Snow-Covered Germany

If you ever have the chance to travel to Germany in the summer or winter, I would highly recommend packing your heaviest sweaters and opting for the winter. I don't think roaming Christmas-decorated streets and drinking hot chocolate next to a burning fire has ever been more charming than in Germany.

And sleeping in always feels better when it's 15°F.

During the rest of my winter vacation in Germany, I took full advantage of admiring the snow--through the window while wrapped up in a quilt next to the furnace. Each morning Rachael and I woke up to the eleven chimes of the bell tower across the street, kindly reminding us that we had received enough sleep. Then it took us about thirty minutes to finally crawl out from underneath the layers of quilts and blankets. We shuffled downstairs just to spend another hour in front of a heater trying to decide what to do over a cup of coffee.

Then at about 4:00, our day finally started.

Most evenings we drove through various villages, meandered through Christmas markets, sipped on hot glühwein, and explored corridors of a castle.

Here are pictures to encapsulate the sequence of our days, from waking up to roaming about...and to prove that winter is the best season for visiting Deutschland: