A Cinderella Story

Everybody knows the story of Princess Cinderella and hopefully, all of you have seen the Disney movie. Let's be real, it's a classic people! Anyway, in the far away land of Bavaria, Germany, I got to visit the real castle that inspired Walt Disney to create hers!

Schloss (meaning castle) Neuschwanstein is the name of this incredible place and I was lucky enough to tour the inside as well as stand on this bridge and get a lovely view with the sun hitting it perfectly!

 

To get to the castle, we had a very long walk up a steep slope. We had the option to go in a horse-drawn carriage on our way up but decided against it because we felt bad that they would have to carry all of that weight uphill. Therefore, we took the carriage on our way back down! The horses were so sweet and were loving all the pats and scratches I gave them as a thank you after the ride.

 

Real princesses rode in horse-drawn carriages, right? So fun!

 

 

I also loved to see that the horses were well taken care of. They had hard jobs but their equipment fit well and they were given water at each stop. I saw some of them go back to the barn and switch with other horses so that they could have a break. I was glad to see this. 

 

 

 

The two nights that I was in Bavaria, I stayed at Hotel Sonne in Füssen. What an INCREDIBLE hotel! I was beyond impressed. My wonderful aunt and uncle who I am traveling with booked a "princess room" for me in advance and I almost cried when I walked in. It was themed as a room of Princess Sissi.

Elisabeth, or Sissi as she was fondly called, was born Princess of Bavaria in 1837 and later became Empress of Austria and Queen of Hungary. The room was gorgeous, decorated with my favorite color combination, magenta, grey and black.

It was lit by a chandelier and the backboard lit a poem in German. I couldn't understand the poem but nevertheless, it was lovely.

Every part of the room was beautiful. If you ever find yourself in Bavaria exploring Disney castles, I highly recommend this hotel.

The food and wine was also delicious. My uncle reserved a candlelit dinner and it was so wonderful. What an absolute treat!

Bavaria was one of the most beautiful places I've ever seen and walking through the halls of that castle was breath-taking. Next time you find yourself in Germany, make an effort to take this trip, I promise it will be worth it!

Until next time, auf wiedersehen!

Spätzle and Wine

My first day in Germany was spent in the beautiful, historic city of Heidelberg. We arrived at a speed of over 200 k/hr, going fast, fast, fast!!

Arriving in Heidelberg!

I took a nice bike ride stroll down the cobblestone roads of this lively city and quickly realized that bicycle transportation was very common here! I must have seen at least 300 bikes just today.

The people are friendly and everybody speaks English! I know, I know, you should learn German since you are in THEIR country and it is not their problem if we do not speak their language, but still, it is so nice being able to speak with nearly everybody you meet.
This is a very special place with a lot of beautiful landscapes and architecture.

I also must talk about the food because Germany is known for sausage, potatoes and beer. Now, me not being a meat eater, I was worried that I wouldn’t find something traditional. I really love indulging in cultures and getting genuine things from that specific part of the world. Well, my worries were soon thrown away as a lovey waitress helped me choose a traditional German meal (meatless) called spätzle! It’s this type of noodle made of dough with a very unique texture and flavor. It was drowned in a wonderful white cheese and topped with sautéed onions. YUM! I was in heaven although I think after the meal I became so heavy that I couldn’t have flown there even if I had wings!

What an incredible place this is, filled with good food and even better people. I would highly recommend visiting Heidelberg while in Germany.

Until next time, as they say in Germany…chuss!

Small But Rich

A small country but very rich indeed! I am talking about the lovely country of Luxembourg, rich in history as well as a rich economy! Today I visited ruins dating back thousands of years and enjoyed walking over a stone bridge that used to be a wooden draw bridge back in the Medieval times. Cool, right?

 

 

 

Ok, so stop and imagine you are looking for a place to live somewhere in Europe. Luxembourg sounds perfect with it having a great economy and being financially stable, having beautiful architecture, ruins, gardens, etc. Taxes are reasonable, you are very close to many other countries where you could take a weekend to go to Germany for instance, it is very centralized and has many attributes that a big city would have yet has the feel of a quiet countryside.  What’s not to like?

Well, for an American like myself, the hardest thing about this place is understanding people! In France, they speak French, in England, they speak English, in Spain, they speak Spanish…I think you’re catching my drift here. In this TINY country of Luxembourg, they have THREE national languages, French, German and Luxembourgish! The last of the three being their native language made by squashing together English, French and German and making it ten times more difficult than all three of them individually. Talk about a mouth full!

 

 

Anyway, I am loving it here and am very impressed. I joke about the language thing but to be honest, people here are incredibly intelligent and are taught to speak all three languages from childhood. Therefore, I can walk into any store and speak French and they all speak it. So if you can speak French or German, you would be fine here. And many of them speak a bit of English too. I wish American school systems were as efficient! How incredible would it be to already be fluent in three languages by the time you were 12 years old!

 

 

 Until next time, PEACE!

 

St. Patrick's Day in Dublin!

St. Patrick’s Day is an Irish tradition that is celebrated all over the world, especially in the U.S. On March 17, people on all 7 continents will dress up in green and party until the morning sun comes out. One of the biggest parades on St. Patrick’s Day is in New York, which is much closer to home, but I thought it would be much more fun to experience it in the country of origin, so I high-tailed it to Dublin, Ireland with some incredible friends and made it just in time for the parade!

There were some pretty wild things happening in that parade, from floats to bands of Irish bagpipe bands and more! There were over half a million people crammed into this one part of Dublin, making it difficult to get to a place where you could see well, and take any good pictures. Me being midget sized compared to the tall Irish didn’t help either!

The best fun came that night when I got a real taste for the Irish tradition of St. Patrick’s Day by going to a few pubs in the heart of Dublin. What a great time that was!

 

One thing that I absolutely loved about the type of people that I ran into and made acquaintances with was their attitudes. I have never been around a group of people so fun and carefree, enjoying the night to the fullest, not worrying what others thought of their dancing or singing skills. I had such an incredible time, all the while, forgetting to be embarrassed.

 

 

Until next time, CHEERS!