muuuuuuuunich!

in march i headed back to munich for another visit. i had made arrangements to visit an international school in the area for a couple of days and then spent the weekend in the city. munich has always been one of my favorite european cities since having visited there first back in 2011.

while in munich i was able to take a tour to nearby neuschwanstein castle. this castle had been on my radar for awhile, but i had never taken the time to get there.

construction of this castle began in 1869 by ludwig II. the castle is quite dreamy and photogenic from afar. it even served as the inspiration for the castle in disney's sleeping beauty.

after hiking up to the castle, i had a little extra time for some apple strudel and a stroll around the lake.

before leaving munich i had dinner with a friend and the meal was so good i'm still thinking about it! if you're ever in munich be sure to head to an nam and have the summer rolls. you'll receive a full on arrangement of goodies to customize each and every roll for yourself!

this was so delicious. 

travel tips...

pretty sure that i used radius tours for the trip to neuschwanstein. while this tour was fairly annoying...it turned out to be a good choice. usual transport for this tour is via train, but there was work happening that day and the company was able to substitute a bus. once you arrive at neuschwanstein you don't have to stay with the tour, just show up for the scheduled time for the castle entrance- this was a plus.

i stayed at hotel eder this trip. i liked this hotel, but the area directly around it was a little sketchy at night as it is fairly centrally located.

pumpkin: every shape and size.

you may know of my love of all things pumpkin.

so when i read about the world's largest pumpkin festival i was intrigued.

when i saw this catchphrase i knew it was something i wanted to do while living in europe.

so in early october caitlin and i flew to stuttgart, germany. we stayed just outside of the city center.

the stars, from top to bottom:
ludwigsburg, the wilhelma zoo, our hotel,
and the central train station

the first sign that something was amiss was that the guy at the hotel had never heard of this festival.

i mean, wouldn't everyone in a 30 minute range of the world's largest pumpkin festival know that this is one of the biggest events around?

regardless, we headed out saturday morning, making the requisite stop at starbucks before hopping on the train for a 20 minute ride north of the city.

we weren't exactly sure where to find the entrance to this festival and that was probably another clue that the world's largest pumpkin festival might not live up to expectations. (the world's largest festival would be hard to miss right?)

eventually figuring out the entrance, we paid the fee and headed into the park. the festival is held on the grounds of the ludwigsburg palace and we ended up with a lovely fall day.

all varieties of pumpkins start to appear upon entering the grounds and even more as you move behind the palace.

there are huge crates of every variety of pumpkin.

in colors and shapes i didn't even knew existed.

"black little" pumpkins.
love them so much.

"kronli"

one super looooong squash

this year's theme was 'circus'.

the carving of various pumpkins was awesome.

this pumpkin set a world record. grown in Belgium it weighs 1190.5 kg! that's over 2500 pounds!

#somanypumpkins

there was food available at the festival for purchase and samples of seasoned pumpkin seeds to be had. i envisioned stall after stall of samples of different pumpkin-y things.

that was, in fact, not the case.

there were a couple places to order off a menu and that was about it.

we shared some pumpkin soup.

and drank pumpkin prosecco.
which was really just really sweet prosecco.

the pumpkin fest was lovely. it's just not really that big. so to go into it thinking it's the world's largest pumpkin festival makes it a bit of a let down.

somewhere i saw something that said "world's largest pumpkin exhibition" and this, this makes sense. because i would agree that there is probably no other place displaying quite so many different varieties of pumpkin.

world's largest festival? not so much.

so, should you go?

if you're within range of making this a day trip then i'd say, yes, yes you should make an effort to spend a few hours here.

do you need to fly to stuttgart and make a weekend of it?

probably not.

it's a good thing that caitlin is always willing to check out these strange festivals with me.

(this was better than the nut festival!)

Back to Germany? Yes, Please!

Last weekend I was lucky enough to get the opportunity to visit Frankfurt International School for a Google Apps Events conference.

FIS is located just outside Frankfurt in a town called Oberursel. It's a cute and quaint German town, with plenty of stereotypical homes and buildings. We met up with some other conference attendees at a local German restaurant and indulged in German beer and a gigantic pork knuckle! It was so delicious! And bigger than my head!

part of the 'old town'

"Brauhaus Haxe" with sauerkraut and bread

We did actually do some work. This is Ken Shelton, doing one of the Keynotes.
He showed this video at the end of his speech. I was cracking up.

de-lish-us-ness!!