May 10, 2013

Well, here we are at the end of our trip.  Today is a rainy, blustery day in Zurich, but I’m jumping ahead.

We spent one night in Lucerne after leaving Geneva.  We walked on the very famous bridge which goes over the lake.  

And stopped to quench our thirst.

We found a nice restaurant and decided to eat in the wine cellar.  I had a chicken pot pie.  This was nothing I've ever seen before!  The crust was a huge croissant, very light and flaky and the inside was filled with a tomato type broth, with crisp vegetables, chicken and potatoes.  It was great!  Bc had a nice seafood trio with risotto.  

On Thursday morning we took a lovely 1 hour boat cruise around Lake Lucerne.  It was very relaxing and beautiful.

Then we packed up, bc found our car and drove it to our hotel where I was waiting with the bags.  This is not as easy as it seems.  The getting the car part, not the bags.  It’s quite a feat just trying to maneuver through the streets of Lucerne, or any city in Switzerland for that matter.  I saw him coming up the road and moved the barricades so he could get out of the street and park.  We didn't have too much trouble getting out of town.  We only had to go around the block once!

It was a short drive, half an hour, to Zurich.  We found our hotel “Helmhaus” and parked right in front.  Again, we weren't sure this was a street, but oh well!  A very nice young man greeted us, gave us a glass of water while we waited 10 minutes for our room to be finished.  We have a very nice room.  Very European.  The key room is way too awesome!

It was a lovely sunny day, so we set out to park the car.  We found the car park and left the car and walked back to the hotel.  By this time it was around 2pm and we found a pizza place right around the corner and sat in the shade of the trees and had a nice lunch.  The pizzas here aren't as fattening as the ones in the states.  Here they are a very thin, crisp crust with a light smattering of a delicious tomato/pizza sauce with a little cheese and Parma ham.  Delicious!  We shared a pizza and it was perfect. 

We walked to the Zurich Museum of History.  They are having the last few days of a Marc Chagall exhibition.  We bought our tickets which came with a little metal tag with the letter “A” on it.  We clipped it on our shirts though no one told us why we should wear it.  We got in the queue for the “free headsets” but the line didn’t move.  We finally figured out it was because they had no more audio headsets and people were standing in this line waiting for someone to turn in their headset!  We gave up on that and went to the exhibition.  It was very crowded, which isn’t fun.  But we did get to see all the paintings and read some of the information that was in English.  He was a very prolific artist!  We saw that there was another area of the museum where we could see Monet, Manet, Rodin, Van Gogh and etc.  We asked the lady checking for the metal letter clips where it was and she said around the corner, but first we had to stand in the shorter line to pay “a little bit more.”  So off we go to pay some more.  We waited patiently and finally we showed the lady at the money counter the place we wanted to go on the map.  She said “It’s just around the corner.”  She didn’t ask for any money so around the corner we go, to a peaceful, uncrowded area to see some wonderful art, up close.  Nice!  We finished, “recycled” our “A” pin and started to walk around the city.  Here are some pics of the museum.  There is an amazing bronze outside the museum by Rodin.  It’s called the “Gates of Hell.” 

We came back to the hotel and rested, then set out for dinner.  We found the Savoy Hotel across the river and had a very nice time.  It’s very elegant, with a great pianist.  I had tri-color Gnocchi with baby artichokes all around the outside of the plate.  Bc had Pate Maison and it was equally beautiful and great.  That with a nice bottle of Burgundy from Santenay.  Nice…. We had just been in Santenay on our barge cruise.  It was a quiet walk home through the city to our hotel. 

This morning it has been raining pretty steady.  We walked up the hill to get the car out of the car park ($48.00 francs) so we could take it to get gas.  With Francine’s help we found a gas station and filled up ($92 US!) .  Then another twisty trip back to the car park to leave the car again.

We walked around and went to the Cathedral with Swiss Art, but it was closed.  But here is the sign for something.  We just don’t know what. 

Then across the bridge to the Fraumunster Church.  This church has windows that Marc Chagall designed.  They are incredible.  We couldn’t take pictures inside, but bc took pictures of the bookmarks and magnet we bought. 

We stopped to have a cappuccino and hot chocolate and now are back at the room repacking everything for the trip home.  We are hoping the weather clears a little this afternoon so we can walk about later. 

Tomorrow we will fly from Zurich to Paris.  Overnight in Paris.  Sunday fly from Paris to JFK.  Overnight in JFK.  Monday we fly from JFK to LAX and onto Sacramento where my mom will pick us up.  So please send a good thought for smooth travels for us. 

This has been a wonderful vacation.  So many different experiences.  I would like to say that I am very lucky to have a traveling partner and husband, who plans the entire itinerary for each vacation.  There is a confirmation for every plane, car, hotel, boat, even the Anne Frank Museum! Traveling and seeing new things is such a great education and experience.  However, traveling can be tough sometimes.  Like when plans change because of something beyond your control, you get lost (a lot), a marathon is in the way of finding your hotel, one of you gets the sniffles or something worse, you are in very small quarters for a month straight, or you just get plain old tired.  And there is the whole luggage thing.  Dragging your “life” around can be wearisome.  Bc and I have made it through all this, with a smile for each other and for that I am grateful.

Here’s how awesome he is.  Yesterday we were driving from Lucerne to Zurich when he asked me to reset his watch.  Evidently the stem caught on his pants pocket and changed the time.  Since I don’t wear a watch (and don’t have access to my phone for the time) it is important that his watch be correct.  I played around with it for a bit, trying to get the stem to pull out, finally got it set to 12:45 (after much discussion between us as to what time it was) and gave it back to him.  He looked at it and said very nicely, “No, that’s time we arrive in Zurich.  It’s 12:15 now.”  I took the watch back laughed and said “You need a new wife!”  bc said “No I’ve almost got you broken in!”  Whatta guy….

We will be glad to be home and to see all of you.  We hope you have enjoyed our blog. 

Love you!  Bc and gc

PS.  I have failed to mention this, but at every opportunity we have searched for the Big Ball of Yarn.  But it isn’t in Fullerton, Claremont, Marlton, JFK, Paris, the French Countryside, Amsterdam, the Rhine River, Germany, or Switzerland.  We will keep looking and let you know when we find it!

May 8, 2013

We've had a busy 2 days.  But it looks like the sun is coming out.  Yay!  I’m tired of wearing 3 layers of clothes.  Whine, moan, complain.

We left my city Tuesday morning.  Someone fetched the car from who knows where and brought it to us.  It only cost 48 Swiss Francs per day to leave it parked somewhere.  Somehow, we got out of Geneva without too much trouble and headed to Bern.  We drove along Lake Geneva and it was so pretty.  We got to a border crossing and encountered a deviation.  (detour).  Border crossing?  Yup, we were back in France.  But nobody checks anything. We traveled along on N5 Ave de Genève through Aubonne, Douvaine, Massongy, Sciez, Amphion les Bains when we came across Evian les Bains which had a huge casino!  This is the Evian from where the water comes from. 

We stopped at the casino and went in.  We had to show id to enter the casino.  But they had clean bathrooms, so that was good.  For fun bc put 20 Swiss Francs in the change machine but it kept spitting it out.  Then we realized, duh, we’re in France.  Bc dug out 20 Euros and voila!  Twenty 1 dollar Euros clanged down into our bucket.  Have you ever tried to play a slot machine that is only written in French?  We promptly lost all our 20 Euros. (Andy, must we claim our gambling losses on our taxes next year?) We did get our parking violated so that means it only cost us 20 Euros to go to the bathroom!  Lake Geneva was beautiful from across the street of the casino. 

Back on the road and right away we saw signs for the “Le Temple du Fromage.”  Kate, I think this is as close to a cheese church you’re going to get.  We found it around some winding roads, but it was closed! 

We continued driving through Tourronde, Meillere, Bret and came upon the border control into Switzerland at St. Gingolph.  We were asked to stop, but waved on with no problem.  Whew!

Here's some of the scenery we got to see.

 

We had lunch in Villaneuve at a very nice place on the lake called L’Omnia.  I had salmon and bc had a burger.  Both were excellent. 

We had a little trouble getting out of Montreaux (where bc says is the famous jazz festival), but somehow got Francine to figure it out.  We drove to Bern and only got lost a little in Bern.  We stayed at the Best Western Bristol Inn.  It was quite nice.  We walked all over Bern, had a refreshing drink,  rested a bit at the hotel, then went to dinner.  

Here's an interesting window shopping view.

That's a model covered with post it notes.....

We wanted to try fondue.  The main language in Bern is German, so we switched gears again.  Just when you get your “Bonjour, Merci” going, it becomes, well, I don’t know German at all, so we say “Hello Thank you” and get along fine.  Anyway, we walked to the fondue restaurant and had a delightful waitress.  She helped us order cheese, truffles and champagne fondue.  It comes with bread.  Thank goodness we ordered one to share!  It was delicious but very filling.  After we had had enough of fondue we ordered a plain salad.  It was great!  Nice and crunchy and refreshing after the fondue. 

This morning packed up and headed to the Bern Historical Museum.  We only got lost a couple of times as it was close to the hotel!  Bc even found the parking meter thing and threw in some money to buy a ticket for our windshield.  We wanted to see the Albert Einstein exhibit.  We found they were also having an exhibit on the Terra Cotta Warriors from China.  We paid our fee for the museum, then an addition 5 Swiss Francs each for the audio tour for the Terra Cotta Warriors exhibit.  It was very good.  We have seen the excavation pit(s) of Terra Cotta Warriors when we were in China in 2001.  That was truly amazing, but I felt that this exhibit went into some interesting history of why and how they were made.  Then we found that we had to buy another audio set (for another 5 francs each) for the Einstein exhibit.  We had to rush through this due to our parking meter time.  However, it was very interesting.  Einstein was incredibly intelligent, duh, but not always very nice or even a very good student.

 In any case, we left and found our way to the Paul Klee museum to see his works.  I would have liked to see more of his color abstract pieces, but this was still a worthwhile visit.  The building is amazing!

After a quick lunch at the Klee museum we headed to Lucerne.  After much arguing with Francine she finally figured out we wanted to take the scenic route Hwy 10 and not the motor way 6.  We drove through many, many little towns, each with their own rotary in the center.  Worb, Zaziwill, Bowill, Barau and Wiggen where we pulled off onto Rotgutmoos so bc could take some pictures.  Aren’t they wonderful?

Back on the road driving through Eschozmatt, Wolhusen, Hasle Lu, Ebnet, Blatten and then into Lucerne.  Francine was getting very upset with us because we wouldn't drive through the center of a  plaza, complete with café seating, to get to our hotel Romantik Wilden Mann. 

We have a lovely room, quite large.  

After I finish writing this, we will go for a walk about in the old part of Lucerne and have some dinner. 

I wanted to mention our car.  You can see it in the picture above.  It's a Mercedes.   Andy would ask which kind and I would say, "black".  But then it is very dirty.  It doesn't have any numbers on the back, but it's a station wagon type of car. It's quite nice but does have it's idiosyncratic issues.  For example, the radio comes on randomly every so often.  It's usually some man speaking in French or German and if we turn him off, it turns off Francine also.  So, we've learned the trick.  When the radio starts talking I push the radio button then push the navigation button twice.  Of course this happens at the least convenient time.   

After dinner I will upload pictures and with any luck, post this! 

We hope you are enjoying reading this blog.  We miss you all and send our best.  Love, bc and gc

May 7, 2013

WARNING!!          AVERTISSEMENT!!          ACHTUNG!!          WARNING!!

This blog will be all about ME!  So, please move on if this doesn't interest you….

We spent yesterday in my city, Geneva.  It was a cloudy rainy (off and on), breezy day. 

We walked through the old part of my city.  Up hills, down hills, window shopping and getting lost and found again.  We saw my Cathedral.

And my Spa.

And my flower clock.  

We found my Art Museum with a sign on the door, Closed Lundi.  Sure wish the lady who told us where it was would have mentioned that!  We stopped to have a Pepsi Light.

The flowers in my city are so beautiful.  Big pots of tulips, pansies and more.  

Here's my police station with their cars parked in front.  This is why we weren't arrested yesterday for running the red light.  There isn't enough room in the back of the car for us.

Here are my new shoes.

We had lunch a one of my cafes, Demi Lune Cafe. We had a great cold and hot canapé dish.  It was fun trying different little bites.

Then it started to rain on me.  So we walked back to our hotel.  The construction crew was going full bore, but I did manage to sneak in a short nap. 

Fortified by the nap we went on a one hour boat tour of my Lake.

Lake Geneva is beautiful.  There’s an amazing fountain in my lake. 

Here it is at night.

Here’s a picture of Baron Von Rothschild’s home that he gave to me!

And when Mr. Buckmiller died he left me his entire estate!  I put up a plaque in appreciation. 

On the boat tour we saw the United Nations building, the UNESCO building and the United Nations on Human Rights Commission building. 

We wandered all over my city some more.  Bc says we walked 3-4 miles today.  I plan to meet briefly this morning with the Human Rights Commission to go over some issues I have found here in my city.  Namely, why do most young people smoke?  What are the speed limits around here? Why are there not seat protectors in restrooms?  Why are there not screens on the windows so we can open the windows at night?  I think these are human right's issues, don't you?

We went back to our room to wait for another rain storm to pass.  Then we went out to dinner.  We had a salad and shared a pasta dish.  It was all good.  Then back to the room for a chocolate left over from Paris and a good night’s sleep. 

Well, enough about me, what do you think about me?    We are off this sunny morning to Berne.  Let’s hope there won’t be too much trouble with construction, marathons or accidents. 

Love to you all, bc and gc 

p.s.  BC here.  I did find something  last night I have never seen anywhere in the world.  Stopping in the restaurant "facilities" I noticed 3 buttons on the top of the otherwise normal looking toilet.  So of course I had to push one......no, it didn't flush.  Instead a small arm came out over the seat and began to spray water on the seat.  Well I figured I had begun an explosion of toilet water so I wasn't sure what to do.  Then the TOTALLY unexpected occurred.  The toilet seat began to spin  around while the little arm washed, scrubbed and dried it.  I gazed in astonishment.  Then it did a click, buzz, whir and the little arm went back to its home.  I left the room in astonishment at having gone through my first automated toilet seat wash....... 

May 5, 2013

Whew!  It’s tired out!

Let’s see… we last left you on Friday.  Friday was another cool, windy day.  We went on a bus to Strasbourg.  We drove by the European Union buildings.  Strasbourg France is the location of the EU Parliament.  We got off the bus in Petite France and walked through the charming streets to the Cathedral.  This is a beautiful church.  It took them 300 years to build this Cathedral.  They started in 1176 and their astronomical clock was added in the 14^th century.  We were able to see the clock and we were amazed that they had the abilities to develop a clock that knows not just the time, but the seasons, the weather and so much more, and it still works! 

More random Gothic stuff on the Cathedral!

After the Cathedral we spent time walking the streets of lovely Strasbourg.  We had lunch at a nice place.  We were walking along and I see a big button hanging over a doorway.  Sure enough, it was a fabric and notions store.  That was fun!  Then on our walk back to catch a ride with the shuttle bus I found an embroidery store.  Diana, this one is for you!  Can you imagine?  Two fabric/embroidery stores in one day? 

Back to the boat for a nap and then a nice dinner with new friends. 

Saturday we didn't go on the Black Forest tour to the cuckoo-clock factory.  We were so tired!  A morning to sleep in was very nice.  We then went for a walk in the city of Breisach.  And we found another fabric shop!  What are the chances?  

Then a walk up the big hill to see the church.  However, it stopped spitting and actually started raining.  We were weary and stopped for a minute.  I turned around and said to bc “This looks like a nice place.  Let’s go in here.”  What a find!  It was a very cool little tapas restaurant hung over the cliff with a marvelous view of the Rhine.  We had a very good glass of red wine, caprese, bread and Parma ham.  Perfect lunch!  This place had the most unusual art. 

We went back to the boat rest a little before our afternoon tour.  Promptly at 2pm we went to the reception desk to turn in our keys to get our bus ticket.  The program director was a little put out with us because we hadn't heard the news!  (We were having a lovely lunch in town and didn't hear the latest lecture.)  We weren't going to Basal, Switzerland as the river was too high.  Ok… How do we get to Basal tomorrow morning?  They’ll bus us!  It’s about an hour’s drive.  Perfect.  Actually, it’s pretty much the way this vacation has gone!

At 2:15 we got on the bus for the WWII memorial tour.  I’m so glad we did this.  It was amazing. We went to a small but really nice museum, then to the memorial where the guide showed us how the Germans, French and Americans fought the battle in Alsace.  There were many, many casualties.  The area went from French, to German, back to France, back to Germany and finally the Americans liberated the villages that we were driving through.  We saw the spot where Audie Murphy held off the Germans and pushed them back into retreat.  It was very emotional.  We walked from the bus to the Audie Murphy memorial walking by a couple of soccer fields filled with young people playing soccer.  Imagine, the Germans were within yards of Audie Murphy when he jumped up on a burning tank, turning the big guns on the Germans, pushing them back.  And now, kids are happily playing soccer in the calm, beautiful fields….

We had a lovely final dinner with our new friends.  We hope to see them again in future travels.

Today was a long day.  We got up at 6am (!!) to get a bus to Basal, Switzerland.  At the airport we rented a car, after finally passing through customs, with no checks of our luggage or passports, from France to Switzerland.  Bc started driving and luckily we have Francine our GPS gal.  The names of streets are hard to pronounce let alone read as this is the German area of Switzerland!  We headed to Wynau and Murgenthal to see if we could find the graves of my ancestors.  My great grandparents, who I knew very well, emigrated from Switzerland in the early 1900s to Galveston, later settling in Santa Barbara.  We found two cemeteries but they were very “new”.  Most graves held people who had died in the last 20 years or so.  However, it did feel very special to walk on the streets that my great grandparents must have walked. Their last names were Pluss and Lemp.

Here's a covered bridge built in 1863.  About 20 years before my great grandparents were born and probably used this bridge! 

Here's a view of the scenery as we drove from Basal to Geneve.

We had a lovely lunch at a restaurant.  They all speak German in that part of Switzerland.  It’s hard for us to understand German.  But people are very nice and help us out.  We had a great cup of soup and a salad sitting at a communal table with the locals. 

Back on the road to drive to Geneva.  Francine said we would be at our hotel by 3:30pm.  Perfect!  We can write the blog, rest and enjoy the evening!  We made great time and were very close to Geneva when we found our freeway had been closed due to an accident.  Francine recalculated and took us to Geneva via back city roads.  We followed her instructions to go over the bridge to our hotel (about a half a mile away) but the bridge was closed due to a marathon!  There were many Gendarmes (police) guarding the blockades, so bc pulled up and I rolled down the window to ask one of them how to get to the Hotel Longemalle.  He said “that was a red light.”  I said “huh?”  Yup, we had not only gone through a red light, but pulled up next to a cop and asked for help!  He told us how to get back around to another bridge to get to our hotel.  The traffic was horrible!  We waited sometimes through 3 signals to get through an intersection.  The streets are not in a grid formation.  They are all X's and Y's with lots of one way streets thrown in.  Then add all the confusing signals and it was overwhelming!  Then Francine started getting all huffy because we wouldn't go over the bridge that was closed.  Long, long story short, we drove for almost 2 hours in a 15 block radius until they finally opened the closed bridge.  We went around and around.  Guess what?  We couldn't find our hotel because they had closed the street in front of the hotel for construction.  Ok, closed freeway detour, marathon closed bridge detour and closed street construction detour.  We finally called the hotel and said “Where are you?”  We pulled the car over (parking is impossible!) and a guy from the hotel walked over to us.  We gave him the keys, he moved the barricades, drove our car through the construction mess, unloaded our bags and then took the car somewhere to park it.  For only $50.00 a day!  By this time it was 5:30, we were exhausted, so that actually sounded like a good deal. 

So, mom, you are right!  You can’t get there from here!  Here is the view of our hotel. 

And what makes you feel less stressed out after a day like that?  A walk along the lake and this:

All I can say is good night!  Love to all… bc and gc