He showed her pages from his youth

Ken and Linda Housman of Oakham at the summit of the Zugspitze, Germany's highest mountain, near Garmisch-Partenkirchen in Bavaria.

WHO: Linda, 67, and Ken Housman, 74, of Oakham.

WHERE: Germany and Austria.

WHEN: Two weeks in June.

WHY: Ken spent three years in Germany with the US Air Force in the mid-1950s and was eager to revisit some areas, while this was Linda's first time in Europe.

FIRST IMPRESSIONS: Ken set the itinerary, and made hotel and car rental arrangements through a travel agent. They started in Munich, where they drove to the hotel. "Fortunately we had a GPS in the car," Ken said. "It took us right to the hotel." Linda was immediately struck by the activity. "Munich is very bustling and busy," she said. "There was an extra sidewalk for bicycles. They were zooming by. One thing that impressed me right away was there wasn't as much obesity there." In Munich they visited museums and historic sights in town and took a bus to the 17th-century Baroque Nymphenburg Palace and park.

VIENNA GETS HER VOTE: As they prepared to program the GPS toward Vienna, they discovered that though the device could speak English, the instruction book was in German. A friendly taxi driver helped them out and away they went. Linda was smitten with Vienna. "I really liked the architecture and the city was just so beautiful, very old and exquisite." From Vienna, they took a bus out of town and boarded a boat for a cruise on the Danube River and a tour of Schönbrunn Palace, which was being set up for a Barbra Streisand concert.

ROYAL ROAD SERVICE: On the way to Innsbruck, they stopped along the autobahn to eat. "You wouldn't believe how nice the restaurant was," Linda said. "We don't have anything like that on the Mass. Pike." Their table overlooked a lake where a part of "The Sound of Music" was filmed. Ken returned to a much bigger Innsbruck, "but it still has a nice flavor."

SOLSTICE IN BAVARIA: For three days they stayed at the resort area of Garmisch-Partenkirchen in the Bavarian Alps near the border with Austria. From their hotel balcony one night they saw fires and some fireworks in the mountains and learned the next day that they had witnessed a summer solstice ritual. They visited the small town of Obermeitingen, where Ken had lived with a farming family. He spoke enough German to learn that the owner had passed away, but not enough to locate her son, who reportedly still lived in town.

DECADES OF CHANGE: In Rimschweiler near Zweibrücken, they visited a guest house Ken had lived in. The owner's brother gave them a tour of the restaurant and the upstairs rooms where Ken had stayed. "It looked pretty nice," he said. "The gasthaus [guesthouse] used to be for farmers. Now there's a beer garden out back where there used to be a manure pile." Linda enjoyed seeing the places she'd heard so much about. "It was fabulous," she said. "Now I know exactly where everything is."

SEE WHERE THEY ALL WENT For other readers' photos, visit boston .com/wheretheywent. Send suggestions within two weeks of your return to diane@bydianedaniel.com. Share your travel photos at yourphotos.boston.com.