Cathy in downtown Leavenworth,
enjoying the many retail opportunities
|
Leavenworth, Washington –
Bavaria without a passport
by Cathy Burford
August 25, 2008
If you’ve never been to Washington’s Cascade Loop, put it on your personal list of places to see before you are no longer able to travel by car or RV. I didn’t know that it even existed until 2005, when a friend advised us to take the top half of the Cascade Loop, rather than the lower half.
There, nestled along Hwy 2, with beautiful mountains for a backdrop, you will come upon a ‘mock’ Bavarian village, complete with Glockenspiel. This, indeed, is the place for europhobes to experience the charm, food, and fun without the fear of foreign tongues.
Our trip there was in the motorhome, so we experienced Leavenworth from the home base of the Icicle River RV & Campground. It was a fantastic location, situated, as the name implies, along the Icicle River, just a few miles from town. This truly is a year-round tourist destination, with over 1 million visitors per year. The permanent residents only number 2,000, and the village appears to be alive and thriving today solely because of the tourist trade. You will find plenty to keep you occupied here; shop, dine, wine tasting, hike, fish, camp, plays, whitewater rafting, and let’s not forget Oktoberfest, which is the most attended one outside of Munich. A & E Network even ranked Leavenworth as the Ultimate Holiday Town. Good Morning America filmed there in November 2007. Don’t forget to sample all of the German fare at the many restaurants (we dined at Andreas Keller) and no trip to Leavenworth would be complete without a stop at the Nutcracker Museum, which boasts over 5,000 nutcrackers.
Bird’s eye view of Leavenworth |
Leavenworth’s history is a rich one, a fairly typical rail and lumber town. That is, until the rail line was re-routed and the sawmill closed down in the early 1960’s. This double blow left the town with the choice of ‘change or die’. Fortunately for everyone, they chose to change. In 1962 Project LIFE (Leavenworth Improvement For Everyone) was formed by community leaders to revitalize the town. Their choice for survival was to create a mock Bavarian Village. Now, my favorite part of this story came from a 20-something waitress who had grown up in Leavenworth, moved away for college, then came back because she missed ‘home’. According to her explanation, everyone in town mortgaged anything they could to get the money to transform their town into the Bavarian Village that would allow them to remain in the town they loved. What a story! Even if it’s only partially true, I love what it says about the people who live here.
Leavenworth is beautiful, fun, colorful, and just a two-hour drive from Seattle. There is a plethora of lodging, restaurants, and entertainment to keep any age visitor engaged in the experience. You can begin planning your trip with the following sites: www.visitleavenworth.com or www.leavenworth.com.
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