Seeing snow in Bavaria - OK, not the real one :-)

To see some snow and because we missed Europe, my and my friend, who is French, decided to take a trip to Leavenworth, an alpine Bavarian Village 3 hours coach ride from Seattle. Today was the first day of the street lighting so we knew that it was going to be very crowded, but expected the atmosphere to be good and have a festive spirit. It was also very cold so we were very happy to see it snow (I was later told that it was snowing in Seattle as well) and at times very heavily - it did not help with my photo taking, but it was great fun nevertheless. The snow had also gone down well with the rest of the visitors especially the kids on their sledges. Having not been to Bavaria in person, I cannot comment on the authenticity of the village, but the food was definitely worth the visit. For example, the German sausages that we had for lunch were excellent (we also met two lovely elderly women at the restaurant who were fun to talk to and made the meal even better) and my friends loved the cheese that I bought back for them. The only disappointment was the lack of time we had to see the street lighting. Given that the street lighting introductions starting at 4:30pm and that we had to be back on the coach at 5pm, we did not have much time to see all the buildings lit up and take photos. I had been carrying my large tripod with me, but given the time and amount of people, I was not able to use it. This meant that out of the 15 or so night photos that I took, only 1 was not blurry. Oh well, I have one year to learn how to take better night photos and maybe I will go back next year.

Welcome to Leavenworth

Does this look like Bavaria?

The crowds building up for the street lighting

Interesting Christmas Tree decorations

Only decent night photo :-(