Day 8, Frenkenmuth, MI

After breakfast at the hotel, we drove to Frankenmuth.  It's not along the coast but so well worth a little detour.  It's a really cute Bavarian town and not to be missed if you are up that way.

We immediately saw a covered bridge after driving into town.  That was a good sign!!

We felt like we were in Bavaria!!

The Bavarian Inn has a clock and glockenspiel that housed a 35-bell carillon.  I don't know how often the carillon plays but we were able to hear it.  Really neat!

See the figures at the top?  They are 4-1/2 feet tall and were imported from Germany, as was the carillon.

We went into some shops in the Bavarian Inn.  There were some wonderful looking treats in them!  Those working were wearing appropriate Bavarian clothing.

Actually we didn't buy any of those treats, though we did buy some jellies.  We are a sucker for things like that!  We were waiting for the fudge!

We stopped in the Visitor's Center for some info.

The flowers were beautiful everywhere.

Some really neat shops.

I bought a Frankenmuth Pandora charm at this shop.

Lots of fudge and candy shops.  There's something about Michigan and fudge!!  And carmel corn and toffee!

Decisions, decisions...but we ended up with fudge.

We had lunch at Zehnder's.  It was recommended by many people and I'm so glad we took their recommendation.  I love the chicken topiary out front.

It's a very large restaurant and beautiful inside.

This is our cute waitress.  She was darling.

We all had the chicken dinner with mashed potatoes and stuffing.  Delicious!

We were stuffed when we left!  Thankfully we did a lot of walking.

We walked across a bridge to River Place Shops and saw this sign.  Willkommen means "welcome" in German.

Everything Bavarian in this town!

We didn't go in this shop but I was curious what they sold.

From the crossing bridge there was a nice view of the covered bridge.

We then drove to this huge Christmas shop.

I bought a couple of ornaments.  It was a bit overwhelming!

We spent most of the day in Frankenmuth and could have spent even more time!  We left Frankenmuth and drove to Saginaw and on to East Tawas, Michigan on Lake Huron.  We stopped at the Tawas Point Lighthouse.

We continued our drive along Lake Huron to Alpena where we stopped at the Holiday Inn Express for the night.  After the big chicken dinner, we opted for Culver's for dinner  Never a bad choice!

It's a rain day today and we really needed it.  I was planning to continue painting the steps to the apartment but that will have to wait.  Always something to do around here!