Our trip to Italy and Austria

I have gotten a bit behind in blogging our adventures....but we've been busy!  As of November 1st we have been here for 7 months!  Kind of crazy.  Don't get me wrong, I definitely enjoy being here, but something this weekend (which was a long weekend due to "All Saint's Day" yesterday) made me a little homesick for the US.  Maybe it's the time of year with the holidays around the corner, who knows.  But, I wanted to just curl up in our house in PA with our dog, the fireplace, US tv shows, and eat things I miss.  Oh, and my piano, play my piano.  I can actually spare some time here to play the piano-for me, and the keyboard is just not cutting it.  Anyways, enough of that.

On a very positive note I am happy to report that I can comfortably drive our manual car now.  Towards the end of August, friends that live about 40 minutes away invited the kids and I to come play during the day.  However, I had to drive us there on the Autobahn.  So, I practiced and made myself drive everyday for a few days and I did it.  I continued to force myself to drive more regularly and now it's ok.  I don't love it (especially in stop and go traffic), but I can do it.  And the freedom of being able to drive again is wonderful!

Now, for all of our "busy-ness"!  First, Jesse finished his Master's (yay!) in August.  So, that was a huge accomplishment and a weight of his shoulders.  About 2 weeks after that my parents arrived to visit!  It was so nice to have them here and show them all of the things I had been wanting to show them for months!  We also did some traveling with them-which I'll focus on in this post.  My parents were here for almost 3 weeks, then about 5 days after they left Jesse's parents came to visit.  Which was also great, the kids LOVED all of the extra grandparent attention!  We traveled and did some sight-seeing with them as well, which I'll talk about in another post.

In September a few days after my parents arrived we headed out on the road to visit Italy and Austria.  I will post some pictures here, but I'll put the majority on FB because it's an easier way to see more pictures.  The first day we planned to drove through Switzerland and did some sight-seeing in the Alps on the way to Italy.

Our first stop was Chur, the oldest city in Switzerland.  The views of the Alps were amazing here!  We walked around and had lunch, but only stayed for about 2 hours because we had a lot more driving to do to get to Italy.

Scenic views and stops driving through the Alps.

Narrow, winding, twisting roads that Jesse mapped out so we could see some awesome views.....I was just glad I was not driving the rental van! 

 We also took the historic San Bernardino Pass through the Alps to get to Italy, instead of the newer tunnel.  It was a really neat road and the top there was a small guesthouse/restaurant and a lake.

Arriving in Italy.....

The view from our room in Italy on Lake Garda

 Sirmione is a small town located on a peninsula on Lake Garda, There is an old castle and some ancient ruins there.  We spent the day exploring there and we even found gluten free ice cream cones for Valerie.  She was one happy girl!  The views of the rest of the lake were amazing from the end of the peninsula.

Cappuccino time!

 We also visited Verona for the day.  It was a great city to walk around because a lot of the historic sites were within walking distance.

 Ian even held a soldier at sword-point!

On another day in Italy we drove around the lake to the town of Malcesine to ride the cable car up Monte Baldo.  Despite a VERY long wait to get on the cable car, the views of the lake from the top were breath-taking!

On to Salzburg, Austria...

 From Lake Garda we drove to Salzburg, Austria for a few days.  We did a hop-on hop-off bus tour where we saw Mozart's birth house, and some sights from the Sound of Music.  It was a very nice city.

 Me in front of the house where Mozart was born!

 Exterior of the Sound of Music House

 Sound of Music Gazebo

 Mirabelle Platz and Ian being goofy 

 On another day in Salzburg we drove to the Konigsee, there was still fog on the water when we arrived and it looked beautiful!  We took a boat ride to several points on the lake.

We waded in the water a bit

Before driving home on our last day we visited Kehlsteinhaus (or Hitler's Eagle's Nest).  It was a gift to Hitler from Nazi party.  There is only one narrow road up, because it's literally at the top of the mountain.  You park at the bottom and take a bus up a very windy road.  The bus ride was a little scary.  Once you are near the top you get off and then go through a tunnel and into an elevator.  It was a little eerie going up the elevator thinking about the history of all that happened there.  You can't go through the house because it is now privately owned, but you can walk around outside and there is a small restaurant.  The views, once again, were awesome.  

We squeezed a lot into our trip, but got to see some amazing places!  While my parents were here we also went went to lots of our favorite local places like Steiff, the castle in Heidenheim, and the Brenz Park.  

Time to wrap up this long post!  Excited to show you more of our travels from September and October soon!