Fabulous Autumn Visit to Germany and France

Kent and I had a wonderful visit to Germany and France earlier this month. Kent stayed for two weeks and I stayed for three. It was a beautiful time to be in Europe. The weather was sunny but cool and the flower boxes were overflowing.

We spent a few days in our old hometown of Kaiserslautern, where we stayed with old friends, went on two volksmarches and went to church at our old ward.

Then we drove to Lyon, France to visit my sister, and spent three days. On the way there we stopped to see the town of Beaune, and on my birthday we spent a lovely day in old Lyon.

We foolishly decided to walk up the stairs to see the church at the top of the hill, instead of taking the funicular.

Here's the church that was at the top of the hill. The views over the city were spectacular.

As we were driving back to Germany, we stopped at Perouges, a picturesque town just an hour away from Lyon. We had a great time roaming the narrow streets.

Next we went to Bavaria, the region of Germany with the Alps. On our first day there we toured Neuschwanstein Castle.

Below is the view out one of the windows in the castle.

We stayed in a holiday apartment in Garmisch. This was the view out the window of the apartment. Those peaks are the same ones that Kent and I went paragliding from a few years ago. When Kent and I took a morning walk along the road you see on the bottom left, we saw lots of paragliders in the sky and landing in a nearby field.

Our main reason for returning to Germany was to attend the Oberammergau Passion Play, which started in 1634 and is only held every ten years.

The play was extremely well done, with great costumes and live animals, but I was disappointed that during a six-hour play about the last days of the Savior's life, I didn't feel the spirit at all. We weren't allowed to take pictures during the play, but here's the stage before it started.

We had lots of time to walk around the town shopping for souvenirs and taking pictures. It was a perfect autumn day. We'd taken blankets for the evening performance, thinking we'd get cold, and we didn't even need them.

Our last day in Bavaria we spent at the Linderhof Castle.

The pictures of a German castle I toured after Kent returned to the states were accidentally deleted before they were saved on the computer, so I'll finish up with pictures from the quilt show I went to in the Alsace region of France.It was AWESOME!! Not only were the quilts AMAZING, but the town itself was so picturesque I took as many pictures of the town as I did of the quilts. The building below isn't a hotel, it's the city hall. I just thought it was a great photo because of the fountain and flowers.The quilts were mostly displayed in lovely old churches, and spread out between three French villages.

This venue was a theater.

Here are two of my favorite quilts. They were both made by Japanese women. But there were dozens of equally stunning and beautiful quilts. We spent two days looking at the quilts and then shopping at the vendors.

We had a fabulous time in Europe and wished we could have stayed longer. There are many things we miss about living there, and it was really, really fun to go back.