On Sunday we left Salzburg and having already decided to give Neuschwanstein castle a miss (it was just too far to drive in a day...I mean, we COULD have done it....but it wouldn't have been fun for anyone!!) and headed into Germany towards our hotel near Legoland.
Crossing the border from Austria to Germany
As we crossed the border, we noticed that all of the rest stops along the freeway were totally full of trucks and that there were no trucks on the freeway itself. I haven't looked this up yet but my thoughts are that on Sundays as least, the big trucks are not allowed to drive on the freeways.....this is (I think) a fantastic law and one that the Australian government should definitely consider!! It would certain save Shane's sanity every time we have to drive between Sydney and Newcastle.
Trucks at a rest stop....
The other thing we noticed once going into Germany, is that the autobahn (or freeway) has no speed limit on freeways that are 3 lanes travelling in each direction. Shane got excited when he got our little car up to 150km/hr....and this was while still in the middle lane...there were still lots of cars that were flying past us that must have been doing close to 200km/hr!!!
Shane gets the car up to 150km/hr!!!
Since we were basically driving around the outskirts of Munich, we decided to take a quick detour into the city of Munich. Munich was in the midst of Octoberfest so the city itself was completely overrun by possibly every backpacker currently in europe......I haven't heard so many Australian accents since leaving Sydney airport!!! We did stumble upon one of the brewery beer halls and took a quick look around inside (just to say that we had been to a beer hall during Octoberfest)....
It was totally packed and VERY noisy!! Whilst it looked like everyone was having a great time...it really wasn't the place to be with small children - so we didn't hang around. Although we will tell our children that they have already done the Munich Octoberfest thing so there will be no need for them to go there when they are in their 20s.
So we continued on to our hotel which was just down the road from Legoland.
This morning we woke to drizzly, grey skies - perfect weather for keeping the crowds away from Legoland!!!
We got to Legoland early with 2 very excited girls.
Outside Legoland
It was REALLY quiet. Sure it was cold (14 degrees max) and a bit foggy...but it wasn't raining so we powered through the park all day with hardly any trouble. The most we had to wait for any ride was about 10 minutes and on some of the rides the kids got off and then walked straight back on (actually on one ride they didn't even get off because there was no one waiting to get on!).....absolutely ideal for any amusement park scenario!!!!
Legoland is actually pretty cool with some pretty impressive lego displays....and the rides are very age-appropriate for our kids. We got around the entire park and went on all the rides we wanted to (some of them multiple times) and saw the lego displays and the lego factory.....it must have been one the of the quietest days they have ever had. There really was hardly anyone there. BONUS!
The flying lego planes - the kids could control how high or low their planes flew...
The lego jousting horses
Eloise's first ever roller-coaster ride
A view of the mini lego "lands" - there are about 12 different scenes built entirely of lego. You can also see how beautiful the trees are becoming with autumn....
One of the mini-lands....this one is Amsterdam.
Neve with her light sabre and darth vader.
The lego display with the largest number of lego pieces....a famous face....
Shane and Neve on the water ride....
We had a ball at Legoland....it was a really great place.
Once we left Legoland we drove for another hour and a half (at 140km/hr mind you!) to reach out hotel for the next 2 nights in the German town called Rothenburg.
It is a beautiful medieval walled city that seems to have more Japanese tourists than I have seen anywhere else in europe....Neve and Eloise had to pose for a photo with some Japanese who thought they were very beautiful girls!!!
One of the little streets inside the old town...
The main square in Rothenburg.
We are looking forward to exploring more of this lovely town tomorrow.
One thing I forgot to mention about our time in Salzburg......everywhere we have been in Austria (and even now in Germany) - there are shops selling these chocolates called "Mozartkugeln". They are mostly by brand called Mirabell but when I googled it, the original Mozartkugeln were made by a company called Furst, who actually won the gold medal in 1905 for their hand-made Mozartkugeln. So we managed to track down the original Furst shopfront in Salzburg and try one of the hand-made Mozartkugeln.....
They were delicious and MUCH nicer than the Mirabell (non-handmade) versions!!!
The Furst shop
The wrapper of the original Mozartkugeln is silver and blue....the more common mass-produced version has gold and red wrappers...
The Mozartkugeln....the dot of chocolate on the top is where the skewer was put in to hand roll the ball in the chocolate.....then the skewer 'hole' is filled with chocolate - hence the extra dot on top!
Inside....a pistachio-marzipan centre, covered in nougat and chocolate....
