Hitting the Slopes

On the Saturday of our trip to Bavaria, Franz and Doro took us to the Alps to enjoy some snow. It was pretty overcast, so the views of the mountains weren't amazing, but the quantity of powdery snow was phenomenal. Behold Sara in her white puffy coat and I in my green less-puffy coat:

In Bavaria (and, presumably, in other snowy, mountainous regions of Germany), they take very seriously the obligation to take their small children to the snow. Hence there is lots of sledding. Not the wimpy American-style sledding where you haul your saucer up a hill and slide down for seven seconds. No, this is hard-core yet family-friendly sledding where you hike up a hill (2-6 kilometers long), go rest in the lodge and eat and drink Bavarian specialties and get warm, then rent a sled and slide THE WHOLE WAY DOWN. Yes, we slid for over a mile back down to the car and had a blast doing it. Slightly precarious as the uphill hikers and downhill sledders were on the same track, but in the end there was no blood on the snow.



This is how sledding should be, America! And photo credits to Franz.

By the way, the Bavarian drink I had in the lodge originated in Austria and is called Almdudler (pronounced variously ALM-dood-leh and OIM-dood-leh, for no reason I can discern). It's a somewhat herby lemonade and I'm in love.