Potato Pancakes!!!!!!!!!!!!

Okay, so Day 2 in Reutte. We went up to the Ehrenburg Castle ruins. It was a really nice hike up the hill and you could see the entire city of Reutte from above. Everything was so still and calm, I didn't ever want to leave. There was this cute little kid running around with a wooden sword and shield he got at the gift shop. Mom got a picture of him, it was pretty funny. We went down to the museum afterwords, it was neat too. I thought it was going to be about the castles, but it was mostly about the life of a knight during the crusades. I got to wear some awesome, but smelly, armor. It was pretty cool.
After Reutte, we drove up to Fuessen in Germany to see the Hohenschwangau and Neuschwanstein Castles. The first used to house the royal family of Maxiamillian I of Germany and the second was supposed to house his son, but he did before it was finished, that one is also what gave Disney his inspiration for the Disney castle. They were really elaborately decorated, and they were really cool to see, but I didn't really learn too much because we didn't really any information from the tour guides. On the way down on the suuuuper long hike from Neuschwanstien, we stopped at a restaurant and you'll never guess what I had, well I guess the title gives it away, real potato pancakes! Well, Oma makes real potato pancakes, but I got to have them in Germany! Oma's still win as best ever, but these totally destroyed Wurstfests. Anyway, I was pretty stoked about having those.
From there we drove to Hallstatt, Austria. It's another small, stunning town, but this one was settled in the middle of the mountains on the lake, Altsee. It was another one of those nights where we got in late and everything was closed so we just walked around the town and then had dinner. The best part of Hallstatt other than its awesome beauty was that instead of having a busy street outside our window, we had a babbling brook. It was so relaxing we all slept the best we have yet this trip.
The next day, after sleeping in we drove to Salzburg, again in the rain. We got in pretty early so we had some time to actually do things! We went and saw the house where Mozart lived, which was cool to see, but the museum was just a tourist trap because they even admitted they didn't really know anything about when the family lived there and it was a lot of music by other composers than just Mozart. We also went up to the Hohensalzburg Fortress which was built in the 1100's originally and was added onto several times and it now a massive complex that was used for royal living, a monastery, a fortress (believe it or not) and emmm.. something else. It's also the most preserved fortress in Europe, I'd believe it. It was in really good condition, but we only got to see a small part of it before it started pouring again. But before then, I got to shoot a crossbow! That was pretty sweet I'd say, I did get a bullseye!
Today was a super busy sightseeing day. We tried to take a river tour, but because the water was so high they were closed. So we went and saw Mozart's house, a panorama museum of Salzburg in 1850, and a scenic overlook. I thought they were all busts. We bought this tourist card that you pay a smaller price and get into all these museums and stuff without having to pay, so we went to a lot of those things- we didn't just randomly pick silly sounding places to go. We also took a horse and Carriage ride around the old city. That was a lot of fun! We also went to the old residence of the prince/bishop. I think that was the best tour we have been on so far. A lot was still in it's original state and the tour was really detailed in explaining everything. It was a good tour. Another floor of the old housing was an art museum with an exhibit there on sin. I really enjoyed that and thought it was really interesting to see the hundreds of years view on the same seven sins. I probably could have spent most of the day in there. Man I never thought I would say that about an art museum. Anyway, we came back to the room pretty early since we were all tired. Tomorrow we head out to Munich!
Love,
Ann
Sorry there aren't any pictures, I haven't had time to upload them since Staufen.
oh and jeff. We heard Guantanamera today being played in the art store across the street from our hotel. It made me think of you :D