Frei". Maybe I will try that with my 4 empty bedrooms...
Mel & Gary in Salzburg
The Cemetry used for The Sound of Music


In Old Salzurg they have very stringent signing ordinances. Even McDonalds has to comply

Mirabell Gardens in Salzburg--
Finally Rod and I make it to the last afternoon of our trip. This is in Munich and on the street where Rod lived as a missionary. Some things never change. Apparently some of these shops were in business 35 years ago.

And we finally had WeisWurst, purple cabbage and a knudell!







We finished it off with one last gelato. Munich was full of people even though it was Sunday afternoon and all of the shops were closed.