Kim and I briefly visited Lucerne Switzerland and took a crazy trip up Mount Pilatus.  To get there we walked to the train station where we took a bus to catch a gondola, which connected to another (steeper) gondola, which took us to the top of the mountain.  When it was time to descend, we hopped on the world’s steepest cogwheel train and then caught a beautiful steam engine boat back to the city via Lake Lucerne.  Quite a day!

Steps leading up the bell tower of St. Peter’s church in Munich.  I ran up the bell tower of St. Peter’s church in Munich just in time to see the Glockenspiel of New Town Hall (another tower) go off at the top of the hour.  There were probably 200, maybe 300 narrow steps up.

This is Neuschwanstein castle, which is what the Disney castle was based off of.  Ludwig II of Bavaria inherited the Hochschwangau castle (not pictured) but upon becoming king, he immediately began construction on his dream castle, Neuschwanstein. He wasn’t much of a king, but he was extraordinarily eccentric and sure liked pretty things. In short, he was removed from power in 1886 at the age of 40 and immediately died a mysterious death.

 Market Gate of Miletus – 2nd century AD from Turkey – one of the many archeological finds that have been relocated to Germany simply because they were dug up by German archaeologists.  I know Germany isn’t the only country keeping their “finds” but it’s still amazing to me that they haven’t returned the ruins to their original owners.

It’s easy to get lost meandering through the 2,711 concrete blocks. Each is unique in height and they are slightly tilted, but they all have a similar footprint and march across the rolling ground in the same direction.