Servus (bye-bye) Inzell

It's official we finished our first European summer holiday. It has been so great. 

The last three days in Inzell has been fun. A few days ago we went to the Chiemsee, which is a huge freshwater lake about 45 minutes from Jutta's house. Renate gave Ben a ride to the lake in the Morgan. He looked really handsome, I think we might need one when we return. 

The last time I visited the lake was in the middle of winter and absolutely freezing cold with no one around. However, our visit was a perfect summer day.  We were in shock with how many people were there on a Tuesday and it wasn't even school holidays in Bavaria. 

In the lake there are many islands.  We visited the two main islands by ferry. The two main islands are the Herreninsel (gentleman's island) and Fraueninsel (lady's island). The famous King of Bavaria in 1878 built some crazy castle on the Herreninsel. He was also the dude that built the famous Neuschwanstein Castle that inspired the Disney Castle. Unfortunately the lines were too long for a tour. One of the highlights was seeing the fountains working and not boarded up like they were in winter. 

The lady's island housed the nun's only a few hundred years ago, 782, as well as a small village. Today it just has a church, a few little pensions, B & Bs, cafes and little shops. One little shop made hand painted crockery. Benny may have let me purchase a lovely teacup for the many tea times in London. There is a little cafe that serves up the fresh trout caught in the lake. It was so good to finally see this lake when it isn't in the negatives degrees. 

Yesterday, was not such perfect weather. It was a not so hot summer day of 8 degrees. We decided that the day be best spent playing the most amazing German board game, Siedler (Settler). However, the rules of playing this game in Germany is you must speak German to make  it more authentic. Benny was fantastic. Everyone was very impressed how he went with learning a little bit of German over just a small space of time. 

Our 5 days in Inzell were just great to catch up with my German family. The Bavarian food was just amazing. We both jumped on the scales on the last day of the summer holiday and surprisingly none of us put on weight. I am surprised with the litres of beer that Ben has sampled throughout Slovenia and in Inzell.  

Today we travelled to Salzburg to catch a plane back to London. It was a funny feeling landing in London knowing that it isn't really a short holiday and that soon we'll have a postal address here. We finished the night with our first Indian dinner and it was pretty yummy. It is up the road from Melissa and came highly recommended. It may give Punjabi Palace in West End a run for its money. 

Tomorrow we are going to view a few places to live. Melissa has instructed us to do a few little checks before signing our life away. For example heating must work, shower must have pressure and it mustn't be an ex-council home. We are also going to make sure there is plenty of a room for our friends and family to pop in for a visit.