Fairytale like Oberammergau

A lot of things have been happening in my life so unfortunately I abandoned my blog. I have been travelling too often for work and pleasure and this made it difficult to record all interesting experiences on time. I especially regret that I have not been able to write up my memorable trips to Senegal, Gambia, Mali, Ethiopia, Georgia, Columbia and India. Moving to Brussels and commuting to Paris for work and giving birth to my son are other reasons, which made blog posting a challenge. He however turned out to be a very calm baby and now we have no trouble fitting him into our busy lives. At 4 months, he had already traveled to Lithuania, Germany and the Canary Islands. Since I would like him to know the places his parents and he have been to and experiences he had himself, I decided to take on blog writing again. These blog postings might also inspire others to travel more with their children.

The first trip of my 2-month-old son was to introduce him to family and friends in Lithuania during the holiday season. We had a roller-coaster trip to five towns where we visited many restaurants and houses. The baby adjusted to our rhythm super well and smiled a lot at everyone, that is as long as he followed his regular cycles of sleeping and eating. Flying was also a piece of cake since he slept most of the time and take offs and landings did not bother him. So in the end of January, we felt safe about taking him onto a week long trip to Oberammergau in Germany where my husband was sent for work.

Oberammergau is a picturesque village in the German Alps. It is famous for the Passion Play, which was first performed in 1634. The inhabitants of the village swore that if God spared them from the plague then sweeping the region they would perform a passion play every 10 years. The villagers kept their promise and devote a lot of time and resources to the staging of the play and participating in it. Besides Passion Play, Oberammergau has other tourist attractions. It has a long tradition of woodcarving. In its winding streets, one can find many shops selling religious figures and toys. A number of shops displaying Christmas decorations add to the charm of the village. In winter, the village covered in snow looks like a fairy-tale picture. Oberammergau hosts some ski slopes, including the steepest ski slopes in Germany. After skiing, it is pleasant to go Wellenberg, an aqua park which has swimming pools for all ages and even a warm pool outside where we could swim despite the cold.

There are many hotels in Oberammergau but we decided to stay in a nicely decorated apartment in a traditional Bavarian house in the outskirts of the village. Because of the baby we were happy to have lots of space, two bedrooms, a large living room and a washing machine. The owner of the apartment arranged a delivery of fresh Brötchen each morning which was a nice touch. A proximity to the mountains with hiking paths and cross-country skiing trails were useful for walks with a baby. It took about 10 minutes to reach a center of the village so every evening we went to a different restaurant. We tried a few Bavarian food restaurants and found Zur Tini Weinstube to be the best. When we got tired of schnitzels and spätzle (egg noodles), we went to a Mexican restaurant El Puente which did not have authentic Mexican food but nevertheless greeted us with a fun atmosphere and La Montanara which offered a large choice of hearty Italian dishes. S'Wirtshaus Restaurant was our favorite since it had friendly staff and a diverse choice of good quality international dishes.

We did some sightseeing in Bavaria. With a rental car we went to the Neuschwanstein Castle which was an inspiration for the Disneyland's castle. Unfortunately for us, renovation works are going on a half of the facade which completely ruined the beauty of the castle. Nevertheless, we still saw crowds of tourists heading to the castle and figured that the wait would be too long to see the inside of the castle which has never been finished. So on the spur of the moment we turned around and drove instead to see the Linderhof castle. King Ludwig II, who built the Neuschwanstein Castle, commissioned also the construction of Linderhof, but it was only in this castle that he spent a significant amount of time. His goal was to turn the castle into a new Versailles. He succeeded since Linderhof is quite impressive with its spectacular furniture and decorations.