And its off to... GERMANY!

 Our school gave us a full week off for Easter break, so since we had no where else to go, we went to Germany! After some planning, we decided to go to Düsseldorf, Hanover, and Hamburg. It might've been the snowiest, coldest, and windiest spring break possible, but it was well worth it.

  First stop was Düsseldorf. Flying in, we noticed that we appeared to be landing in an old World War II air force base. Sure enough, we saw that there were camouflage hangers and barracks everywhere as we left. The city in located on the Rhine river and is home to a lot of respected fine art exhibits and architecture. We spent a few days exploring the city and seeing the sights, as well as taking a trip to a Baroque-era palace. Interestingly this palace had some of the only gardens in world to be fully preserved in the original style of the Baroque era.

Me on the Rhine River at sunset

BJ and I in the "Old City" part of Düsseldorf

BJ at the front of Benrath Palace

BJ and I behind Benrath Palace in the gardens

BJ in front of the reflecting pool that is oddly similar to the one used at the end of the Pride and Prejudice movie

Benrath Palace with the reflecting pool

Me behind Benrath Palace.. it started snowing as we were leaving

BJ in the snow, with the lake out front of Benrath Palace

While visiting an art museum, it started snowing pretty hard!  This is the courtyard for the museum

BJ enjoying some of their more "modern" art

  From there, we traveled by train through the German countryside to the smaller city of Hanover. This proved to be the most interesting of the three cities, as it offered a little bit of everything. Firstly, we were able to take a bus about an hour and a half into the country in order to visit Marienburg castle. By visiting this castle, we were able to learn about the interesting history of Hanover. As it turns out, the royal family which ruled Hanover were actually deeply linked with the history of England as well. The family was able to expand its reign and produce Kings George I-V of Great Britain (and maybe some more). As a result of this massive reign, the castle was built by the partially blind King George 5 as a gift to his wife to use as a summer home. Although it was never fully completed, it was so magnificently built that it was used as the model for Disney's Sleeping Beauty castle. Back in Hanover, we traveled around on a city tour (although mostly everything was closed for Easter) and saw all of the sites we could fit into one day.

Our first glimpse of Marienburg Castle!

Me inside the snowy courtyard.

BJ and I at one of the castle entrances off of the courtyard

We hiked though the mud around the castle, just for this awesome photo!

The beautiful New Town Hall in Hannover

Inside the main entrance to the town hall

Miniature replica of the city in 1689.  The river and walls surround the city for protection. 

Hannover at the beginning of World War II

Hannover post World War II, its not just the main buildings in the city that are destroyed, its the entire city.

Hannover Today.  Everything is rebuilt, and the city has restored its historic areas to its former glory.

The New Town Hall from across a partially frozen lake.

A memorial and reminder of World War II.  This old church was mostly destroyed during the war, and was left as a reminder of peace today.  Inside the walls, was a peace bell donated by Hannover's sister city of Hiroshima, Japan.

Part of the remains of the walls from 1600 Hannover.  This was one of the original entrances to the city,  and even has the seal of the royal family across the top of the arch.

Part of Hannover's Old City.

BJ with one of the three "Nanas" 

BJ inside of part of the Herrenhausen Gardens

Me inside of the gardens

Us at the front of the Gardens

  From there, we went to the final city of Hamburg. This city was by far the largest, and had the feeling of a major city. This is due to its important location on a very large inlet of the North Sea - allowing for it to be considered one of the most important ports in all of Europe. We were able to see and experience a lot of different things here - from German cuisine of wiener schnitzel and even waffles on a stick, to huge works of modern architecture, to tunnels crossing underneath the huge port inlets.

Church in the main shopping district of Hamburg

Beautiful Building in downtown Hamburg

More of the beautiful architecture in Hamburg

Town Hall of Hamburg

BJ with one of Hamburg's lakes behind him

Me by the lake on the first day in Hamburg

Beautiful rainbow on our way to dinner

BJ and his new bff =)

Me at the Port in Hamburg

In the tunnel heading under the river

BJ and I across the tunnel looking back towards Hamburg

St. Michealis Church

The front of the sanctuary 

Massive organ in the balcony of the church

  All in all, it was a fun trip and a great experience. It was nice to be able to converse with people in English, to see how Germany rebuilt its cities after the war, and to experience the culture of another European country!

Classes finally started... So here are some of our adventures in Torino

   Traveling has slowed down a little since the last update because our classes have finally started.  We have had to be responsible. =( Since we have had to stay in Torino, we decided to explore some of the local museums and historic sites.  Our first stop was the Palazzo Reale, which is the Royal Palace of the Savoy family.  The Savoys have a very deep history in the Piedmont/Torino area.  The Savoy family held the position of King of Italy from its inception to the last King, in 1946.  During much of this time, Torino was the capital of Italy, and thus it has a great amount of history. Unfortunately we were not able to get many pictures inside the Royal Palace, but I have included one picture we took below.

This is in the entry way to Palazzo Reale

  After visiting Palazzo Reale we decided to venture to the top of a nearby mountain to see a beautiful view of Torino.  On this mountain is the Basilica di Superga, which was built in the early 1700s by a member of the Savoy family.  We learned that when Italy was retaking their independence from French occupation (in the Torino-Piedmont region), he climbed to the top of the mountain and vowed to Mary that if he won the battle, he would build her a huge monument in that spot. In the basement of the Basilica is the Royal Tomb of the Savoy family, including many of the princes, kings, and queens.

Me in front of the Basilica

BJ on the other side of the Basilica

Inside the church

The dome of the church

  We also went to the Egyptian Museum in Torino, which houses the world's second largest collection of Egyptian Artifacts outside of Cario, Egypt.  (artifacts obtain mostly by the Savoy funds, of course) The museum had a little of everything, from actual mummies, to pots, to special artifacts they would place in tombs for the afterlife.  I took a lot of pictures in the museum, but I am only going to include the best ones.

This is the inner coffin, they decorated them very elaborately

I don't think this piece had any real significance, but I thought it was a nice necklace =)

This was put in a tomb to ensure the man and woman buried in it had the boat they needed to take them to the afterlife

They had a really cool section with statues from pyramids

I believe this one was of King Tut and one of the gods

This is classic Egyptian sphinx from what we see in movies.  They had two in the museum, one with a nose and one without.  BJ insisted on a picture of the one without because that is always what is shown in movies

King Tut

They had a replica room of a part of a tomb, and I wanted a picture in it!

No matter the museum, Italy always goes all out in architecture.  This is one of the stairways in the museum.

This is a pharaoh's sarcophagus, but I don't remember the pharaoh's name.