Day 8: Switzerland - The Alps

On Friday, Daniela took us on a half day tour of the area. Words and pictures can't describe how beautiful it is here and how cool and fresh the air is. And so much better that we were able to see it all as locals, rather than tourists. We drove up the mountain to an area also used for skiing in the winter and used this rickety little cable car to get ourselves up a ways where we wanted to hike. Of course Chris pegged me with a snowball the first chance he got.

This is all farmland where the farmers/ranchers keep their cattle, sheep, goats during the winter. Then in the summer (soon) they really do put bells on all of them - you can hear them all jingling - and lead them up to their alps higher up. I never knew "alp" is actually the word for the pastures up high in the mountains where the herds get taken to graze. All the farmers own land low and an alp up high also. To me - these "alps" look like the area we'd consider the bowl when skiing.

After hiking, we headed to a little restaurant by the lake where Daniela treated us to dinner - fried fish - but different from our traditional. It was little strips with the skin still on and homemade tartar sauce. We also got a chance to feel the freezing cold water.

Day 7 & 8: Switzerland - Altdorf

We had a wonderful couple of days with the Klager family. We spent 2 nights with Daniela, Peter, Michelle, and Aline and they were the absolute best hosts. They went out of their way to take care of us and it was so nice to be with family, to eat-in, and to just sit on the back-porch taking in our beautiful surroundings. Also - they all speak great English (in addition to Swiss German and "High German") so it was nice to be able to communicate freely for a change. We had so much great conversations throughout our stay, about all sorts of things and I've learned so much about Switzerland and their culture and way of life.

The Swiss love of cheese is no joke - I recall this from my first Switzerland trip. They made awesome meals for us - the first night a Swiss tradition - Raclette (google it). It's like Switzerland's fondue; a little table top oven and everyone has a personal "pan". You put bacon, a huge slab of Swiss cheese, and whatever toppings - tomatoes, mushrooms, garlic, etc - then grill it. Then slide it off and eat it with little fingerling potatoes and a sour cream of sorts. Soooooo good! We devoured it. Chris loves potatoes and at one point Peter said "Potatoes make you stupid." That's what his mom told him growing up, I don't really remember why, but it was just really funny because we'd been talking about how much Chris likes potatoes. Second night Peter grilled homemade pizzas on the grill and Daniela made a beautiful caprese salad. And of course great breakfasts each morning - yogurt, bread, cheese, meat, jam, nutella, lattes, etc.

Thursday evening after dinner we went for a nice long walk around Altdorf to a monastery on the top of the hill so we could see all of the pretty town and concluding with a beer at their favorite local hangout. Then came home and had some of Peter's best grappa - intense!

Day 7: Switzerland - Fluelen

Chris' great-grandfather Joe Walker (his dad's mom's father) was born in this building in 1898. The Walker family owned and ran the Hotel Tell + Post in Fluelen, Switzerland, on the bank of Lake Lucerne for over 100 years. Chris' cousin Daniela (whose mother is first cousins with Chris' grandmother Terri) and her family hosted us for several days; they live in the neighboring town of Altdorf. It was a beautiful drive from Staufen into the Swiss Alps and Daniela met us at the tunnel right before Fluelen. When Terri (chris' grandmother) was about 20 she bought a bike in Amsterdam with a friend and rode all the way to Fluelen! The story we heard is that she cried when she got to this tunnel and saw Fluelen - home after such a long ride. (Is all of this correct Baers?) The Walker family doesn't own this hotel anymore and it looks much different (more modern/boring) than it did in the past.

Fluelen is famous because it's the spot where Wilhelm Tell jumped out of the ship (away from the Austrians I believe who were trying to take over Switzerland) and onto the banks of Lake Lucerne and basically founded Switzerland as its own country around 1307 I think??? This is the spot -Tellsplatte -where we met Daniela. I remember the Wilhelm Tell Overture (Tchaikovsky?) from music class and you probably know the legend of him shooting the apple of his son's head with a cross-bow in defiance of the Austrians. I remembered the story, just never really knew the context and who it was about. But this supposedly happened in the main plaza in Altdorf.

Day 6: Black Forest - Staufen

The Black Forest is beautiful - known for cuckoo clocks and the famous chocolate cake with cherries - neither of which we bought, although we came to Germany thinking we wanted to take a cuckoo clock home. But they are so expensive and the somewhat affordable ones you have to wind daily, so we passed.

We didn't really "do" anything in the area, just drove the beautiful windy roads and switchbacks through the hills - it really is beautiful. Dairy cows, goats, and sheep on the hillside and amazing views. We took the scenic route around Freiburg - through tiny towns of St. Margen and St. Peter - to get to Staufen, where we'd decided to stay for the night. We drove to Kandel peak - where we could see for miles and miles, and where it was freezing - 7 Celsius (about 44 plus major windchill factor). There are lots of cyclists on these crazy hills and paragliders take off from this peak.

We had called Bahnhof Hotel earlier in the day, trying to reserve a room. They speak zero English so I tried my best at - "Wir hatten gern ein zimmer." (we'd like a room). Her response of "Ja" and what seemed to be "40 euro" gave us hope we'd have a bed that night in this sleepy little town. We arrived pretty late and found the place, the little lady was seriously the smallest adult I've seen, cute little German woman who couldn't be more than 4" tall. It was a funny little place and our room had a large poster of the Matterhorn -foreshadowing our next stop on Switzerland. (chris has never heard of the Matterhorn... He's never been to Disneyland.)

It was late and getting chilly, the town extremely quiet. So we just walked around a bit and found the only open restaurant - Konhaus or something. It was a bit more than we've been spending but chris' favorite meal yet (pork medallions with homemade noodles) and tied for first for me, along with my salad with goat cheese and honey in Bacharach. Salads take on an entirely different form here - it's lettuce and so much more and all piled sort of separately on your plate, with various dressings or marinades on each part - if that makes sense. This one had salad, carrots, white carrots, purple cabbage, tomatoes, cucumbers, then hot mushrooms and poultry (they described it as bigger than a chicken but not a turkey?) And of course the beer was great!

This picture is the eating area outside our "hotel" - it's a restaurant too and they have a booth made out of a huge wine barrel (I want one of these). Grapes are clearly the cash crop around here and the wine trade is what made Staufen rich and keeps it alive today.

Day 6: Black Forest - Baden-Baden

We left the Rhine Valley headed for the Black Forest area. It rained on us for a bit at first while driving, then stopped. Seriously - the weather is coinciding perfectly with our travel plans. The Black Forest is the southwestern region along the Rhine/bordering France. It's a beautiful area with a densely wooded forest (hence "black forest" or Schwarzwald in German) that becomes hilly then mountainous then turns into Switzerland.

Baden-Baden marks the beginning of the Black Forest and is an area with a lot of geothermal activity. "Bad" means bath in German. This is a high-class spa resort town full of expensive shops and wealthy international travelers along with Germans looking for some relaxation.

As you might imagine, this isn't really our sort of thing, but it was on our way so worth a stop for a quick self-guided tour, some people watching, and a stop in at the market for some groceries to make a picnic. There are some pretty buildings, but my favorite sight was these very old light fixtures outside the Trinkhalle. They are pulley lights, a much larger and much more impressive version of the counter-weighted pendants we just put in our kitchen.

Everything in its place

Germany is beautiful - so clean and orderly - everything in its place. Well-kept roads, fields perfectly edged and mowed, tidy landscaping, huge stacks of firewood very neatly piled everywhere. Chris keeps commenting on this with much surprise. No surprise here (have you met my family?) We're very much a Type A people - obsessive-compulsive, anal, neat freak, are a few descriptors that come to mind... Being in Deutschland, it's easy to see this is a cultural gene.

Day 5: The Rhine - St. Goar & Burg Rheinfels

St. Goar is another little town along the Rhine, next door to Bacharach where we were staying. It's home to Burg Rheinfels, at one time the largest castle on the Rhine. The ruins are now only a third of its former size. We did a walking tour on our own (all the tours are in German) and went on a pretty crazy excursion.

We took the detour Rick Steves talks about - only possible with a flashlight. It's down into this tunnel system they built around the outer walls of the castle then booby-trapped the ceilings with explosives to crush intruders. It's about 3ft. high most the way so you are crawling around in the absolute pitch black. Like seriously no one with the slightest hint of claustrophobia or fear of the dark should do this. We only had my tiny LED barely-working-if-you-twist-and-hold-it-right flashlight (which Chris had in the front) and we're trying to read the directions of this underground, cold, dark, rocky maze. Which narrow tunnels to turn down and which not to, which T to turn right at then take second left afterwards, kinda crazy. The whole time I was trying to memorize the way back out in case our flashlight died, so we wouldn't die there. I'm thinking no way this would be allowed as a self-touring area back in the states. When we finally made our way out there was a couple with a little girl and 2 dogs about to try to enter. The dogs were having none of it and we tried to discourage them... I hope they're not still there.

Day 5: The Mosel Valley - Moselkern & Burg Eltz

We left the Rhine for a little trip to the Mosel River Valley. Burg means "castle". We toured the amazing Burg Eltz in Moselkern. The Eltz family has resided in this castle for over 850 years - really amazing how intact it still is, both exterior and interior. Can't take pictures inside like most places, but the furnishings were just amazing. 80 rooms, 40 fireplaces, and 20 toilets I think - very comfortable living for its time. We took the scenic route getting there, which was a beautiful 45min hike up the hill along a nice little creek.

PS Germans love their dogs - they take them everywhere. We're missing Beaz for sure, but know Scout, Ben, and Maize are taking good care of her. Beaz - we talk about you and show pics of you to every German with a dog that we meet/pet, so don't forget about us!

Day 4: The Rhine Valley - Bacharach

After a few wrong turns, we arrived at our destination in Bacharach around 4pm - a pretty little village on the most scenic part of the Rhine. We managed to find Orthodox Zimmer, the little guesthouse kept by Irmgard Orth - I'd called her earlier in the day to hold a room for us in her cute little guesthouse. (We bought a cute little German go phone on base through Stormy and put $20 worth of minutes on it to help with reservations and whatnot - since we booked absolutely nothing before we left!)

Bacharach was sort of like Florence was on our girls trip in '08. Europe somewhat shuts down on Mondays, which is the day we were in Florence (which i think might have been my favorite Italian city if it hadn't been a Mon.) So we got to Bacharach on a Monday and the following day was May 1st -May Day, basically a national holiday... double wammy! It reallly wasn't too bad though - just that many things along the Rhine were closed those days - lots of restaurants, the TI (tourist info), shops, the grocery market...

Bacharach's castle is Burg Stahleck, now a hostel, we didnt go see it, but rather walked around for awhile, checking out the "town" (it's tiny), looking at the sites, watching the train fly by, and trying to find an open, affordable restaurant with outdoor seating. Finally found a spot -only about 4 open options. Food was nothing spectacular but apple streusel was excellent - not very sweet, the ice cream complemented it well. Walked around, had the famous Rhine Valley Riesling. I usually don't like Riesling because it's always so sweet, but here they have different types. Sweet, dry, and half dry. I got dry and chris got half - very good. Ended the evening with gelato - chocolate for Chris and the "Italia Eis" owner's special creation - local Riesling flavored - for me. Sounds weird but so good!

I've failed to mention how awesome the weather has been... Apparently it was still cold and wet pretty much until the day we arrived when everything cleared up and spring set in. It's been absolutely gorgeous since then - I hope this doesn't jinx it, but seriously beautiful! Sunny, cool breeze every once in awhile. Perfect.

It's weird to me how many Europeans still smoke, especially since so many Germans seem to be so health conscious. I had really bad allergies when we left SA and was so happy to escape the pecan pollen. But then with everything blooming here, people smoking everywhere in the city, and the fact that I swear someone has been supplying German women with 2 distinct perfumes, both extremely strong, my sneezing and allergies have been non-stop until we got out the city and into some fresh air - much better now.

Day 4: Wurzburg

We left our gracious hosts in the morning. Train from Sachsen to Nurnberg Hauptbahnhof (main train station) then the U2 (U-bahn/subway) to the airport to pick up our rental car. Sweet Ford Focus (no sarcasm here... It really is sweet. Can't even be compared to Chris' old Focus). Then hit the road toward the Rhine Valley. Stopped in Wurzburg along the way to see it's Residenz. Beautiful palace in Rococo and Baroque style - Germany's version of Versailles. You know how much I like old stuff - we walked through the palace rooms, with their lavish decor, huge frescos, tapestries, neat furniture, and art. (In much of the art, the "4 continents" are represented. The Americas is always an uncivilized naked woman on an alligator, often with chocolate. So that's what they thought about us in the 1700s.)

The gardens are beautiful - 3 distinct areas (which we learned is the definition of Baroque gardens): French, Italy, and England. I probably wouldn't have come up with this realization on my own, but having been to those places - these gardens really did symbolize what we saw in those countries. French - nicely trimmed trees with rows of shaded park benches, just like in Paris. England - sort of a "messy", casual park with sporadic benches. Italy - terraced with a small vineyard. Really, really pretty - beautiful tulips! This park is open, free to the public. Wouldn't it be nice to get to walk around this with a sandwich (or brat) on your lunch break?

Back on the autobahn headed for the Rhine. Skipped along the outskirts of Frankfurt along the way, not much interest in seeing a big modern city. (Our GPS had somehow converted back to German. After trying to find the language settings for about 15min, we decided to go with it. So we're now [attempting to] navigate in German. It's a great educational tool.)