<font face="Helvetica, sans-serif" size="3"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;">Croatia</span></font>

Cooper's Perspective

In my opinion Croatia is the most beautiful country in the world, with its beautiful mountains and beaches. Hvar, where we stayed for one month, was rated the fifth most beautiful island in the world, according to our tour guide. I'm not surprised.

 

Sunset from our balcony

My sister and I went to the beach almost every day for the first week. We found an octopus, starfish, crabs and lots of sea urchins. The people who live there are so helpful and kind it's unbelievable! When we needed help on the bus about ten people helped us find our stop. I liked eating calamari and going to Nonica's cafè for her delicious cake, especially her tiramisu. Hvar was beautiful but it was the people who made it special for us.

Ruza, the Blue Cave, a praying mantis

Plitvice Lakes National Park was our next stop. We had to walk through a beautiful forest full of fall leaves and big rocks covered in moss to get to the river. Everywere I looked there was a waterfall, ranging from ten centimeters to fifty meters tall. They were all beautiful in their own way. Every time I  took a picture mom would say, "Oo i have a really good shot from here" or, "Coop, let me see the camera!"

In Zagreb we met with Lusi, the lady who owned our apartment in Hvar, and her two kids Filip and Iva. Lusi lives in Zagreb but she runs the apartment in the summer with her mother. There were street performers and lots of trains. The hot chocolate was great along with the people. Our bed and breakfast guy drove us to the airport at 5:30 in the morning and made us sandwiches to take along.

Lusi and her children at a cafe in Zagreb.

Overall Croatia was very beautiful and fun. If I have the chance to come again I certainly will.

 

Croatia, Hvar, Plitvice

                                                                             by Katie 

Croatia is a beautiful, exotic country. The land is lush with greenery and cacti. The temperatures range from warm in the morning and hot in the afternoon, to cool at night. All the people you meet will be kind and willing to help you. We stayed in Hvar for one month and then traveled to Plitvice Lakes National Park for three days. I loved all of Croatia and would recommend you go and enjoy its beauty as well. 

 

Croatians are very friendly with one another and with you. They all speak very good English so language was not a problem. Croatian seemed very hard but we learned "hvala" which means thank you. If you have a problem and need help or are lost they will gladly go out of their way to help you. One of the things I really enjoyed about Croatia is that when you walk down the streets they are lined with carts and carts of lavender that smell so good! We bought lots to send home! The one day we went on a tour of the city and our tour guide said that the lavender pickers are always so happy even when the sun beats down on them in the middle of the day, because the smell of the lavender makes them feel so happy and alive inside. 

 

Even though during the day it is hot, at night we always needed a sweater. Most of the restaurants had blankets on the backs of the chairs, to wrap around your legs or you could eat inside. We visited for part of September and October so I dont know if you would need a sweater in June or July. Croatia is just starting to be discovered by people all around the world so the prices for food were very inexpensive. Croatian food is not that different from what you would eat at home but still very good. We stayed at a beautiful apartment and had the best view of the Mediterranean Sea! 

We not only had a great veiw of the sea but also of the huge fortress that watches over the town. We went to see the forteress and learned lots of cool stuff! The fortress was built by the Romans but they brought in Spanish engineers because the people of Hvar did not know how to build on such steep hills. For this reason, the fortress has more of a Spanish style look than Croatian or Roman and it's called the Spanish Fortress. In the fortress my favorite part was the dungeons. On display they had old ball and chains, used to hold your arms and legs down and they also had an old wooden stock. A really cool part was that they had found old ship wrecks with amphoras in them, and had them on display. They think that the ships were in the middle of shipping some wine and olive oil and they crashed on the rocks. Some of the amphoras still had the wine and oil in them because the Romans had figured out a new way to seal the amphoras. They would fill them right to the top instead of three quarters of the way to reduce the amount of air and increase the suction. When they were discovered, the treasure hunters could still eat the oil and drink the wine. 

The neatest thing I saw when I was in Croatia was the Blue Cave. The first time we tried to take a boat to go see it, the water was so choppy and the wind was so cold we had to turn back. Luckily, the weather was going to be nice for a few days so we went a few days later. We all loaded into a speed boat and drove to a few different beaches and the Blue Cave. When we got to the blue cave we had to duck our heads because the entrace was so low! But when we finaly looked up it was like a whole different world! There were schools of tiny fish that looked black against the glowing blue water and if you stick your hand in the water it would catch the light and glow blue as well! The cave was blue because under the water there was a large hole where sunlight would flow in and illuminate the water with a bright blue tinge. How amazing!

After Hvar we went to Plitvice Lakes for two days and that was amazing! We went around the whole lake in two days and saw at least five hundred waterfalls of all shapes and sizes. My favorite water fall was not the biggest but a smaller one off to the side that you could walk over!  A thing that I really liked is that they made the paths so that  you felt you were walking on water. We have so many pictures because everything was just so beautifull! The walk was long but not hard at all. It said on the board the walk would take two to three hours, but we took about five because we stopped so much for pictures!  The most amazing waterfall there, in my opinion, was a waterfall that was almost 55m high! So amazing and beautiful!

All of Croatia, that I saw, I loved and enjoyed so much. The weather was gorgeous, the plants exotic, and the sights are to die for. I cant think of any bad things about Croatia and would go there again in a heart beat.

<div style="text-align: center;"><font face="Times" size="7"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); ">Neuschwonstein</span></font></div>

By: Cooper

Neuschwonstein is said to be the most beautiful castle in the world. So beautiful, they say Walter Disney used it to design the castle in Disneyland. We visited it because my dad had a poster of it in his bedroom when he was a kid and he always wanted to visit it because he thought it was beautiful. The constuction of the castle is what interested me the most.

Construction of the castle took a behmoth amount of time! In 1869 the foundation stone was put down and by 1872 it's cellar was finished. In 1876 the gatehouse was finished and so was everything else on the first floor. In the early 1880's construction was finished so Ludwing could finally move in and watch the ongoing construction. I learned there were steam cranes that they used as well as scaffolding for lifting stone to the construction site.

Nearly 300 people worked on the castle in the 1880's and now that many or more still work to keep the castle working properly. They say almost 6,000 tourists visit the castle every day in the summer. I'm glad I got to see it with my dad. He was amazed at how big and fancy it was. If you want to see it, here's a link wher I got some of my info. You can read more about it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuschwanstein_Castle

<b>Linderhof</b>&nbsp;

 By Katie

Linderhof is a very beautiful castle. The Gardens and the grotto were probably my favorite parts. We learned a lot about King Ludwig and saw some really nice fountains. One shot up about thirty feet every half an hour without the help of electricity. The castle was stunnig!

The gardens are gorgeous and vibrant with colour. They have been taken care of so well! Out of the windows in the front you can see the beautiful fountain that shoots up every half an hour and from the back you can see the lovely man made waterfall. Behind the castle, and up the into the mountain was a grotto with a lake and stalagmites. King Ludwig loved bathing there and designed a boat and some paintings after an opera by Wagner. The King loved Wagner and had many of his opera themes painted in murals around his home.

King Ludwig lived in the Linderhof castle as often as possible. He dedicated the castle to French kings so in the castle there are no paintings of him. He was very fond of swans and peacocks, which you can see in paintings and sculptures in and around the castle, and he had a collection of vases, which are featured throughout the castle. There is gold everywhere and tiny carvings on the crown moulding, as well as paintings on the ceiling. 

As I mentioned earlier, King Ludwig was a bit of a different character. He became nocturnal, sleeping during the day and staying awake all night. King ludwig enjoyed reading at night, and sometimes he would stay up and read in his hall of mirrors. The mirrors were placed in such a way that it looked like the room went on forever. He was a recluse, preferring not to have any visitors. However, he would make his servants prepare the dining table for four people, even when he was alone, because he liked to imagine he was dining with kings from the past. 

King Ludwig was a man full of excellent ideas and one of the neatest ideas that I saw was a disappearing table in his dining room. When he would eat his meals he would send the table down to be filled then his servants would send it back up and he would eat his feast. King Ludwig was thought to be a crazy, almost insane man. He did not get much company and was never married. A quote from the king is, "I want to remain an eternal mystery to myself and others".

King Ludwig even had a mysterious death. His body was found floating in lake Starnberg. People guessed that he had commited suicide, but new evedince has suggested that he was murdered. His death occurred shortly after the banks refused to continue funding the construction of the four castles he was building, including Neuschwonstein. King Ludwig died bankrupt.

Linderhof Castle was beautiful, even though it was small compered to most, and I enjoyed learning so much about it. It's too bad the king didn't live to enjoy it.

First Month: Sue's Thoughts

Germany, Czech Republic, Italy

Wow! What a whirlwind the first month was. Dave was amazing driving the rental car on the autobahn and through all the twisty, narrow city streets. No grid system anywhere! Just names that we couldn't pronounce that maybe were labeled but likely not. What we learned to do was to plan out the next days drive in the hotel with wifi and take screen shots of the route (plus extra city shots so that when we got lost we would have pics of the surrounding area). Then, when we were driving with no wifi available, we could look at the pics and we had an instant map. We also learned to take screen shots of or hotel confirmation emails, and pics of what the apartment/hostel/hotel looked like since they're often not marked in any way.

Lothar, Sue, Katie, Cooper, and Dave.

For me, the best part of that first month was meeting Lothar and his family in the town where the Freiheit clan lived for a good part of their childhood. Lothar is the son of Lothar Sr., the man that went to school with, and was friends with, Opa and Uncle Herman. I felt awkward phoning him and asking him to show us Hagenau, but it was really important to us to see the area, and we wouldn't have known what to look for without him. It was also awkward because my German speaking skills were going to be put to the test! Eek!

The Elbe in the background.

Well... who knew this would turn out to be such a wonderful experience! Lothar was amazing. I had hoped that he would meet us in Hagenau and show us the house Opa grew up in. Instead, he did so much more! We had late breakfast/early lunch together and then he drove us to a beautiful town called Tangermünde which has a beautiful castle. He told us about the terrible flooding of the Elbe, which the area is still recovering from. We met his girlfriend and watched some traditional dancers in the square outside her flower shop. We were lucky the dancers were there, as the site of the dancing moves every year, and we just happened to hit on the day that they were performing.

Later in the day we went to Hagenau and met Lothar's family. They were so welcoming and kind! Herr and Frau Büst made us dinner. Dave loved the soup so much he asked Lothar to send us the recipe. It was so great to be in their home and to be welcomed so warmly. Sitting there, I'm sure Dave was imagining his dad sitting and chatting in the same room, as an adult, and maybe even as a child.

Elke, Katarina, Lothar, and Dave... Windows to the right were Opa's house.

Lothar Sr. with us.

Elke's husband, Helmut, is in charge of ringing the church bell each night at the same time. He took us up into the ancient church tower and we plugged our ears while he rang the enormous bell. Cooper took the clanger for the smaller bell and Lothar showed him how to clang it after the big bell was rung, in a rythm. They clang the smaller one by hand because the old tower is getting a bit too rickety for both the bells to be swinging at the same time. The key to the tower was a seleton key about a foot long!

I remember Opa and Aunty Grete telling us about their memories of the enormous Linden tree in their front yard that was so big they thought they needed 6 people to get their arms around the trunk. When they visited as adults, they found the tree wasn't as huge as their memories made them believe. We had to pose for a picture with the tree!

A big thank you to Lothar and his family for giving our family these great memories!

I also just want to quickly mention Linnderhoff castle. Everyone knows about Neuschwonstein, which is amazing, but Linderhoff is equally as beautiful, although very small as you can see in the picture below. In a way, I liked it better. You could walk through the gardens, take a great tour of the castle, and visit this amazing grotto with weird stalagmites. I highly recommend it! Instead of staying in Munich (München), we stayed in Füssen, which was easier for us with the rental car than staying in the big city. It was also cheaper and was closer to drive in the morning and you have to get to Neuschwonstein very early because it's so busy. 

I'm sure the next leg of our journey will be equally exciting. Leaving Dave in Rome was so hard. I don't think I let it show! Had to be brave for the kids! : ) 

The grotto!

Our First Month: Cooper's Perspective

Germany, Czech Republic, Italy

Five years ago my mom took a Deferred Salary option at worrk, so she got paid only 75% salary for four years then got paid 100% the fifth year but she didn't have to work. Five years ago it didn't really mean much to me but just a few months before we left I started getting more and more excited. It was also a little scary because all we left with was one way plane tickets, back packs, and a hotel room for one night. I new that I was going to miss everything at home: my grandparents, my friends, my puppy and my dad when he was gone. On the upside, my sister and I got our own ipad minis!!!¡¡¡

Our first stop was Frankfurt. My jet lag was so bad, I fell asleep leaning on my dad waiting for the cross walk light to change to walk. Our second stop was Berlin. The hostel that we stayed in had a tip cup that said "Justin Bieber Assassination Fund". We got to see the Berlin Wall. Our third stop was Stendal. There was a big bell tower just beside the town center and a crazy woman with lipstick on her teeth took us to the top. We could see the whole town! Just outside of Stendal, we took a walk in the forest just off the highway. Katie was freaking out because she thaught she was going to be attacked and eaten by wild boars. The best part of Germany was meeting Lothar and his family, and seeing our Opa's home town.

Opa's house was the two windows on the right.

The funny thing is we didn't stay in Germany then go to Prague. We went to Prague then back to Germany. Prague was beautifull! My mum kept saying it was like being in a fairytale, and it was. The streets (like almost everywhere else we went) had cobble stones, with tonnes of little alley ways, and soooooo many stairs! There was an awesome castle with so much detail, it was insane! I liked the gargoyles. There were lots of guards in blue suits. There was also lots of street performers and horse and buggies.

Our next stop was Füssen were we got to see Neuschwanstein. It was incredibly beautifull! It was the castle that Walt Disney used to design the castle in Disneyland. We found a million tiny frogs on the trails around the castle. In Füssen there were lots of big snails with no shells, so if you go there, watch where you step!

Lake Como was lots of fun because we got to relax and swim a bit. When my sister and I were walking by the beach we caught a newt! In Venice there were lots of gondolas and different water ways. There was lots of Murano glass for sale. We even got to see it made in person! He made a glass vase, a fish and this glass horse...

Rome was amazing!!! We saw the pantheon, the colloseum and ancient ruins. When we went on a tour the tour guide said that the building we were looking at, the Romans called the Wedding Cake. My dad met his friend Steve and we all went out for gelato. One day we went on a walk that was supposed to take us a few ours but then it turned into a seven our walk. My legs were killing me!!!!! But it was worth it.My favourite place was St. Peter's Basilica. It was so big you couldn't get all of it in even six pictures!

La Pieta, by Michelangelo, is in St. Peter''s Basilica

Overall our first month was absolutly amazing! We saw tonnes of cool sites and places. I know I'm going back to some of the places because I put a penny in the Trevi Fountain.                        

<:-)={

Our First Month of Travel: Katie's Perspective

Germany, Czech Republic, Italy

When I first found out that my mom had a year off and we were going to be traviling the globe for nine months, I was exited but also nervous. It was hard to think about being away from my family, friends and puppy for that long. It seemed almost dream like. Even with all that in mind I new it would be the experience of a life time.

Our world tour started in Frankfurt, Germany. We had one hotel booked and figured we would go from there. That way, if we liked one place more than another we could stay for longer. On the first day that we were in Germany it was amazing to see all of the old buildings and statues. At home we only have new buildings and houses so it was quite a shock to me. We rented a car so we could drive to places instead of having to take a bus or a train. On the drives that we took I slept a lot because of the jet lag, but on the occasions that I was awake, the mountains and hills were beautiful. Whenever we drove past a farm there were always behemoth white wind turbines! Lothar (the family friend that we met while we were in Germany) said that for every wind turbine that a farmer had they got about twenty-five thousand dollars from the government.

My favorite thing that I got do do in Germany was when we visited an old church right by our hotel. My mom, brother and I had been looking around admiring all the elaborite decorations surrounding the walls when I noticed a small door in the wall. As we were standing there, wondering where it lead, a quirky lady that had greated us at the door came and opened it. She then gestured for us to come inside so my brother and I followed. We went up a lot of narrow, winding stairs but when we reached the bells at the top it was amazing! Two men were there, getting prepared to ring them. We then walked through a door, behind the bells, that lead us to the room where they had all the gears for the clocks. The lady, Cooper and I all walked up a brick staircase that was so narrow our shoulders rubbed the walls! When we got to the very top the lady opened the windows letting in a refreshing breeze. She yelled down onto the town square, something in German that I didn't know. You could see everything from up there! Germany was beautiful and it would definitely be nice to go back one day.

We went to the Czech Republic next. It was only for a couple of days but we got a lot out of it. In Prague it was like every building was old. All the buildings had intricate designs and statues around them. We went to go see a very old, very beautiful castle that we had to walk up a lot of stairs to get to. The ceilings were painted with detailed pictures. We were not allowed to take any pictures though. In the squares there was always a band playing but my favorite was a band that played jazz. There was an old man who was really good with his saxaphone.

Our travels then took us to Italy where we went to a whole bunch of different places. We started in Lake Como. It was very nice to swim in the lake and to relax a bit after driving and going on so many tours. We stayed at a very nice place that ws right across from the lake. A fountain in the front always shot up long blasts of water and at night they changed colours. There was a really nice gelato place below us and a very good restaurant just to he right of our apartment. We went walking along the beach one day when I spotted a newt. A newt is a very small, very fast little lizard. My brother and I had him cornered by a rock and I had the perfect opportunity to cach him so I did! We have pictures of him in our hands. Lake Como was a very nice place to stay and I am very happy that we did.

After Lake como we went to Venice. A favorite of a lot of people and a favorite of mine. The canals and water ways were beautiful. One thing that we noticed a lot of in Italy is the amountof people that try to sell you stuff! There are people everywhere selling masks, jewelry, purses, and other tourist souvenirs. My favorite thing that we did in Venice was go to the island of Murino and watch a glass blowing demonstration. We had to take a farry to the island, then we walked around to see all the glass things that they make. I bought two pink little flamingos. In the glass blowing demonstration the man made a big glass bowl and then a tiny fish. The oven was super hot and the we could feel the heat radiating off of the glass when he put it near us. He said that if the glass was left out uncooled for more than ten minutes it would shatter because of the heat that it contained. He had to work fast. 

In Venice, I also enjoyed our gondola ride. The gondolier took us through the city at night and it was very beautiful. The only bad thing was that because it was night time we had a hard time finding a gondola that was available. Venice was beautiful and I would love to visit it again one day.

Next came my favorite place, Rome. We were very blessed and got to stay there for ten days! We had plenty of time to see everything. The first thing that we went to see in Rome was the Pantheon. We went to see it  a second time though because the first time they were closing soon so we didn't have much time              to see it. The second time we took a lot of pictures and really enjoyed its beauty... just make sure to get your Gelato after you have seen it, because they don't let you take it inside. Next we went to see wat they call the "wedding cake". The Italians call it that because to them it looks like a wedding cake in stead of a beautiful building. Thank goodness they had an elevator because to get to get to the top there would would have been a lot of stairs! We went to go and see Pompey's portico where Julius Ceaser died. It was really interesting to see the place that he had actually been and had died. Trevi Fountain was gorgeous and I'm hoping that when I threw my penny in my wish to come back comes true. My second favorite place that we went to was the Vatican. I loved learing about Michelangelo and how he painted the ceilings and the messages behind all of them. I was a bit disappointed when we got to the Creation of Man painting because I was expecting it to be huge and cover the whole ceiling but it was only tiny. I was still happy to see the Vatican and to walk where Michelangelo had walked. My favorite place that I went to and the most interesting place was of course the Colosseum. I learned a lot of things about it. Did you know they had secret passages under neath the stage to lower and raise the animals and gladiators? They added the passeges in later, though and the crowd was always amazed at the "magic" of it. I was amazed, too!

All the places that we visited where absolutely exquisite and I am so happy and blessed to be able to go on such an amazing adventure. Although I miss my family and friends very much I am still excited to be going around the globe. Next up, Croatia!