Wolfratshausen, Bavaria and Marchenwald Fairy Tales Land. 6 days in Bavaria. Places to visit and things to do.

I was based in Wolfratshausen a 90 minute train journey from Munich Airport, staying with friends for a week in July. This is my 2nd visit to see them. The first trip in 2016, I explored further a field only visiting their village for a coffee and to catch the train. This trip I spent a day exploring and there was so much to do. There's not a lot of English spoken there, but I got by with coffee and having google maps was a lifesaver, especially as I didn't have to pay roaming changes with my UK sim.

Fountains

Beautifully decorated buildings

Parks

Several river crossings

Maypole

Churches

Monuments and statues

Wonderful little cafes to sit and drink coffee, people watch and watch the world go by

Marchenwald Fairy Tale Land.

Yes please one ticket. It's aimed at families with small children and there were lots of primary school groups visiting when I was there. I felt a little conscious taking photographs and made sure I didn't capture any children in the shots, but it meant I spent a lot of time lurking in the trees, waiting for the are to clear. i was always going to look dodgy whatever I did lol.

All the fairy tales told were accessed by the press of a button in both German and English. 

Indoor play areas

Woodland walks

The story of Rapunzel, is about a pregnant woman who craves some rapunzel or  rampion as it translates into English, which is a salad leaf growing in a witches garden, her husband is caught stealing it and in exchange for their lives they have to hand over the baby girl. At the age of 12 Rapunzel is locked  

in a tower, until she is rescued by a blind Prince who hears her signing, on her release, Rapunzel cries and her tears restore the Prince's sight.

Hansel and Gretel. My favourite Grimm's fairytale. It tells the story of two young children abandoned in the woods, probably due to the fact it was the great famine and families could not afford to feed themselves and their children.

Innsbruck Austria and the Olympic Ski Jump. 6 days in Bavaria. Places to visit and things to do.

It was around a 2 hour drive to Innsbruck, driving through narrow lanes in villages through the Alps. The route I drove took me through the old border crossing, otherwise I wouldn't have known I'd crossed from Germany into Austria.

At the border to purchase my vignette

Driving through the Alps

Like the rest of Bavaria, Innsbruck has some fascinating buildings, churches, lanes, markets, churches, restaurants and souvenir shops. It was a very pretty town to photograph and wander around. I didn't visit any of the museums or attractions, I just spent my time wandering around in the sunshine, drinking coffee and people watching. I've now got an excuse to go back.

And of course no visit to Innsbruck is complete until you've visited the Bergisel Ski Jump

How Does Your Garden Grow - Kruger National Park

It doesn't rain in South Africa in the winter and after the drought and water shortage from last summer, Kruger National park is very dry and very brown. The river levels are very low and some river beds have dried up completely.

However Kruger is still stunning, with amazing scenery and wildlife. You can tell when you're near water as the grass and shrubs are greener, other than that there is very little colour unless you look very hard at the picnic sites where the flora is looked after.

Week 2 of One Daily Positive, Project365, FMSPHOTOADAY, Snap Happy Brit Mums

Week 2

Well this week has ended much better than I could’ve hoped for. The house we’ve rented is now ready for us to move into, although we don’t have the residency visas yet, so our container sits in storage at the docks until we can clear customs and our air freight is still in South Africa, a total waste of time and money.

Having decided on New Year I was going to take back seat and try to relax and enjoy dubai a little bit more, this week has seen me out and about using the public transport daily. More luck than judgement and a lot of going round in circles but with the NOL silver travel card it really isn’t expensive, just time consuming and I'm sure I'm getting to see much more of Dubai than a tourist would.

One or two wasted journeys, like a visit to Dubai outlet mall, never heard of half the shops and besides the big sales are on here from Jan 1^st till Feb 1st which are called the Dubai Shopping Festival and in it's 20th year and such bargains to be had. It’s the 19 year olds birthday soon and he's parted me from my money in a variety of shops and I’m on the look out for a gas double oven as houses don’t come with them included as part of the fittings, you get kitchen cupboards and bathroom suites and anything and everything the previous tenants left behind, including a really ugly water feature that I’m going to drag out to the bin.

Tying together #fmsphotoaday and #snaphappybritmums incorportating #onedailypositive into #project365 here are my photos for the week

Day 5 #square and #8am 

Living in a hotel is tedious especially as you approach your 5^th week in one. The novelty of eating out is now a chore night after night. My daily positive is to appreciate the simple things in life, so at 8am it’s tea and toast

Day 6 #round #frost/ #ice/ #snow

A visit to Ski Dubai at the Mall of Emirates. Although I haven’t actually been yet, in fact the one and only time I went skiing was to Gloucester ski slope pre kids and my eldest is now 22. I’ve cheated with #round as in I stood and watched the ski lifts go round and round and I'm sure some people never got off, were just there for the ride. There’s no frost/ice/snow in Dubai, it’s the middle of winter and 25c. The last time I saw any snow was in South Africa in 2012 when it snowed in Pretoria for the first time since 1963. I very much doubt it’ll ever snow here.

My daily positive today is to take what life offers you and to embrace it

Day 7 #onedailypositive #project365 #currentlyreading #fmsphotoaday #lookingdown #snaphappybritmums

Studying the bus timetable from the hotel bedroom. My daily positive is to stop stressing out with where I’m trying to go and where I actually end up and just enjoy the ride.

Day 8 #landscape #I’mReading

A tough one this, could’ve just reposted yesterdays picture, but no I am taking this challenge seriously. I’m searching for cafes and places with free wifi until we move into our new home. I’m saving #project365 blog posts to read while I'm out and about in case I can’t find any wifi, but today I’ve managed to incoperate both themes and a daily positive with very little effort. I’ve walked 10 minutes from the house for coffee and wifi to read. This is my daily positive, that I can just do this.

Day 9 #pattern #greatoutdoors

I’m trying to take a picture each day on the day, but this is one from earlier on this week whilst driving to the outlet mall, the trip itself may have been pointless but the scenery was amazing and this pattern of trees broke up the highway for at least 2 miles, we tried counting them, but gave up pretty soon. My daily positive is that this arrangement of trees reminded me of our holiday to Egypt in 2009, not trees but an avenue of sphinxs marking the path from the temple of Luxor to the temple of Karnak and it made hubby and I start discussing our next holiday toghether, probably to Istanbul in March/April

Day 10 #hello #countryside

Well this is my new country side, about 15kms outside the city and into the desert, miles upon miles of sand. I was very surprised to see these 2 camels just strolling along and it was a few minutes before I actually spotted them. My daily positive is that this may not be south Africa and I may not have wanted to leave there, but there are so many unknown things here in the UAE for me to discover and explore

Day 11 #Isee #muddy 

  

It rarely rains here in Dubai so I don’t expect to see a lot of mud and the ground is sand anyway. The house we’ve rented is now ready to move into. The rent was paid and contract signed on the 7^th December, due to the landlady failing to check that the work had been carried out on the house, the relocation person and rental agent being on holiday and us arriving on Dec 19^th in the middle of the holiday period the house remained like this until this week, even though we cant move in it yet due to our container being in storage until we get our residency visas, we can at least now visit the house twice a day to feed the cat and dog and it is clean, with running water so we can use the loo and wash the dogs bowls and blankets without getting covered in dirt and filth. Todays positive is to ‘let it go’ let the negativity go and accept that this is what happened and nothing other than the endless calls and emails would’ve have sorted it out any earlier.