May 12 - 132/365

18-55mm lens @ 34mm, f/4.5, 1/30, ISO 500

Ooh la la.... oh wait, that's French, and now we are in Austria. But regardless, this image is of one of the most historic chocolate cakes. The Sacher torte was created by 16-year-old Franz Sacher in 1832 on a short-notice demand from Prince Clemens Lothar Wenzel Metternich of Austria. The young chef quickly whipped up the now infamous Sacher torte which quickly became a dessert commanded by Austrian  royalty, including the Empress Maria Theresia of Austria. Needless to say, being the chocoholic that I am, I had to have my very own piece of this historic chocolate cake. While I can't say that it was the best piece of chocolate cake I have ever had, it was still fun to eat a little piece of Austrian history in the town of Innsbruck, Austria. :-)

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May 11 - 131/365

18-55mm lens @ 30mm, f/10, 1/160, ISO 200

This was definitely one of my most favorite days in Germany. 1) It was the first completely nice day we had. The sun was shining and it actually felt a little warm outside after days of overcast skies and rain. 2) We got our first glimpse of the Alps, the most magnificent mountain range I have ever seen and with crystal clear water below the most beautiful shade of turquoise blue - you don't expect to see that in a lake. 3) Today was "Mad" King Ludwig castle day. Well, not officially, but for us it was. We were able to tour three of King Ludwig of Bavaria's castles, one of which is the most famous castle in all of Germany, Neuschwanstein. Ludwig was King of Bavaria and LOOOOVED to spend money and build castles. In fact, he spent so much money (which he borrowed and didn't actually have) that his family was forced to declare him legally insane so that they could regain control of his accounts and keep him from spending any more money. His sudden death days after he called off his engagement was shrouded in mystery as he was found dead in a lake with his physician, and no one to this day knows if it was murder or suicide. Craaaaazy! His death left all but one of his castles unfinished inside, but you can still tour the finished parts. The castle pictured above, called Hoenschwangau, was the castle that King Ludwig spent his childhood in with his family. While it wasn't the most magnificent castle we saw that day, I loved the surrounding scenery with the lake and the mountains in this photo the best.

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May 10 - 130/365

18-55mm lens @ 24mm, f/4, 1/13, ISO 100

We move from beer to cuckoo clocks, a product that is best known in the Black Forest region of Germany. We had finished up a 2-night stay in Baden-Baden and spent the next rainy, foggy day driving through the actual "Black Forest", called the Schwarzwalder in German, to our final destination for the day of Fussen. On our way from Baden-Baden to Fussen, we decided to stop in a small town called Triberg for a picnic lunch where we spotted a store that boasted it contained "100,000 clocks"! It was a total tourist trap, and we knew it, but we couldn't pass up the opportunity to see that many clocks at once.... and it did not disappoint. :-) Of course I had to take a shot of the plethora of cuckoo clocks we saw there.  Good thing the store didn't have them all set to go off at the same time!

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May 9 - 129/365

18-55mm lens @ 18mm, f/3.5, 1/6, ISO 800

The word "Germany" brings certain items/images to mind.... sausage, sauerkraut, castles, cuckoo clocks.... and of course, beer. LOTS of beer. At this point in our trip, we hadn't tried much beer. We had been sampling more wine than beer since we were in a region known for their wine. Not to mention that we hadn't been able to enjoy any biergartens since the weather was cold and wet and not good for sitting outside. So for our second dinner in the town of Baden-Baden in the Black Forest region of Germany, we asked our waiter which beer to try, unsure of which kind to try first. The next thing we knew, our young German waiter [who spoke good English] brought us a tray of beer "samples", which he ultimately did not charge us for. We tried Pilsners, Marzens, Dunkels, Hefewizens, IPAs..... probably one or two others that I can't remember. We loved them all. Of course we had our favorites, with the unfiltered Hefewizens being our #1 favorite throughout our trip. But the best part was the experience of talking to the waiter, being treated to a sampling of every local beer they had to offer, and enjoying a great meal of pretzels, sausages, sauerkraut, and other traditional German foods after a great day in the baths of Baden-Baden.

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May 8 - 128/365

18-55mm lens @ 55mm, f/8, 1/125, ISO 200

Nurburgring.... the king of all race tracks. So my husband tells me, because he is the car fanatic and I am the chocolate/shopping fanatic. :-) This is the most dangerous race track in the world, earning it the nickname "The Green Hell" and serving as the major benchmark for testing the performance of newly manufactured cars. Nurburgring was also one of the most anticipated attractions in Germany for my husband, who would have done anything to take a fast car around this track for a few laps. Unfortunately, that experience was not meant to happen for us that day for a number of logistical reasons that I won't bother explaining here. But he did get to drive a Lotus to tour the track that afternoon, where we got a personalized tour of the track up and close, watching lots of cars that were practicing for an upcoming "24 hours" race. It was amazing to see these cars whip around some of the turns on this track, trying to go as fast as possible but also follow certain "rules" that earned them points for staying within lines, hugging curves a certain way, etc [don't ask me.... I don't entirely get it :-P]. It was quite an experience to see, but I made sure to remind my husband of the entire afternoon I spent with him at the racetrack when I was ready to do some shopping in the next town. :-)

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May 7 - 127/365

18-55mm lens @ 55mm, f/7.1, 1/100, ISO 200

We had spent the past 2 days touring the Rhine Valley in western Germany. After leaving the town of Bacharach, we drove ~1hr north west to another river valley area known as the Mosel Valley. The Mosel had been described as a "sleepier version" of the Rhine. But we went to the region for just one night with 2 attractions in mind - Burg Eltz [another wonderfully preserved medieval castle] and the Nurburgring race track [see tomorrows photo for more on that sight]. I had a tough time choosing one photo for the day, but I ultimately chose this one for a few reasons. First, it gives you a great birds-eye view of the town we stayed the night in, Cochem, and the castle that overlooked the town and the Mosel River below. Beautiful countryside, dotted with vineyard plots growing grapes for the famous German Riesling wine. Second, this image also gives you an idea of the weather we were encountering during almost our entire trip. We had expected to tour Germany and Austria in sunshine with temperatures close to 70F. Well, some kind of freak system had settled over almost all of Europe for a few weeks, and we had almost 3 full weeks of fog, drizzle, rain, and temps around 45F-50F. Not what we had expected.... or prepared for! So this also made taking outdoor photos quite a challenge, and there is a lot of post processing done on many of the outdoor photos to reduce the glare from the fog. But the castle, the Mosel, and the wine were still amazing and quite enjoyable!

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May 6 - 126/365

18-55mm lens @ 18mm, f/3.5, 1/15, ISO 800

Since I will be probably showing you lots of photos of the outside of castles we saw in Germany, I thought it might be fun to show you the inside of one for once. Usually I don't get to take too many photos of castle and palace interiors because they just won't let you, but today we were allowed to take photos in one of the castles we visited, Burg Rheinfels. This particular image is of the bedroom of the Duchess of the castle, decorated in 19th century decor.

I also just want to quickly mention one point about my shooting process for the photos I'm going to be posting from our vacation. I have been doing most of my shooting in Manual or Aperture priority mode over the past few months, during which I have been teaching myself about my camera and how to optimize each photo I take. And as much as I wish I could have continued shooting in that carefully planned manner during my trip, the truth is it just isn't possible. Or at least, not very efficient when we are touring multiple castles/museums and walking miles each day, plus taking tons of photos.... it would unfortunately take me way too long to take each photo and my husband would probably keep going without me. :-P So for almost every shot taken on my vacation, I was shooting in "Program" mode, adjusting minor settings like aperture or ISO when absolutely necessary and doing the remaining editing in the RAW files here at home. I'm still recording the shot details under each photo in case you want to know the nitty gritty, but just be aware that I didn't specifically choose each of those settings like I usually do.

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