Luke's First Europe Trip

 Hello! Well, we made to it Bavaria last night to the town of Rothenburg (see map below). As the weather was turning colder, we decided this would be more of a relaxing portion of the trip. Believe it or not, our goal for this trip was to have it be more relaxing, which is why we decided to visit a bunch of small towns with Christmas Markets rather than large cities where we'd have to walk and travel extensively to see all the sights. We also thought that Luke would enjoy seeing the small towns - but, as it turned out, he has been mostly enjoying his toys, coloring books, snacks, dinosaurs, and TV shows...oh well.  After a slow morning, we looked outside to see snow dumping down on the town. I stepped outside to gauge what the weather was like, and the wind was whipping up and down the narrow cobble-stone streets. I checked AccuWeather and it said that with the wind chill, the temperature outside was 8 degrees F!  Regardless, we stomped out confidently into the streets to...

 Guten Tag from Germany! (Jessica writing). Our morning started off the same as most. Luke woke up to watch his tv show and eat breakfast, and Adam and I slowly came to life while trying to survive without coffee. We packed our stuff up and said goodbye to Ribeauville and made our way to Strasbourg, a major city about an hour away. It took a little bit of time to find parking, but once we did, we were off on our next adventure. The thermometer read 4 degrees Celsius, so we thought it might be a little warmer than the past few days. We were wrong. The wind and cloud coverage made it feel much, much colder! We quickly made our way towards the city center, stopping for pictures and to look at the Christmas Market stands. Even though it was a Monday morning, the city was still bustling.  Adam found the cathedral and stood in a line that he thought would take him inside. Luke was having no part of that. A nearby carousel had caught his eye, so he needed to ride it. While Adam went ...

It's Adam today! We're over halfway through our trip! Today was a deliberate relax day as we have been getting increasingly tired with exploring and chasing Luke around, and just needed a day off.  The only real activity took place this morning. We slept in until around 8am and slowly got ready to explore the nearby town of Riquewihr - this time during daylight. As I gathered last night during my visit, this was a popular spot during Christmas Market season, so we wanted to head over earlier in the day before the crowds made it over. Upon arrival, we were able to find parking relatively easy, although it was quite cold out today - 32 degrees/freezing once again. Upon entry, it was clear that this is a very small town - only one main street that runs through the middle, yet the crowds were already beginning to pour in.  We strolled through a Christmas Market and purchased some early supplies. We even let Luke run free for a while, which he loved. Making our way up the main stre...