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Showing posts from July, 2014

Waterfalling in the Lauterbrunnen Valley

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The other great thing to do on rainy days in the Bernese Alps is to go see some of the dramatic and fantastic waterfalls. There are 72 waterfalls just in the Lauterbrunnen valley. Rob wanted to see this one, which we could view from our room in Wengen across the valley. It's called Staubbach Falls. It drops about 1000 feet and looks like spray by the time it reaches the ground. We walked up this hill thinking that it would take us to the bottom of the falls . . . . . . but instead it took us behind them. Here we are looking at the back of the "liquid dust" as it's called. Goethe was here for a few days in Lauterbrunnen, and he wrote a poem called  Gesang der Geister über den Wassern inspired by Staubbach falls. Later, Schubert set this poem to music five times. Here is a translation of the poem. Song of the spirits over the waters  by Goethe The soul of man Is like the water: It comes from heaven, It returns to heaven, And

Oberhofen Castle on Lake Thun

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On Wednesday it was going to rain. We've realized over the years that in these green German-speaking countries when they say 40 percent chance of rain, what they really mean is that it will rain for about 40 percent of the day. So we ditched our plans to hike in the alps and rode the train back down to the valley. We got in our trusty white Peugeot and tried to drive to Interlaken, which wasn't as easy as it looked. There were strange directions from Helga the GPS voice and construction, and at one point I led Rob down a very steep hill. It turned out to be a walking path, but bless his heart if Rob didn't try to make it work. He drove down there until we were inches away from a mossy fence on one side and a stone wall on the other. Two little kids came walking up it with their dog just as we decided we couldn't possibly fit down this thing.  So Rob had to try and back his way up a hill. In a stick shift. With inches on either side. And two kids and a dog in fr

Up to Wengen

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From Bern, we headed southeast toward the Bernese Oberland. This is where Interlaken is, which means "between the lakes" and it sits at the intersection of the figure eight made by Lake Thun and Lake Brienz.  We managed to stop and see the view at Lake Thun (which is harder than it sounds! In Switzerland everything is heartstoppingly gorgeous, so if you see a turnoff or a vista point, or even a crowd of cars by the side of the road, stop! You won't regret it!). You might see a view like this one of the Lauterbrunnen valley, for example. We drove into town, found the parking structure right off and parked our car, dragged our suitcases up to the train platform and caught a train immediately up to Wengen. Rob and I are not really sure where we took this shot. It could have been on the train up, which looked out at the valley on one side and whizzed past incredible waterfalls on the other. Or it we could have taking it from right outside our front door which also had

Bern for an Hour!

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On our way from France to the Bernese Oberland, we really didn't have much time. We'd spent the morning in Colmar and wanted to make certain that we didn't miss the last train to Wengen since we had to leave our car at the bottom. But we were driving right by Bern and I had never been. Rob had seen it once before in 1992. So Rob agreed to stop in Bern and I made a guess about parking and we changed the destination on the GPS.  I'd brought along a self-guided walking tour of Bern from Rick Steves, so we picked up right next to the Kindlifresserbrunnen on Kornhausplatz (the Children Eater Fountain at Corn House Square). I just looked it up and the explanations for the fountain are all far-fetched, so I can't enlighten anyone on that count. But right next to it was the awesome Zytglogge with its astronomical clock. It's been around for eight centuries and has served as a prison and a guard tower as well as a clock and tourist attraction.   We walked down

Colmar: Breakfast of Altarpieces

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In addition to Strasbourg, Rob had wanted to visit Colmar, less than an hour to the south and also in the Alsace. And due to a fortuitous post from Facebook, I had read that one of The Great Works Of Art Which Never Goes On Tour is located in Colmar. We decided to go find it as soon as we stopped at an unassuming bakery that was stand-up-and-holler good. Yum! There's a reason that the Germans have a saying: "we ate like God in France" -- those little bakers in their houndstooth checked pants knew from eggs. They understood their pastry dough. They got the ratio of cheese to onions to custard just right. I wanted to buy a meringue just to see what a meringue is supposed to taste like. I didn't do it, so I'll have to go back.  We were there to see the Grunewald altarpiece, which is sort of a lift-the-flap work. Panels upon panels of the annunciation, nativity, saints and resurrection all cover a carved piece underneath. The museum did a magnificent job disp

Day One: Stuttgart to Strasbourg

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Rob is in charge of a program in Tübingen, Germany. He has students who attend this month-long language program every year, but doesn't have the funds to be the director every year. Last time he went was when we dovetailed with Study Abroad in 2011. This year he had enough money saved up to go. He finagled permission for a family member to go and bought our tickets. We were going to stop in London and do some copying of documents at an office there, but the owner was going to be out of town when the Tübingen program was going on. So we planned a trip around Stuttgart and what would be most helpful for the courses Rob teaches and the online courses he's writing. We had two flights and they were so nice and quiet and uneventful! We got exit row seating on one of them since we didn't have any kids and that was blissful too. I watched two movies I didn't like, but it was two more than I'd seen all summer: Her and Bad Words .    We flew in to Stuttgart and arrive