If you have never taken a road trip, it is something you simply must do. Carrie and I have taken a couple of long road trips together, and we loved them – despite not loving all the time in the car, we got to stop and see a lot of fun things. (Caveat: It should go without saying, but if you are taking a road trip, take it with people whom you enjoy spending a LOT of time with.)
If you have never gotten to take a road trip across Europe, it’s something you simply must do.

Especially coming from the United States, driving through the Italian and Austrian Alps is quite an experience. To see the landscape dotted with these amazing castles around nearly every bend in the road just speaks volumes of the history that formed this region of the world, and is such a beautiful accompaniment to the drive down the road.
So, the next time we go back, we’ll have to plan a road trip where we go and visit some of these castles in the Alps, but for this trip, we had the destination of Munich, so that we could see our friend Anne. We had just seen Anne for our wedding, and had made arrangements to stay with her while we visited Munich.
Just some background: Anne (ahn-uh), Mara, and I all met at the university in Oldenburg, Germany in 2001. Mara was an exchange student, as was I, and Anne was a full-time student there (just to restate the point, she’s German). (If you’ll remember from this post, Oldenburg is very near where we stayed with Carrie’s family in Bad Zwischenahn, Germany).
So, after a beautiful drive through the Italian Alps, the Austrian Alps, and a foggy but beautiful time in the German Alps, we got to Munich. (This trip also included sing-alongs with Disney songs and the sountrack to Mamma Mia.) In Munich, we did the re-greetings with everyone, including Anja (ahn-yuh), a friend of Anne’s, who has also become our friend.
Anne took us to one of her favorite places for dinner, which was a steakhouse (felt a little bit odd to be eating at a steakhouse in Germany when we come from Colorado (Colorado has great beef)), but it was really a nice place and good to catch up and reminisce about the time that we spent together in Germany in 2001, talk about our wedding and honeymoon up to that point, and make plans for the next couple of days in Munich.