Kevin was in charge of the honeymoon and I am in charge of the reception. After our small ceremony with family only, we planned to leave two weeks later and spend ten days in Germany. Once we got home, we would have the reception a few weeks later. Spacing it all out was a GENIUS plan and I recommend it to everyone.

For the honeymoon, first we went to Berlin, then Regensburg and ended in Munich.

We stayed outside of Berlin and found a great restaurant near our hotel where we went two out of our three nights in town. When we first got into town, we tried not to collapse and instead visited the Olympic site in Berlin which was a quick subway ride away. Kevin was really excited to see it since he has recently realized how interesting he finds Olympic sites to be. Then we crashed after dinner and slept like we’d never slept before.

We spent our first full day in Berlin viting nearby Pottsdam since the annual Berlin marathon was going to be happening in town anyway. We visited a palace and saw the sights there.

This was the first time we realized how much we would be walking around during our time in Germany. All in all we walked about 80 miles in 10 days. We visited the old airport that has been closed for years that afternoon as well. Lots of walking.

We were making a very specific effort to enjoy as much local food and drink as possible, so the walking was probably necessary.

Our second (and last) full day in Berlin we took a walking tour in the morning and saw all the official and historical sites. We both really enjoyed it.

We also were able to scatter my father’s ashes there – his favorite place. He was stationed there in 1969 as a reinforcement for the Berlin Wall and had SUCH and adventure – anyone who knew him knew about his time in Berlin. If felt right to leave a little bit of him there in this green space.

Off we went to Regensburg (after two days of walking 15 miles each we were ready to rest!) for two nights where we spent time wandering around the city and learning about this place that had been around since 700 AD.

We had a hotel right across the street from a magnificent church that we visited.

After our time in Regensburg we headed off to Munich. We took a tour of the Olympic stadium there as well via a hop on hop off bus tour that we spent most of our day on the first full day we were there. We also went of course to see the glockenspiel, which I begrudgingly gave another chance since when I saw it 13 years ago I was highly unimpressed.

(It was better after I had aged).

We went to the Hofbrauhaus as suggested and had a gigantic pretzel (and beer).

And I continued to find ONLY this one item in every gift shop with my name spelled correctly on it. I was totally annoyed that in the ONE place I should be able to get my name spelled correctly, no one had anything.

We spent our second full day (and last of the trip) touring castles outside of Munich including Neuschwanstein which Kevin had wanted to see since highschool!

Overall, we had a fantastic trip but were absolutely ready to get home and spent the following week recovering. I was very impressed that even through the stress of international travel AND getting separated once, we never fought or got angry with each other. We kept the same travel pace and both were genuinely interested in the same things (or respected the OTHERS interest).

Now we are looking forward to our reception and celebration with our many friends.