Austria, Germany, and Italy Oh My!

This past week we traveled to Garmisch Germany! OMG!!  BEAUTIFUL it definitely lived up to its hype! The boys and I had a BLAST! We went into town and ate at a local cafe, walked around and took lots of pictures, I also got brave enough to take them both sledding by myself on the Alps!! 

We stayed at the Edelweiss lodge in Garmisch, Germany. GREAT location, super close to EVERYTHING, it was a 2-second drive to the ski slopes, and seconds away from places to eat, and walk around. 

On our way home we took the scenic route, our first stop was Innsbruck Austria. Innsbruck took a spot in my top 3 favorite places I’ve visited! Old Town was AMAZING you could walk around, and not have to worry about cars. We ate ham and cheese toast at a local cafe and sipped on coffee while the boys ran around and burned off energy. Very peaceful!

This is a picture of Nolan in the center of the city. The hotel to his right shoulder was a favorite of Mozart.  

 After lunch and coffee, we all headed over to Hofkirche the church that is home to  Maximillian’s tomb. 

Who is Maximillian? GREAT question, he was the King of Romans or also known as the King of Germans from 1459-1519. He was never crowned Pope as the trip to Rome was too risky. In 1501 he fell from his horse and hurt his leg badly, causing him bad pain the rest of his life. Many historians believe that he was VERY depressed, and started to carry his coffin with him EVERYWHERE. He started doing this in 1514 (crazy right?!) He also had very specific directions on how he wanted his body to be treated after his death. (A VERY detailed list) He wanted all his teeth to be knocked out, all his hair to be cut off, his body was to be washed in lime, and ash. He also made it clear that he wanted his body to then be wrapped in linen, and then publicly displayed. His body was buried in the Castle Chapel at Wiener Neustadt. However, a VERY elaborate cenotaph (vacant tomb) is in Hofkirche.

Below is an image of the cenotaph, and a couple more images of Hofkirche, It was breathtaking nothing like anything I’ve seen before! If you look closely you can see how small Tyler and the boys look. The place was HUGE!

We then loaded the kiddos up and headed to Italy. Tyler read about a little town on our way back home to Slovenia in Italy that was home to The Castle of Brunico. Nolan and Heath both love castles, and we thought it would be a great stop to allow the boys to stretch their legs. The castle was nice but what really stole the show was the graveyard, across the bridge leaving the castle. The picture below was taken with the cemetery to my back. 

The cemetery was completely made out of wood, it was an Austrian, Hungarian cemetery in Italy. 

We made the BEST out of our little road trip!