Trips, Pics, and Tales

After our day in Burghausen, we continued on towards Munich. We made one additional stop in Altötting. This town is Bavaria's spiritual center and Germany's principle pilgrimage site. Every year, over one million pilgrims and visitors come to see the "Black Madonna" statue in the octagonal Chapel of Grace in the town square. The chapel also houses a silver urn that hosts the hearts of Bavarian kings and prince-electors. Although to be honest, I think we missed both of those things. I don't believe we actually got to go into that Chapel. It's quite a spiritual town. Our luck had still held out with the weather, but we didn't want to take our chances much longer.  We decided to get some ice cream, and take a quick break here, and then move on before the rain really came down! Nearly everything being sold in every shop was a religious statue of some sort. They were waiting for the millions of pilgrims to come to s

We thoroughly enjoyed our river cruise and were sad to leave the ship and the crew. But we had a couple of days left in Germany before heading home. We had arranged for transportation from Passau to Munich, where we would be flying home from.  On the way, we would be making a couple of sightseeing stops!  So, Alycen, Katie, Alex and I were picked up by our driver, and off we went! Our first stop was Burghausen. Burghausen is on the border between Austria and Germany and the highlight is the Berghausen Castle, the longest castle in the world!  You can see in the panoramic view the castle stretches all along the top of the trees.  We'd be visiting there today and walking through all of the courtyards! Heading up past the town! Turn right for the World's Longest Castle! Very welcoming!  Our driver also stayed with us as we walked through the castle courtyards. He was a combination of a guide, alt