Austria and Germany

Our last day together was spent driving back north through the Alps.  It was supposed to rain all day, but really we only got wet once -- in Berchtesgaden.

The rest of the time it was gorgeous!

We still have yet to see an unlovely corner of Austria.  This was Millstatt am See:

They even had window boxes on their bridges!  Who waters them??

Germany was amazing (again) too!  We loved all the window boxes...

Finally, as a fitting bookend, we ate our last meal together at the same restaurant where we ate our first meal in Germany with the whole family exactly 6 years before -- at Hotel Zur Post in Rohrdorf.  And it was as good as we remembered it to be!

We also took a short walk in the town to a field of sunflowers, and found such a great concept:  The whole field was open for people to come pick what they wanted, and they could just put their money in a little box under the sign.  There were several kinds of flowers and vegetables to be picked!

Our last night together was spent at the Munich airport hotel;  Pete got up early the next morning to fly out to Amsterdam for his conference, and I left an hour or two later to begin the 16-hour journey back home.

This was the trip of a lifetime!  Pete and I grew so much closer and we were so appreciative of this long time together.  Now we look forward to the next 20 years!

Mountain Day

Our last day in Slovenia was spent in search of as much alpine beauty as we could find.

We found a lot -- and soaked it all in.

First we walked through Vintgar Gorge:

 (Glad we didn't have to cross this particular bridge:)

Then we explored through some small villages in search of waterfalls.  The waterfalls were less than we had expected, but we did find this random spot where some people were rock climbing.  Pete noticed these steps/ladder that went straight up and immediately started to climb.  I got to the second step and decided my fear of heights was kicking in, so I waited at the bottom until he came back.

We went back to Lake Bled for the afternoon and found a very steep hike up a mountain that had great views at the top!

This is the peak we climbed to the top of

 From the top:

Coming back down provided its own challenges... I kept slipping and falling and realized my shoes had very little tread on the bottom!  I had brought these favorite shoes on this trip because they are so lightweight and I wore them all the time the last time we were in Europe -- 6 years ago.  We decided they were officially too old now, so this was the last day for them.  Bye bye shoes!

It was a beautiful day!

Radovljica

This was my favorite place of the trip.

It was a sweet little town, quite old, of course, and well preserved.  The old town had one basic street with a few restaurants and shops and happy people sat and ate ice cream or rode bikes or scooters (kids).

Since it was just a pedestrian area, we had to walk our luggage in:

 We stayed in a very old pension, Gostilna Lectar, and we had what must be the very best room in the place -- at the very top, overlooking the street.

Our room:

Our view:

Once again it was crazy to think that people LIVE in places like this.  The rest of the town was not this old, and had regular roads you could drive on, but was still pretty and looked like a classic small town with a Lidl, a library, some shops and churches, etc.

This town was about 5 miles from Lake Bled, which is arguably the most beautiful spot in Slovenia, perhaps Europe.  So we drove over that first afternoon to get our first glimpse.

It was more built up than we expected -- but I guess when a spot is pretty, everyone wants to come!

We went back to Radovljica for dinner, eating outside in a beautiful spot.  (We liked it so much, we ate there the next night, too!)  Then we had more ice cream and went to bed.