Day 7 - Road to Grainau

   Today we said goodbye to our wonderful home in Gengenbach and headed off to Grainau.  I was sad to leave because I love the town and the area.  I think I would be happy spending three weeks in Gengenbach and never leaving the town.  But Grainau is very beautiful and it is a special place for our family.  James has been going here with his family since he was two so there are a lot of fond memories.  I’ve been here too, the year after James’ father, Hans, died Camille took us both to Germany and we visited many of the favorite family spots.  It will be nice to share them with the boys too.

  The drive through the Black Forest was stunning.  The wide flat farmland was dotted with little villages and surround by fir covered, rolling mountains.  Sometimes the vineyards would go halfway up a mountain making it look, in Will’s eyes, like a step pyramid.  Then wide valley narrowed and soon we were in a mountain pass.  James was jealous because I was the one who got to drive the steep and winding road.

  We were headed to Grainau, a little town in the Alps, but our road took us by Lake Constance and we planned to visit a couple of lakeside towns on the way.  Our first stop was Meersburg to see the town castle.  This castle is very old (I think it was built in the 1100s) and well preserved.  We were able to take a tour of the rooms, many of them furnished to show what life was like in the castle.  The boys loved the weapons and armory and they had fun playing king and pretending to be in jail. 

The boys admire many suits of armor.

Jon poses by a suit of armor

Will pretends to be a statue.

Jon on the castle wall overlooking Meersburg.

King Jon

These swords are too big for Jon.

King William Kamon

The boys pretend to be in prison.

  After the castle we wandered the town for a bit, shopping and drinking from a local fountain. We picked up some Marzipan for Jon then headed to the water where we rented an electric boat.  The boat was small and slow but so much fun!  It was great to be out on the lake able to go wherever we pleased.  And the best part was that Will and Jon got to drive!  Jon was nervous at first but he did better when he sat in Daddy’s lap.  Will was pretending to be Wrongway Feldman from Gilligan’s Island so he kept trying to steer us into the wall.

James and Will being silly in Meersburg

Will drinks from the town fountain.

Grandma and Jon

Will and Grandma

Jon drives the boat on Daddy's lap.

Meersburg from the water.

Will loves driving our boat.

 Our time in Meersburg done, we grabbed a quick ice cream cone as we set out again.  We stopped an hour later in the island town of Lindau for dinner.  One of Jon’s favorite dinner pastimes has been making James eat his food.  Today Jon decided to feed both of us and he was so earnestly cute that we couldn't refuse. 

Lindau flowers

Boys play by the harbor

Jon feeds me and Daddy at the same time.

Silly boy

Lindau Harbor

Will and Jon pretending to be statues.

  By the time we left Lindau it was getting dark and we still had a couple hours of driving ahead of us.  Now driving on the autobahn is fun.  Driving in the Alps is fun.  But on the autobahn through the Alps at night? That’s a little scary.  But we made it to Grainau safely and the boys settled quickly into our new apartment.  The only downside is that there is no Internet here so I’m not sure when I’ll be able to post this…

Coloring in our new apartment.

Auf Wiedersehen!