Kastl, Bavaria, Germany... where I was living (for over 4 years) and moved from just 4 months ago...

This is a close- up of one of the flowering 'rape fields'... this color of lime/yellow green was always so pretty along my drives home in the late Spring/ early summer time.   The day, that I finally had my camera with me and pulled over to take this photo- I remember 'immediately' hearing all the buzzing bees and seeing fluttering butterflies.  I wasn't prepared for how sweet and fragrant the flowers would be; the smell was so strong that it was almost overpowering.  It was nice and certainly unexpected.  Just out of the view to the far right is that tower that I saw out my upstairs office and bedroom windows.  This is looking West.

This is basically how the sky looked most of the time- except in July, August, and maybe September?   This is on the right side of the highway looking north (no shoulders on highways there) and the road that I drove on everyday to get to work/home.  See that hill?  That is almost to my house- I lived just past that hill and another big curve.

These are 'newish' houses.  You don't see any of the houses with the wooden crossbeams on them in this view.  This is not my town- but, another little village on the way to my town.  However, they were seen all around in this part of Germany.   As an American, it's just hard for me to think of houses being up to 600 years old still being lived in... like you find in Europe and especially in Germany and Italy.

This is a side road and the houses that you see?  That's my town.  You might be able to make out the church tower to the left of the road?  (Click on the photos for a larger view.)  Past this hill is a big valley with more hills like this all around in every direction.  All farm land.   My town had houses; but, no town/ no shops/ nothing.  There was another small town with shops about another 2 miles or so going past my little town.   It was 14 miles one way from work/ the base.

I ran across these photos and realized that I had never shared them on my blog- So, I decided to share them.  (if you've read very much of my blog... you know that the Internet in this tiny town was slow and didn't like to download photos)  This area was beautiful.  I always thought it looked like the photos on the landscape puzzle boxes.