Photos

Not a lot of time to write (and I know that's a good thing, 'cuz I've been wordy) so here's a bunch of pictures.

A typical train.  I think this was from Holland to Southern Germany. They are very comfy.

Scott at the Muiderslot Castle in The Netherlands.

A falcon at the castle.

This big owl had deep yellow eyes.  The young man who ran the falconry told us that if an owl has black eyes, he can see (and therefore hunts) at night.  With yellow eyes, they see and hunt during the day. If they have orange eyes, they can see night AND day.  This guy was really beautiful!

The Neuschwanstein Castle built by King Ludwig II-often called the Cinderella Castle because this is what the castle in Cinderella is based upon. It was pretty magnificent and quite a hike to get to it!

A building partway up the mountain on the way to the Cinderella Castle.

This castle occupied an adjacent hill and was built by King Ludwig II for his mother-in-law. It was called the Swan Castle.

Scott and I on a bridge by the Castle.

Some cool hinges on a garage down the hill from the Cinderella Castle. I never found out what purpose all the rocks on the roof served.

A gift from Cynthia-hand knitted socks! Was I ever glad for these, because the castle viewing day trip was a chilly one!

The Schloss Linderhof Castle also built by Ludwig II.  He built many, many castles in a short period of time and then he died. There are different opinions on how he died...legend has it that he was murdered because all his castle building was bankrupting Bavaria! The inside of this one was totally bizarre...so much gold leaf that it made our eyes cross. Photographs were not allowed.

One of the beautiful flower beds at Schloss Linderhof.

The gazebo behind the castle.  It is actually a waterfall.

The walkway up to the gazebo.  We are going to build one of these walkways as soon as we get home. Yup, we're gonna' get right on it...

Dinner with Cynthia and Tom our last night at their house.

The "famous" Massimo Novelli, the man behind Motocicli Veloce in Milan. I am crazy about this guy!  He is so sweet and reminds me so much of my son-in-law Justin, who I am ALSO crazy about!! We had a great visit with Massimo and Scott got lots of parts from him.

The little garden outside Massimo's shop.  We want to recreate this at home also.  It might be more reasonable to do than the covered walkway at the castle!

Massimo treated us to lunch at one of his hang outs, a restaurant named Aldo's.  We called it the Che Cafe because of a wall of pictures of Che Guevara. This pasta dish was our first course, Pasta Arrabbiata. Spicy tomato and pepper sauce. Very tasty!

As a second course, Scott had the Coniglio Morto...which literally means Dead Rabbit. And it was.

A not very great photo of Emilio, Laurel's husband.  All the pics from our visit came out foggy/faded-don't know why.  We had a sweet visit with them both.  Laurel whipped up a great snack tray while they put Scott to making martinis.  Yum!

In the little blue bowl in the back of the tray Laurel had some tuna stuffed peppers...oh my...we bought more than half a kilo today to eat tomorrow on the train.  Somehow, and I swear I don't know HOW this happened, the package got opened this evening and we found ourselves snacking on them...HELP! we can't stop!

Laurel with her martini...gee, how many olives are in that glass? Thanks guys for the lively conversation!

Tomorrow we head for a quick trip (just overnight) to Latina, a town just southwest of Rome to visit our friends Claudio and Ramona.  They live in Houston, but are on a Med cruise and tomorrow they will go to Latina to spend a few weeks with Claudio's parents in Latina.  Claudio asked us to come down and meet his family.  We are really looking forward to it!  Ciao!