Germany, part 1

May 1st is some Hungarian holiday (?Labor Day?). Whatever. The important part is that Katie and Anna both have Monday & Tuesday off. Since VJ & I were likewise free, we decided to go to Germany for the long weekend.

Munich was the original destination but when you plan things at the last minute, you take what hotel openings that you get. So we are staying in the Renaissance Riessersee Hotel in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, which is about 95 km south of Munich.

We left Budapest at 8:00am this morning and arrived at the hotel just before 6:00pm. This includes the 1 hour that we stopped for lunch and, in typical Salvaggio fashion, the 45+ min we took when we got lost with only 10 km(6 miles) left to get to the hotel. I don't feel that the directions Anna got off the internet were the clearest (Anna blames my navigation...whatever...she's just touchy because she drove the whole way).

The kids were EXCELLENT the ENTIRE drive. They read books, we played a game where we tracked which countries the license plates we saw were from, we watched 2 movies (the portable DVD player is Heaven sent), listened to music (the kid's love "Yellow Submarine" by The Beatles) and had snacks (Rice Krispie treats made by yours truly from some REALLY expensive Rice Krispies purchased at an ex-pat grocery store).

The scenery on the drive was BEAUTIFUL. Especially once we got to Salzburg and got to see the mountains. More power to the Van Trapps if they made it over those monstrosities.

First thing we did after checking in was ...say it with me now...go to the hotel pool! You can see a new side bar on the blog where Katie will be ranking the hotel pools of Europe.

Tomorrow we hope to visit a couple of castles in the area and Monday we plan to stop in Salzburg on our way back to Budapest.

Here's the view from our hotel balcony: