Strasbourg, France and Europa Park

A few weeks ago, we took a weekend trip with a group of about 14 of our friends. We first went to Strasbourg, France. Located along the border between France and Germany, Strasbourg is an interesting mix of both French and German culture. It is also located along the Rhine River. The city is incredibly beautiful, with picturesque buildings and bridges everywhere you turn. We arrived in Strasbourg late in the evening on Friday. Since we had two very large vans, it took us some time to find parking. As a result, we had a very late dinner at a quaint French restaurant. It took us quite some time to find a place willing to serve us dinner at 11:30 at night! The restaurant that we ended up finding was very chic and cool inside, although the food was just okay. The wine was delicious, but it definitely didn’t help with the exhaustion that we were all feeling. After dinner, we headed straight back to the hotel to get some rest. On Saturday morning, we woke up to rain. Nevertheless, we set out for some sightseeing. We just explored the streets, visited a wine cellar, and climbed the cathedral tower. By the late afternoon, the rain had stopped and the sun came out. We took a boat ride to get a different perspective of the city.

After some more sightseeing and photo taking, we eventually went to dinner at a French-German restaurant located in a really cozy restaurant near the cathedral. The menu was a very interesting mix of both French and German food. Our friends assured us that this is what most of the local cuisine is like, given the location of the city bordering on these two countries. The wine was very good again, but the chocolate mousse was definitely the highlight for me! After dinner, we got one more round of drinks, but we didn’t stay out late because early the next morning, we were headed to Europa-Park!

Europa-Park is the largest amusement park in Germany, and it is the second most popular European theme park, after Disneyland Paris. It is located in Rust, Germany, which is only about a 30 minute drive from Strasbourg. Amusement parks are not as popular in Europe as they are in America. In fact, this was some of our friends’ first time ever to one. It was admittedly a bit funny to see 28-year-olds too scared to ride rollercoasters, especially since Americans basically grow up riding them. Before arriving, our friends, many of whom have visited American theme parks, encouraged us to set our expectations pretty low. But honestly, we were impressed. I would say that the park is larger than Kennywood, but smaller than Hersheypark. The theme is Europe (hence the name), so the park is divided into sections which are supposed to represent different European nations. We rode an impressive wooden rollercoaster in “Iceland,” a bobsled-like ride in “Switzerland,” a water ride called “Poseidon” in “Greece,” etc. There were actually quite a few rollercoasters that were a lot of fun. One had several loops and corkscrews, and another had some extremely steep hills. We rode all of the rides with our friends, with the exception of the ride that is similar to Raging Rapids – no thanks to being soaking wet all day. Although, most of the water rides had large body dryers at the end where you could pay €1 to dry off. The park itself was designed really well – every “country” had buildings, rides, and food that represented the culture. It was really cute. However, I do have to say that we caught the last few minutes of a parade, and wow, it was pathetic haha. The American parks, especially Disney, definitely put it to shame. We only stayed at the park until about 6 PM since we had a 4-hour ride back, but we made sure to eat crepes in “France” before leaving.

I’m always nervous about trips with a larger group, but everything went well and I think everyone had a really great time. It was a nice change of pace, and we had the chance to talk to a lot of people who we don’t normally hang out with. The weekend was certainly filled with a lot of laughs, and for that, I was thankful.

Bis Später,
Kristin and Matt

Hiking in the Alps

Servus alle,

Last weekend we went on our first official hiking tour in the Alps. Living this close to the Alps I'm surprised we were able to avoid it even this long. We went with seven of our friends for a two-day trip, which proved to be even more of an adventure than we were initially looking for. While this was at points one of the most intense/frustrating experiences we've had, it was truly incredible. Note: sorry for the length of the post and the amount of pictures, but we couldn't contain ourselves!

Day 1:
We set out early on a Saturday morning for a one-hour drive into the Alps on the border of Germany and Austria. From there, we left the car and set off into the woods with only our backpacks. Considering we'd be carrying them for a long way, we packed as light as possible. Unfortunately, this means we couldn't take the real camera, but the iPhone still did an excellent job at capturing the sights (although I don't think any camera could have done it justice). The tour we were doing was through Wolfsschutz (Wolf's Canyon). It started off deceivingly easy going past a farm and through the canyon (which included a creek and a bonus waterfall).

As you can see in the last photo above, the watefall was the end of the relaxation. From there we went fairly straight up. We climbed approximately 900m (or just over 1/2 mile) on the first day - that may not sound like a lot but it was a lot of work! As you can see in the pictures below, the hike included some climbing up rocks and walking along precarious slopes, often with only a cable attached to the rock to hold on to (if you were lucky).

Overall the climb went pretty quickly in the end (our expectations were set for the worst since some of our friends are really experienced, enthusiastic hikers) and the view made everything worth it! These pictures are from our first summit (note: the structure next to us in the first picture is the Gipfelkreuz, or "summit cross", which you see at the highest point of each summit in the Alps):

After a long day of hiking (lasting almost seven hours including breaks) nothing sounded better than a shower and a cold beer. Only one of those was an option - being that we were in a cottage high up in the German Alps, we'll let you think about which one is more realistic. This is where the trip got more interested. We stayed in an "authentic Bavarian cottage" as our friends sold it to us, but you would know it better as an old barn. There was no shower, no drinking water and no flushing toilets. To make it better, we slept in a loft that consisted of two long sets of mattresses that nine of us crammed into. While we were exhausted from a long day of hiking, the rain pounding on the tin roof above our heads (literally, there was no insulation between us and the roof) and the cowbell jingling from the cow in the next room (unfortunately, this is also meant literally) made it hard to fall asleep. To be honest, the cottage was a cool experience. It's not something we'd enjoy doing every weekend, but eating a hearty Bavarian dinner, drinking "Schnapps" and playing games with our friends made for a fun night.

View of the barn - it's pretty small up the hill but you get the idea:

View of inside the barn - here you can see the blue wash basin, equipment for milking cows on the right, cow bells straight ahead and the ladder to our loft on the left:

The view from the cottage!

Day 2:

Feeling moderately refreshed, we had breakfast and started out early. While we climbed up on the first day, the second day was going to be a longer distance walking across the top of the Alps. You can see in this picture the range of peaks we walked along from right to left:

Although it was a bit foggy before lunch, the view was still incredible and it was an awesome feeling walking along the top of the Alps. It was really amazing to be so far up, looking down in the valleys, and think that you made it there just be walking and climbing. Here are a few pictures of our walk along the peaks (you can see that the trail was again precarious in places):

Really steep!

Yeah, there was still snow...

After that, we reached our highest point of the trip, which clearly had the best view of the weekend:

At this point we were loving the weekend. That, however, changed as we learned about the way down. Our 3.5 hour path down to the starting point was rated black, which is the hardest rating for a hiking trail. To put it simply, we went down the side of the mountain using a series of really (really!) narrow paths and scaling down rocks hoping that we didn't slip. The problem is that there was nothing to hold on to. If you slip, there is nothing saving you from sliding to what we think is almost certain death. The Germans were a bit more optimistic and thought you'd end up living, but this was not a pleasant conversation. In all honesty, if we had full transparency about this part before the trip we wouldn't have gone. It was a surreal experience but not something we feel the need to repeat. Here are a few pictures (not showing the worst parts - didn't seem worth the risk of handling a camera), but they don't really do it justice because you can't capture the surrounding steepness and cliffs that were surrounding the path.

That smile is only because we were almost done. We came from the point in the top of this picture basically right down the part of the mountain you can see...terrifying.

After hiking for about 12 hours between two days, experiencing a (seemingly unhealthy) broad range of emotions, our trip ended the way that you'd expect in Bavaria: a cold beer and sausages.

This was truly an experience that we'll never forget! It was an awesome weekend with friends and one of the most Bavarian things you can do. Like we said, we're really glad to have done this but it was a bit too intense for our tastes. We'll be hiking again in the near future, but hopefully staying a little safer...

Bis später,
Matt and Kristin