Saxony-Swiss, Königstein Fortress, and our last days in Deutschland

Ah yes...what a awesome place Saxony-Swiss! First off there is the mountains and beautiful scenery. On top of that there is a ton of history and some cool touristy stuff (organ grinder = purty nifty)! Joni´s camera was dead (sad story, no time for a funeral though) so only I (Cara) took any pics. Too be on the safe side therefore I tried to take a minimum of 500 so I think perhaps there may be a few winnners among them :P Volker playing the zither was lovely, it looked quite challenging to play and sounded wonderful. He played some hymns and some old folks songs and because the zither was such an old instrument I thought some sepia pics were in order, the glasses gave them cool depth perhaps, or just made the pics look odd (u can decide, but I liked them ;) Now Joni and I are packing our suitcases to come home...its QUITE depressing. We will miss the people in Germany, the beautiful scenery, the perfect weather (especially Cara returning to the oven she calls home), and of course the food. Joni and I have become quite addicted to Apfel Schorle *, its great stuff, yes we have developed a bit of a drinking problem. We are also probably going to suffer from chocolate withdrawls when we get home so to prevent this terrible phenomenon we purchased enough chocolate to begin a small candy store WOOPY!!! We had better get back to haphazardly shoving everything into our suitcases with reckless abandon and that means ending the blog here...bye folks...Joni will add more to this when she gets back to the states!
*Apfel Schorle = fizzy water + apple juice (non-alchoholic. folks, did we worry u for a minute)

A close up of Volker playing the Zither. It looked quite confusing to play.

Volker playing the Zither. It was quite beautiful. Very few people learn to play it anymore, so it was quite unique.

This is the drawbridge at Königstein Fortress. It was quite neat actually seeing some of the things we've read or heard about, in person!

This is Königstein Fortress. Yes, it looks a lot like a castle, but it was just for protection basically. It had like 5 differenet levels and gates and walls before you could get in.

In the wine cellar at the fortress. They drank wayyyyy too much wine. This cellar was like as big as a football field. And über cold.

A view from the top of the Fortress.

This is some of the neat rock formations nearby the Fortress. It was the Elbe Sandstone Mountains (in english) and it was at the Saxon Switzerland National Park (also the english version).

This is one view from the top of the Fortress.

On the way up to the Fortress, we saw an organ grinder. It was a real authentic one! He was only missing the monkey!

Castle, Czech Republic, Saigon Restaurant

The last few days have been quite fun. Perhaps the funnest part for me (Cara) was staying in the garden house and watching the sunset. Also, we visited a castle, I mean how cool is that!!! I took a bunch of photos from the window of the castle. Talk about a lot of steps to the top of the tower. We also viewed the Czech Republic from afar and then up close at the Czech markets right across the border. The sellers stand outside and shout BILLIG, BILLIG meaning CHEAP, CHEAP and were always trying to sell Joni and I cigarettes, poor them, they didn´t have any luck :( The Asian restaurant was beautifully decorated, with all bamboo furniture, and delicious, exotic-authentic food...yum, yum! Today we went and visited two older ladies,mother and daughter professed recently and heard their testimony and had tea and cake...lots of cake, yummy cake. The whole thing was very SWEET. The flower photos are from the garden there. Overall the last few days have been just dandy.Another flower picture, with butterflies!

Cara is extremely good with close-up flower pics. This one even looks abstractyish.

This was actually the chair where a newlywed couple sat when Heidi and Volker were here before. But we weren't the couple. Check out the cool napkins.

This is the entrance to Saigon Restaurant. It was pretty much superfantastic.

This is inside the Saigon Restaurant. It was a Vietnamese restuarant that had EVERYTHING made out of bamboo. Also, everything was handmade by the owner!

Cara and I walked to the hunter's stand and climbed up and sang hymns. To the horses. They were very attentive. We think they professed.

The beautiful sunset we saw when we were spending the night at the garden house (just me and Cara).

There was everything and anything for sale at the Czech Market!

The Czech Market, in the Czech Republic. The funny thing was, all the people selling things were asian!

We were standing in Germany and this is a mountain in the Czech Repulic!

This was the Sharfenstein Castle, it was only a little castle, but it was pretty interesting anyways.

Here is the tower in the castle, that we climbed.

The windows were fantastic!

The view from the wonderful windows!