Visit to Gela

Gela, Tommy's cousin, came to visit us for New Year's and she and Mom hit it off so well, that she invited us to come and visit her for a day before Mom and Catherine left.

She lives in a little village just north of Tuebingen. (near Stuttgart) Bebenhausen is a tiny little village that is famous for its Cistercian monestary, Bebenhausen Abbey. The monestary was built in the 12th century and later became a hunting palace for the Kings of Wuerttemberg.

Gela's house sits on a hill between the inner wall of the monestary and the outer wall. It really is a picturesque setting, and I loved seeing it from Gela's perspective. (She lived here as a child and now is back to take care of her father who is ill.)

Sarah was the designated photographer for the day. I love trying to guess what she was taking pictures of and why!!!

Here is my point. I don't think that she is taking a picture off all of us sitting together. I think she was so impressed with Gela's father's collection of books, that she had to take pictures of them.

See...

this whole room was lined with books and 3/4's of another room in the house, full of books. Gela's father wrote several books on both World Wars and even the American Civil War, and is quite an accomplished author in Germany.

(Please ignore the crazy lady in the bottom left corner. I do not know what she is doing.)

The church at the monestary.

Gela's mother's grave. Gela said that her mother was named after Queen Charlotte of Wuerttemberg, the last queen of Wuerttemberg.

Not to be morbid. I just thought that the grave stones covered in snow were beautiful. Sarah must have thought so too. I think she took a picture of every grave in the graveyard.

The "Great Hall"

Apparantly this little lake at one time was much bigger. It supplied the monestary with their water and fish. It was mostly frozen on this day.

Everybody!

Cy and Grace playing on some cannons. Don't know why a monestary would need cannons!

This is called the Gruene Turm (Green Tower) and is located on the outer wall. The king would come here to have tea.

This might be the only picture of Sarah that day.

Too funny!

We took a tour of the inside of the castle. There were many stuffed animals throughout, (I guess since it was a hunting palace), but this was the best by far!

Grace and Gela



At the end of the day, Gela took us to the Ritter Sport chocolate factory. They have a little museum where you can learn about how chocolate is made. The best part is the chocolate store. Never seen so much chocolate in my life. If you have never had Ritter Sport, you are definitely missing out!

Last picture of the day, taken in front of the Ritter Sport Factory.

Thanks Sarah for being a great photographer!