Hit the Ground Running!!

My parents arrived!!  Their flight came in Monday evening and Tuesday morning we got in the car and went to our first destination:  Regensburg.  This is a fairly un-touristy city about an hour south of us and we took my friend Georgina with us because she lived there for a number of years and could give us great tour information.

Regensburg has a really large medieval old town with narrow, cobbled streets to explore and beautiful buildings.  We started with the Rathaus and then continued down to the Danube to eat at their famous sausage kitchen.  It's an original, at least the oldest, and you can order just sausages on a bun with sauerkraut and their own sweet mustard and it was really delicious.  In fact, I bought some mustard to eat at home and have really enjoyed it with fresh rolls and salami and cheese!!  I really love a lot of German food!!  On the walls of the sausage kitchen they had the high water marks from various floodings of the Danube.  Some almost reaching the roof!

Georgina told us that one of the architects of several buildings in Regensburg put carvings in the buildings of mice.  One of the buildings is now a music school and they got so tired of people coming in to see the mouse that they moved it outside.

William's been our companion for our adventures and the girls have been in school.  

Yay for having mom and dad here!!!

I can't remember who this guy was except that he was the illegitimate son of a prince and loved by the people and there was a whole bunch more to his story that I probably should remember.  

The view along the Danube 

Eating our delicious sausages.  So much for being gluten free!!!!

We walked out to the Thurn und Taxis palace.  The Thurn und Taxis family still owns it but there are buildings that you can go in.  My favorite was St. Emmeram's church which I hadn't seen before.  It was absolutely breath-taking!!  They had a big bell inside that dad and I joked about ringing and running and then as we're leaving the church, some ladies did!!  It was pretty funny actually.

This was an amazing church.  It had a fantastic mix of the really old with the faded and worn and then the gilded, ornamental church

Beautiful painted ceilings

 

I always love the organ too

Is it bad that I took a picture of this??  So many churches have relics -- pieces of saints bodies and clothes.  I don't really understand it honestly but the reliquaries that they make to contain these things are really beautiful.  But I'm sorry this one completely cracked me up because usually when we see a full skeleton they're in repose on pillows/beds or whatever.  Look at this one!!  He's totally hanging out for a model shoot propped on one arm with a feather in the other hand.

 

We'll be going back here at Christmastime I think.  There's a museum we want to see with royal carriages and at Christmastime they have a Christmas market that is supposed to be really good.

Our last stop was St. Peter's Cathedral.  I am always amazed by the work done by hand that has gone into these churches and cathedrals and palaces too.  So many people with amazing gifts and I love that they use those gifts to glorify God even if their beliefs and style are not my own.

Ok this picture is the only one I took at Chopper's birthday celebration!!  How horrible is that?

We celebrated Chopper's FORTIETH BIRTHDAY after we got home with pulled pork and potato salad and then a drive down to Penguino Eis for gelato.  It wasn't my parents first gelato experiences but Penguino's is so good!!  The kids picked these flowers for mom and she wore them behind her ears.

Chopper mainly got books for his birthday and it was really low key but then he never wants a big celebration or party anyway.  Plus he decided to take time off to extend his weekend and claim our travel as part of his birthday so I think it was a good one.  Hard to believe that he's 40 though.  I'm not that far behind of course but it feels weird to get older.  Actually it just doesn't feel like we're older than our twenties!!!