I LOVE travelling in Europe!

It's just the most amazing thing to do. Just driving around my little city is pretty cool. To see some great pictures and read a little about it, click: Bamberg.

The Dom (cathedral) and Rose Garden/Residenz are some of the best places to get a bird's eye view of the city. I've taken some pictures of it and you can really appreciate the history just by looking.

I was blessed to be able to travel to Garmisch-Partenkirchen this summer. Garmisch was the site of the 1936 Winter Olympics! Garmish is a great starting point for those wanting to visit a bunch of castles in the alps. We stayed at a military recreation area called Edelweiss Lodge, and yes, it is every bit as lovely as it seems. It is nestled at the foot of the Alps, with a great view of the Zugspitze, the highest point in Germany. From there, you can do the TRIAD of castles, Linderhof Palace, Hohenschwangau and Neuschwanstein Castle. Neuschwanstein is by far the most popular and well-recognized castle around. It is the castle that Walt Disney used as a model for Cinderella's castle.

When you go to visit it, there is a LONG climb, but they do have busses AND horse and buggies, so the trip can be quite pleasurable. They drop you off at a point where you can either walk the 15 minutes down to the castle, or walk up for a few minutes to Marionsbrücke (Mary's Bridge). This is the absolute BEST place to photograph the castle. We were there in July, so the greenery was lush, the lake in the background was a wonderful blue and...well, it's just breathtaking and hard to explain. This is only one of many pictures I was able to take while there. It is, unequivocally, my best shot (although the one of me with the castle as a backdrop is pretty cool, too). And I was able to play around in Photoshop and create the brushed edge, which I wanted.

It's going to be hard to leave this place, especially when I haven't travelled even HALF as much as I have wanted...but to be able to say I have done it is just amazing!