Willi and I made a trip to one of the local bakeries to start the day; he picked up donuts for his girls and a basket of breads to share, while I chose four ham and cheese croissants for our family breakfast. Neither Noah nor Emmie were as excited about the croissants as I anticipated, but Amanda and I both thoroughly enjoyed them. They were on par if not better than our go-to ham and cheese croissants from La Mie in Des Moines.
Around 9:45 a.m., we made our way to Ingolstadt where we joined Heidi, Willi, and family for church. Not surprisingly it was entirely in German so we understood little during the service; Heidi gave us an abbreviated synopsis of the message while the zonked kids took naps on Amanda and me.
Emmie slept on Amanda during the church service while Noah slept on me.
After church we went to Basta Pasta in downtown Ingolstadt, home to the best döner kebab in the area according to Willi. Both Amanda and I thought the meat, cooked on an impressive vertical rotisserie, and garlic yogurt sauce; Amanda liked the combination on top of french fries, I had it in a thick flat bread, and Sophia and Olivia shared it in the form of a wrap. Noah continued his streak of European pizza eating consuming most of a square, personal-size Margherita pizza. Emmie didn’t each much food but loved the soda, sampling Turkish favorite Uludağ Gazoz and “exotic” Fanta.
We then took a pleasant stroll through downtown Ingolstadt, making our way toward a stop at Tasty Donuts, a German chain which had recently made its way to the city. Similar to the donut store we had previously visited in Ludwigshafen am Rhein, most of the circular donuts included a tasty filling. I liked the cherry and chocolate cream donut well enough but it struck me as a shade less tasty than those from Day 10 of our trip.
Sophia held Emmie’s hand much of the way to the donut place.
Noah’s second mini donut from Tasty Donuts. He liked the raspberry topping but preferred the first with sprinkles.
Sophia and Noah were happy to take a picture after leaving the donut shop.
For Grandma and Grandpa Mac and Papa, Noah poses in front of the Ingolstadt post office.
We returned to the car to make the short drive to the Danube River, Europe’s second longest, which passes through the middle of Ingolstadt. I picked up a large meringue to share with the kids before we worked our way to the bridge for a few family photos:
Sophia and Olivia on the bridge at the Danube River. Ingolstadt’s castle is in the background.
We were then back into the car for a 20-minute drive to Dörndorf to sample highly-anticipated strawberry ice cream. Made only from fresh strawberries, Heidi and Willi reported this to be the best strawberry ice cream in the region if not Germany altogether. Amanda only tried a bite of strawberry, opting for strachiatella instead, but my order of course included strawberry, and I can attest to its deliciousness. Emmie chose strawberry too. Noah, who had seemingly grown tired of ice cream by this point in the trip, liked his sample of lemon so much he ordered a bowl for himself.
We attempted to stop at a place for the kids to pick strawberries, but, alas, the owners had decided to take the Sunday off and resume operations Monday. Instead, we were back to Heidi and Willi’s home to begin some initial packing and spend a final evening together.
While yummy chicken alfredo and sautéed cauliflower was more than enough for Heidi, Amanda, and the kids, I was set on one final ice cream run for the trip. Willi stepped up to the plate, leading me on an efficient ice cream tour of Eichstätt, where we managed to try scoops at the remaining three ice cream shops in a mere 30 minutes.
Our first stop at Eis Dolomiti was the most disappointing of the bunch; small, average scoops of ice cream at the high end of the price range; availability of glass soda bottles was the lone plus.
Cortina offered the best value; just 80 cents per scoop, which were twice the size of the competition. Flavor offerings, however, were pretty basic.
Mr. Eis had the most variety, most impressive single flavor, and was exactly in the middle of the price range at 90 cents per scoop.
When the kids were finally in bed, we took the opportunity to enjoy some final German treats and play one last round of Carcassonne, where Heidi finished first for the third time out of three games.