Easily Distracted

Did I ever tell you I have ADD? Well, I do. And that means I tend to be distracted easily.

Case in point, this morning. It’s Saturday, so I figured I’d start looking through the vacation pics.

I’m not sure yet how I’ll share them. By how, I mean chronologically, like, “on this day we did this…” or by categories, like maybe “painted houses.”

One of the highlights of the trip for me was visiting Oberammergau. It’s a small town in Bavaria, in Southern Germany, I’d first passed through on our very first trip to the region in 2010. We were on a motorcycle tour, spending nights in nearby Austria and days visiting various sights and enjoying local motorcycle roads.

Since we were with a group, I couldn’t stop. but I’d really, REALLY wanted to stop. It was the first time I’d seen houses like this…

How cool is that?

According to this website about the town:

Luftl (Luftmalerei) fresco paintings are the characteristic decorations on houses in Alpine regions. They date back to the 18th century when wealthy merchants, farmers and craftsmen showed their wealth and status with colorful frescoes on the façade of their houses. The paintings often incorporated existing architectural structures, such as windows or doors, or took the form of medallions or scenes from the Bible, fairy tales or folk festivals.

Here’s another example…

As this blog post about a neighboring town says,

The Bavarians have a long history of decorating the exteriors of their houses and businesses with both religious and historic paintings. …buildings…have unique murals on the outside walls of the buildings. Some depict an event or animals and other paintings make the buildings look like they have things (windows, statues, etc.) that really are not there.

I’d wanted BADLY to stop for a closer look, but couldn’t leave or delay my group, so on we went to a fantastic day of motorcycle riding and castle tours. But I never forgot.

That’s how we ended up in Oberammergau about two-thirds of the way through our trip. And why thoughts of places like Prague, Vienna, and Salzburg didn’t stir my anticipation nearly as much as Oberammergau.

We were only there briefly, but, don’t worry, I have more pics to share.

From there, we headed west and slightly north toward Schaffhausen, Switzerland, where we’d be meeting our friend, Tammi, in a day or so. Since we had time, we decided to visit a couple of King Ludwig’s castles in the area. Linderhof was first, then Neuschwanstein.

Hubby and I had seen both during that first trip to Austria. But Annelies and Yves hadn’t.

As it turns out, we took the exact same road from Linderhof to Neuschwanstein. And it wasn’t long before we started seeing this…

Yep, motorcycles. Zipping past us in our big-by-European-standards SUV.

It’s a good thing Annelies was driving. She’s much more conservative than me on roads like that.

It was a good road.

 

There was a pretty lake, too.

 

The coolest Deer Warning sign I have ever seen.

The deer are saying something like, “You’d think they would slow down now.” You know, since they’re showing their big, glowing, devilish and/or alien-like eyes!

This time, I was able to stop for a pic. 🙂

That drive brought back lots of good memories. It made we want to ride, too.

In fact, seeing these pics remind me just how much it made me want to ride.

And that is exactly why this post is ending here.