An Italian Market and Unexpected Detours

 
One of the things my dad wanted to do when he visited Italy was go to a Catholic Mass. Luckily, my town doesn’t have a shortage of churches, so finding a service that worked with us was pretty simple. On Sunday, we all went to Mass and it was surprisingly easy to follow along. 

we got there early, but the church was packed by the time the service started

I knew enough Italian, he’s fluent in Spanish (it’s very similar), and the Mass service was in the same order as it is in America. It was actually a really neat experience. We spent the rest of the day letting them catch up on their jet lag.

While my dad really wanted to go to church out here, my mom had her sites set on checking out the market I always talk about. Every Monday, my town closes off several streets and vendors set up their shops, so heading there first thing in the morning was top priority on our agenda . 

The weather was perfect, and by “perfect” I mean that it wasn’t raining like the forecast predicted. It was actually a little warm, but I was just happy to walk around with my mom! 

 
My mom scoped out some souvenirs for family, and we bought some cheese for our trip later that day. The cheese vendors here are pretty hard to resist! 

After the market we headed out to a delicious lunch with a friend (forgot to take photos) and dropped Bella off at her home-away-from-home, because we were heading out on adventure! We hopped back in the car and started making our way up to Germany! 

At this point (back in September), I was still pretty early into my second trimester, and all of my energy had yet to reappear. We were originally going to drive all day on Tuesday to our stop in Germany, but at the last minute we decided to break the trip up into two days to help me with the driving. I’m beyond thankful we decided to go do the trip in two days, especially because our GPS decided to take us over a mountain, through some woods, around some CRAZY twists, turns, and curves, way past “grandma’s house,” and then finally—after an almost three-hour GPS detour—had us back on our original route. 

Luckily, if you’re going to get lost, Europe isn’t the worst place for that to happen. The photo below was taken during a much needed stretch/bathroom break in the middle of nowhere Italy. Not too shabby, eh? 

By the time we made it to our destination that night I was so tired, worn out, starving, and exhausted, that I was ready to throw in the towel. I seriously almost kissed the ground by the time we arrived.

The place we stayed at, Hotel SachsenKlemme (my TripAdvisor review), was exactly what we needed and I would gladly stay there again. The room was huge and the shower was unbelievable. I took two showers during our 7-hour stay. It was that awesome.

 And to top it off, there was an equally great restaurant right next door, AH Brau (my TripAdvisor review), where I devoured a mouth-watering steak. Devoured is the key word there and why you won’t see any photos of it. Here’s a picture of an empty beer glass (my mom said it was good!) and my dad drinking some espresso. Don’t even get me started on how ridiculous he found those little cups—hilarious!

If you’re traveling up from Italy to Germany (or Aviano to Garmisch, to be more specific), and feel your tummy start rumbling, make sure to steer your car in the direction of Ah Brau and make a pit-stop for some great food and drinks.