We headed out for Vienna, from Dresden on 6/17, but stopped in Prague for the day. This is the second time Wade and I have been here and the first for Keely. There are a lot of hidden gems and we will probably make another trip. We did a free walking tour (tip of choice at the end). Ian took us on a route we didn’t go on the first time. We learned a little more this time too. My absolute favorite it the astronomical clock. To think, people created this intricate clock over 600 years ago. It’s more impressive that it is spot on (when it’s not daylight savings time).

When you watch the hourly chiming, there is a lot going on.

Did you see the skeleton ringing the bell? Did you see him nodding his head? Did you see the figures on either side of the skeleton shaking their head no? Did you see all the “relics” appearing in the doors that open? Did you see and hear the rooster at the end?

We also learned about “Stumble Stones”. They are a profound way to remember people that were forever changed by the Holocaust.

After the tour, we headed to the Lego museum. No, Legos weren’t developed in Prague. The Danish have that claim. However, a Czech man holds the world record for most Legos. He has opened a museum in Prague. There were A LOT of Legos. Keely was in HEAVEN!

After we had a tasty Czech dinner and headed to Vienna. Our hotel is on the Danube. Did I play The Beautiful Blue Danube Waltz by Strauss when we got in our room at midnight? Sure did!

The next day we headed off to Bratislava. There was a Marie Antoinette exhibit at the castle. Marie Antoinette’s mother, who was a Holy Roman Empress and Queen of Bohemia spent time there and Marie Antoinette’s sister had lived in the castle as well. We explored Bratislava, but our Bolt driver insisted that Budapest was where we really should be going. So, that rolled around in our head while enjoying Bratislava.

After much discussion, we decided to visit Budapest the next day (6/19). I mean, it was only a 2.5 hour train ride…..and they had a cat cafe. So, off to Budapest we went! Budapest was a lovely city that is steeped in history. We did find it kinda funny that in order to quell some protest over a communist monument, they installed a Ronald Regan and George Bush Sr statue.

Budapest also has an extremely sobering monument to those taken by the Holocaust. At one point, they could no longer put Jews on the trains to send them to camps. Instead, they marched them to the river, had them disrobe, shot them and let the river carry them away.

We started 6/20 in Vienna at Mozart’s apartment. However, you can’t take pictures inside soooooo….yeah. We then meandered over to Hofburg Palace. Hofburg is the second largest palace in the world by interior square feet. The Louvre in Paris is the largest.

We headed in to see the Crown Jewels and got more than we anticipated. The collection held at Hofburg is enormous.

After the Crown Jewels, we wandered around Vienna a bit more before finally heading off to Munich.

It is very clear why Ireland is dubbed the Emeral Isle. The countryside is lush and green. It is quite beautiful. We arrived in Dublin in the morning, dropped our stuff at the hotel and went to explore. Food came first. I FINALLY got my cottage pie and it was worth the wait.

Then we headed out to the Jameson Distillery. Part of your tour is a free drink to start the tour and tastings at the end. Jameson and ginger ale….delicious!

After Jameson we headed over to Guinness. I know it’s super touristy, but it’s super worth it. It was really cool to hear how both Jameson and Guinness focused on making sure their employees were taken care of.

The next day we took our tour over to The Cliffs of Moher and Galway. I was soooooo excited for The Cliffs of Insanity……sorry Princess Bride reference. However, the fog had other plans. We still enjoyed our time there and Keely was able to get a necklace made with her name. (She can NEVER find anything in any store with her name. She was holding out hope that Ireland would come through since Keely is Irish. Nope. Custom made for the win!)

Galway was adorable!!! I’m so glad we got a chance to go. I just love the Irish Claddaugh symbol and learned that the claddaugh has its origins from near Galway. Our tour guide did a short walking tour and I just fell in love with Galway even more. Wade liked it, but was meh. Keely and I thought it was so charming.

Our last full day in Dublin, we did the hop on/hop off tour during the day. Then we went to Celtic Knights for dinner and a show. It was so much fun!

All in all we had a wonderful trip! We are happy to be home though.

Listen, if you don’t have Scotland on your list of places to visit. You should add it. Like seriously. It was beautiful and the people were so friendly. If you like old architecture like myself it is a treasure trove. We started with exploring Glasgow and Edinburgh. On the way from Glasgow to Edinburgh, we stopped at the Scotland Owl Centre. The flying show was informative and cool. The King and Queen were in Edinburgh while we were there. Sadly, they didn’t invite us to dinner.

Then we went to the Highlands. Our focus was Cawdor Castle and Loch Ness. We found out about Fort George and decided to start there. We were able to see dolphins from the fort too so that was really cool!

Then we headed over to Cawdor Castle. The whole Shakespeare connection drew us there, but feeling like I was living in the Secret Garden was a bonus. It’s also really cool that the owner still lives in the castle for most of the year. Wade really wanted to see Highland cows and we made that happen too.

Then we headed to Urquhart Castle. Cool castle on a cool Loch, win/win! FYI, most of the sheep on the hillsides were naked, but I did finally find some fully dressed.

Oh! We found the Loch Ness monster too! scariest thing I’ve ever seen.

Even with the wind, the cold, and the rain, I’d go back to Scotland again and again. Don’t be sleeping on this amazing place! We will definitely be going back to explore more.

So, I get why people love Paris. I also get why people aren’t the biggest fans of it. We enjoyed the history and the architecture. The food was great. We didn’t really encounter anyone that lived up to the stereotype of “Rude French”. People weren’t rude, just weren’t necessarily ready to go out of their way to help either. We definitely enjoyed sitting under the Eiffel Tower as it twinkled and Versailles. Personally, I loved Saint-Sulpice and The Arc De Triomphe. Keely finally found the joy in crepes. Keely loved Paris. Wade could never go back and be fine. If I were to go back, I would stay in the Versailles area.

London. We were in London 3 1/2 days and there just wasn’t enough time, even for surface level things. There is soooooo much in London we want to go back to. Keely of course could stay in West End and go to every show possible. The shows we did see (Starlight Express, Hadestown, and Great Gatsby) were amazing!!

Keely and I did an evening Jack the Ripper tour. It was really quite informative. We didn’t just learn about the murders. We learned more about the women and what life was like at that time. We also learned where the term “hungover” came from and why the Whitechapel area was called Whitechapel. We also learned about the impact of the London Wall and why the tops of parking posts are different colors.

We took a day to head over to Stonehenge. Listen, it was not as big as the movies sometimes portray, but it was definitely impressive.

We left London on Wednesday to head north. We stopped in Nottingham on our way up. We stopped for Robin Hood, but got much more! Did you know Nottingham was the lace capital of the UK for a long time? Well, now you do! You’re welcome.

Well, it wouldn’t be a Lotz vacation if something didn’t go awry! And awry it went! We headed out from Frankfurt early. We had a connection in Koblenz that was to take us to Luxembourg. We were going to spend about 3 or 4 hours exploring Luxembourg city and the hop on to our train to Paris.

Side note here: If you’ve never used the train system in Europe, it is notoriously punctual. There has been a lot of construction in the bigger cities that have caused minor delays, but really nothing more than 5 or so minutes.

Okay, back to Luxembourg…..kinda. So, our train was running late. There was an incident on a track and some communication things and we left Koblenz about 20 minutes late. No biggie.

Until it was. We got almost half way there and the train stopped. Not in Luxembourg. Wellll….it was in the country of Luxembourg, just not the city. It was in a city named Wecker. The conductor then said that due to whatever the issues were, we were going to be stopped there for 5 minutes or 2 hours. He couldn’t really be sure. So, the option was to hop on the local bus. It would take you to a stop where you could change to a tram and get to the station.

Cool. We hop off and head to the bus.

So does everyone else.

The bus shows up and everyone crams on. Everyone except us and about 15 people. The driver says the next bus should be there in 20 minutes. Yep. That was not true. It was going to be an hour!!!

About 15 minutes before the bus is to show up, the conductor yells that the train is going to get underway! So, we hop back on and continue to Luxembourg city.

We’re like okay. We still have about 2 hours. We can make this work.

We roll into the train station and start looking around at what to do when Wade gets an email.

Our train from Luxembourg to Paris is no longer leaving from Luxembourg.

Wade goes and talks to the train people. They say “Oh, yeah. Just hop on the bus to Thionville and then get on the train to Paris.”

Nope. After waiting for a non existent bus, we talk to the bus dude and he says “Nope. You gotta get on the train to Metz. Get off at Thionville, then get on your train.” Dude showed up with receipts.

Cool yo. We follow those directions and finally get on the train to Paris.

Of course, the train to Paris started having issues. We stopped at one point and three different people kept opening up panels and closing them. We finally got moving, but the AC would go off and go back on. We were 40 minutes late, but we made it!

We get off the train and head to the train that will take us to our hotel. Paris is lovely 94 degrees and humid. The train to our hotel has no AC and is a steaming tube of sweat and sorrow. Keely stated that she was sweating so much she could hydrate the desert.

But, we made it to our hotel before the rain and are comfortably in our room, watching soccer and the rain storm. Enjoy the reminder of the photos we got today (which are not many).

17 years ago, Wade spent 3 weeks in Germany working on his international finance portion of his masters degree. The school is in Vallendar, but Koblenz is close by and was visited regularly. He loved it and we had to come back. We started the day with a boat cruise down the Rhine to see the castles. The food and drink were surprisingly reasonable. So, we enjoyed a light lunch and drinks.

Then we wandered around Koblenz for a bit. We found a cute little wine store that happened to have a bottle of Riesling named Lotz. Yes, we bought and drank it. It was lovely.

Next, we headed up to Vallendar. We got to walk around campus for a bit before heading back to Frankfurt.

After which, we got some ice cream and then prepared for a travel day tomorrow. We are heading to Luxembourg for a few hours and then Paris.

We walked around Munich today just enjoying the city.

Keely found the Lego store. I think Lego is missing out on an opportunity. They should consider creating country exclusive Lego kits. You can only buy them in that country at physical stores. We would have to buy an extra suitcase for the new sets we’d get. I mean, come on! A Bavarian pretzels Lego kit would be awesome!

We also went to the Bayern Munich store. It was 3 floors and amazing!

Wade and Keely continued their “normal people” photo and “us people” photo series. Then we headed back to Frankfurt. We’ve spent the last ten days backpacking it so, it was nice to see our “extras” and the suitcase.

Tomorrow we go to Valendar and Koblenz to cruise down the Rhine and see the school Wade studied at 15 year ago.

Wade and I love Munich. There is a certain charm to the city and it draws you in. We went to Hofbrauhaus last night after we got back from Dachau. I mean the OG Hofbrauhaus is a must.

Today we went to Neuschwanstein castle. It’s the castle Disney used as a model for Sleeping Beauty Castle (often called Cinderella’s castle).

Historically though, King Ludwig II had it built. Unfortunately, it didn’t get finished before he was arrested for losing his marbles and died somewhat mysteriously at age 40.

You are not allowed to take photos inside sooooo here are lots of photos from outside.

On our way back down the mountain, we stopped for lunch and some tasty donuts. Keely and Wade decided to hijack my phone and then fell asleep in front of me.

The rest of the evening was relaxing. Tomorrow we will show Keely more of the beauty of Munich and then head back to Frankfurt.

We went to Dachau today. This was my third time, Wade’s second and Keely’s first. I have learned something new each and every time. It’s important to note that Dachau was the original camp. It was the only one in operation for the entirety of Hitlers reign. There is a lot to learn here.

The following maps are the networks of camps during the Third Reichs time. The map with the red dot is important to me. That red dot roughly represents where my father was born and grew up; where his family was at the time.

Keely found solace in the survivors stories throughout the day. We spent 5 hours there and still didn’t get through everything. If you get a chance, you should go.

Today, we explored a little of Dresden before my cousin and her partner picked us up and we headed to my dad’s home town.

We passed by Moritzburg Castle on the way (pictured above). It was used in the 2019 Charlie’s Angels.

Anyway, we got to Großenhain and headed to the Kupferberg, where we met up with my aunt Ursula. The Kupferberg is a hill outside of town. At the top is an old tower that has been turned into a bed and breakfast and a restaurant. Everytime we’ve gone to Großenhain, we’ve eaten at the restaurant, so why change that now? The food is always good and it didn’t disappoint today. The hill next to it is where my dad and his friends would ski and sled. Nearby is a playground that Katja, my friend Skye and I played on when we visited in 1994. It’s still there and was a lot of fun! Keely got to ride on the same (updated) zip line that I did 30 years ago. This was also the first time I went to the top of the tower.

Then we headed to my dads old house. It is currently for sale. The garden is gone and so is the pergola that used to be there. We couldn’t go inside but the outside of the house was the same besides the yard.

Then we headed to the park where he would play and cross through to get to school. When the lake would freeze over, he would ice skate there. 30 years ago, a cousin dropped a stuffed rabbit in the lake. Katja, Skye, and I rowed out and fished the bunny out of the lake lol!

Then we headed off to his school. His school and another school have now been combined into one larger school. Katja’s partner, Axel, went to the same school after it was combined.

Then we headed back to Dresden and sadly said our good byes. We checked out a few more things and then called it a night. Wade enjoyed the old mailbox that is still used.

The Saxony region of Germany is hands down my favorite. The hidden castles, the history, the older small villages, rolling hills, farmland, and just plain calm of it all is very tranquil.

Tomorrow we head to Prague and then Vienna!