I’ve been traveling to Germany for the past decade, and this was I think my 10th trip? I tried to count them up, but I can’t remember how many times I hopped across the border while studying in Prague. It’s like asking me to count how many times I’ve been to Portland. We’ve been to Munich a half a dozen times – after all, H grew up there. But for this trip, we knew we wanted a few day away from everything to just explore a new place. We looked at a bunch of different places, but when I saw this apartment on Airbnb, I knew we were coming to Schwangau.

Schwangau is where Neuschwanstein is – spoiler alert: we didn’t go to Neuschwanstein – and Hohenschwagau. It’s very typically Bavarian. In fact, on our second day there, the dairy across the street let their cows out into the field in the first photo. It was loud, and kinda smelly, but so very Bavarian. We laughed, and headed out to visit a few castles.

If you’ve ever been to Leavenworth, and loved it, you’re going to love the real Bavaria. Leavenworth, while good, isn’t anything like the real deal. The first morning, I woke up and snuck out on the balcony. The mist was out (that’s the first photo) and it was perfection. We wandered around and ate cake at a beautiful old cafe. I visited a cemetery (you can learn a lot about a village by how they treat their dead). We hiked a mountain with a baby and visited a castle. We almost got caught in the rain (which is why we didn’t make it to Neuschwanstein) and read books in the hammock on the balcony. It was good.