We arrived in Landsberg Am Lech just before midday on Saturday 1 December. It was cold and overcast, but we still ventured out to explore the town and it's beautiful old buildings. We then drove South to see the Wieskirche, a beautiful, old, Baroque style church in the small town of Wies. The whole countryside was blanketed in snow - it really did look like something you see on a postcard. After a quick look inside the church, we warmed up with some traditional Bavarian food in the nearby restaurant and then continued South to Neuschwanstein Castle, probably Germany's most famous castle. A hot cup of gluwein in hand, we got in line for the horse-carriage trip up to the castle. Unfortunately it was a quite overcast so we missed out on some of the views, but the castle tour was fascinating - its great that they are able to preserve everything so well. After the tour we walked back down to the car in the dark and then made our way back up to Munich. Barbara really was a champ with the driving, especially having to deal with all the accidents and traffic because of the black ice. For dinner that night we went to a Vietnamese sushi restaurant which was delicious. It was also fun to remember our time back in Vietnam - so much has happened since then!

Sunday was going to be quite a long day so we were up early to make the most of it. First up, we headed North to the town of Ingolstadt. There we had a quick look around the courtyard area of a smallish fort, before heading into the old town center. It was a Sunday and pretty cold too so most people were indoors, leaving the streets quite deserted which was a bit strange :-) We came upon another big old church which we spent some time looking around. Barbara kindly treated us to a hot coffee and some cake to warm up, and then it was back to the car and onwards and upwards to the next town - which I can't remember the name of now :-/

We arrived later that afternoon and made straight for the small town square, where the Christmas market was in full swing. We had a good look around at all the stalls and were even lucky enough to win some prizes in the local raffle :-) We visited another beautiful, old church just off the square and then wandered around town a bit more enjoying the festive atmosphere. We stopped again at the market for a 'white gluwein' - a speciality of the region i think. Then it was back to the car and off to out next stop - Nürnberg. We quickly checked into our hostel and immediately headed off to the famous Christmas market - apparently the oldest and biggest in Germany. It is spread out over multiple squares and is completely packed with people so it took us quite a while to look through everything - there are just so many cool Christmas things and yummy treats! Later, we went to a real local 'pub' for dinner which was really cool. We had some traditional sausage and potato salad with some local beers to wash it down - delicious. By now we were exhausted so headed straight back to the hostel to bed.

Monday we grabbed an early breakfast at the hostel and then went to visit the Palace of Justice, the site of the infamous Nuremberg Trials. A section of the building now serves as a museum, documenting what happened during those days in late November 1945. Even though it is still a working courthouse, we were able to go into courtroom 600, the room where the actual trials took place. After Nuremberg, we drove North to meet Barbara's mom, who lives in Bad Homburg vor der Höhe, a small town on the outskirts of Bonn.