The Loire Valley & Bordeaux area

23 September (Tuesday):

Well, breakfast was much better than I had anticipated.  They had baguettes and cheese as well as some cereals so I was happy.  We spent the morning seeing the inside of the Chambord Chateau.  My first glimpse of it was as we drove through the forest yesterday.  The roof and all its towers stood well above the tree tops and looked like the most impossible fairy palace.  You will understand when you look at the pictures.  It is enormous - one source says it has 440 rooms and 327 fireplaces.  Construction was started in 1515 by Francois I.  It kept being added to over the centuries.  They even changed a river to run by and provide a moat.  We spent a couple of hours seeing everything we were allowed to - they have quite a collection of paintings and furniture in it - the French State owns it now.  

We checked out of the hotel then drove to the town of Blois, not very far away, to see the Chateau there.  We drove into the town following the P (parking) signs.  We kept arriving at Bus only parkades.  We actually went around one area three times thinking we had missed  the right road but finally gave up the in-town parking and went across the river where we parked on the street.  The walk across the bridge to town was short.  We found the restaurant Hans and chosen for dinner and eliminated our frustration with a very nice meal in a very old hotel near the river Loire.  We then walked up the hill and three quarters of the way around the Chateau before we found the entry.  It is about a third the size of Chambord.  It was built over many centuries and has four distinct wings, each of a different design.  The pictures show some of the styles.  Again the place is owned by the government and has lots of major paintings and furniture.  We then proceeded to our next hotel reservation in the town of Amboise.  It also has a chateau but not one worth us going in.  We were in this town because of the very nice hotel.  We had an excellent dinner in a restaurant a block away, found the road we wanted to take in the morning, and had a wonderful nights sleep.

24 September (Wednesday):

Two more Chateaus to explore today.  We went to Chateaus Chenonceau and Azay le Rideau.  They are both built IN rivers.  The first spans across the entire river, anchored on one side and with a short bridge to the other side.  The second is on an island and was originally a fort to protect goods being transported up and down the river but is now a very pretty Chateau.  They are both fairly small but elegant.  The Chateau Chenonceau is still privately owned and has an operating farm attached.  It is our favorite after Chambord.  The last one had a lot of tapestries in it and the rooms were kept quite dark to protect the colours.  This made it difficult to see pictures and things.  We went from one to the other using back roads to see the country side.  We were using a map that had a fairly small scale so most of the roads and towns were not on it!  This made deciding which way to go very difficult.  It took us about 2 hours to get from the first to the second.  We got a good map from the Tourist Information office in Azay le Rideau and followed the main roads back, returning to Amboise in 40 minutes. 

25 September (Thursday):

After breakfast we walked the few blocks to town and bought some cheese and a baguette to have for lunch with our apples, then checked out of our hotel and started driving southwest to Bordeaux.  With a decent map and some help from the GPS when we were near the Motorway, we had no problems until we were through Bordeaux and on our way up the west side of the Garonne River.  We were heading for a small town, Margaux.  The GPS took us on the nearest main road, then said we were at our destination when we knew we still had about 30 kilometers to go.  We have a good map of the area so continued with out difficulty until we were actually in the town and couldn't find the hotel!.  We drove around and finally found it, on the coast road we would have taken on our own.  After checking in we drove up the coast road to see a couple of interesting places.   One was a Winery that had a collection of carriages from the 19th century.  They had one from London that could take up to 15 people!  Most of the passengers had to sit up top, exposed to the weather.  They had wax figures in appropriate dress for each carriage.  It was the best part of the tour.  We returned to the hotel for a nice dinner in the restaurant, then a good nights sleep.

26 September (Friday):

This morning we slept in a bit as it doesn't get light until nearly 8:00 am.  (All of Europe - the continent - is on the same time, one hour earlier than London, 9 hours earlier than Pacific time.)  We enjoyed breakfast in a sun-lit room looking at the peaceful fields of grape vines waiting to have the red grapes harvested.  We checked out of the hotel and drove north up the peninsula again, this time to the Estate called Chateau Mouton Rothschild.  They had a tour in English starting at 11 am, about half an hour away.  We walked around the grounds enjoying the variety of plants then went on the tour.  It was excellent, much better than the one yesterday for the same price!  Part of the tour was to the Museum of Wine there.  Everything in it is related to wine in some way.  They have an amazing collection.  From there we drove a couple of kilometers when we found a small park with picnic tables and had our bread, cheese and apple lunch.  We carried on down a back road to see an 11th Century Romanesque church, modified in the 15th century.  It was quite plain but very impressive as it was built in cathedral style.  From there we drove back to Bordeaux.  We didn't even try the GPS.  With some written explicit instructions from the hotel, we managed to get to the hotel without an error and are now set up for the night.

Kirchhain and around

16 September (Tuesday):

I didn't mention yesterday that we returned the rental car.  To have VISA cover the insurance costs for the whole trip we had to break up the rental into 2 parts, separated by at least 24 hours.  When we returned the car we told the agent of the problems we had with the GPS system in Austria and we needed to be sure it would give us directions to precise addresses in France and Spain.  We thought it was just a matter of having the right CDs.  This morning we took the tram from in front of our hotel right to the AVIS office on the edge of town.  They reported that the GPS system in the car we returned was not working properly so they had an Audi waiting for us.  I was a little sad as I had gotten used to what I could do with the system in the Volkswagen Passat and the new one had completely different controls and prompts, though it sounded the same.  We drove back to the hotel for our luggage, entered our day's destination and were off.  The destination was a house in a small town, Kirchhain, one we have visited several times before.  It is the home of Brix Eichinger and her husband Horst.  Brix and her brother Klaus, with their parents, shared a 3-room house with the Zickmantel family for 7 years in the prison camp in Suriname.  The four children shared one bedroom.  Brix is like family, so is her husband.  After catching up on the families onboth sides, we decided to go for a hike.  We did the two-car trip,m parking our car at the end of the hike then driving their car to the starting point.  It was a pleasant hike through forests and past high Burgs.  It took us close to 2 hours.  We drive our car back to get their car, and couldn't find where we had parked it!  The town it was in climbs the side of a big hill and forest is all around it.  It is quite a large town and the roads curve continuously, every junction looking like the last.  We finally stopped and asked some local residents how to get to the start of the hiking trail, and then finally reached the car.

17 September (Wednesday):

We stayed a second day here.  Around 10:45 we left for a trip to see some of the small towns in the area.  The first stop was Bad Wildungen, then on to Waldeck and its Schloss, and finally Fritzlar.  All the towns are old with Tudor style architecture predominant, as you will see when you look at the pictures.  The church in Fritzlar was surprisingly elaborate to find in a small town.  We had a very enjoyable day's tour, returning to Kirchhain by 5:30 pm.  Horst is a wonderful tour guide as he knows History, Geography, Architectural History and any thing else you may want to know about the places he took us.  He is also an excellent chef as he cooked Wiener Schnitzel for dinner.  The evening discussion, including looking at photo albums of our past visits and their trip to Vancouver, went on until almost midnight, when Brix and I went to bed.  Hans and Horst continued talking until 1:30 am!  

18 Septemeber (Thursday):

We left Kirchhain just before 10 am and headed for Aachan, in Germany but on the border into the Netherlands.  I entered our trip destination into the GPS, giving it the address of a Hotel we thought we would like to stay in, then off we went.  It was about a 3-hour drive.  The GPS took us to a place and said this is it but we couldn't see a hotel and found ourselves past the hotel with the G"PS giving us instructions we thought were to take us around and back to the hotel.  The first couple of directions it gave seemed odd and I suddenly realized that it figured we had reached our 1st destination and was now taking us to a 2nd destination which was back to Kirchhain!  We quickly changed direction, got ours selves back to where we found the hotel and Hans went in to get a room and find out where to park the car.  He returned fairly quickly and announced that there was a large convention going on and there wasn't a free hotel room in the city.  Hans immediately decided we would go on to our next destination, Bruges, in Belgium.  We have 3 nights book there and thought we would see if they could put us up tomight, if not, where would they suggest?  (It is a small B^B with only 3 rooms.)  When I tried to enter the address of the B&B in the GPS it wouldn't accept the street name, or the name of any street nearby!  I finally entered Cantre, figuring that would get us near enough.  We drove on for about another tow and a half hours, arriving in Bruges about 4:30 pm.  When we reached the Centre, according to the GPS, we could not find ourselves on the small map we had.  Hans went off to investigate while I waited at the illegally parked car.  I finally stopped a couple walking by asked if they could show me where we were on my map.  (Everyone here speaks at least one foreign language, usually English and French, often German too.)  They had just left after showing me that we were actually off the map of the centre of the city that we had when Hans arrived back to say he had booked us into a nearby hotel and knew where we should park.  We proceeded without the GPS and have a very nice suite for the night.  We walked around the area looking for a nice restaurant and found that our first choices (from the Guide Book) were closed on Thursdays.  We walked a little further and found a very nice place where we got the last unreserved table.  We had a very nice meal and returned ready for a good nights sleep.

Bruges, Belgium

19 September (Friday):

In the morning we took it easy, eventually checked out of the hotel and took our luggage to the car.  We then walked around viewing the sights and got to the Diamond Museum about half an hour before they give a daily Polishing demonstration.  We looked through the museum, then went to the demonstration.  The girl who gave the demo repeated everything in perfect French, then English.  She was prepared to say it in Dutch too but didn't need to.  It was quite fascinating and not at all the process we thought it was.  We then walked to our B&B and found out where to park the car.  We went back to where the car was parked, stopping for a bite of linch on the way, then drove to the B&B (not an easy thing to do with so many one-way streets and VERY narrow streets), left the luggage, parked the car and were settled for the next couple of days.

20 September (Saturday):

The main things left for us to do was to visit some Museums.  The temperature is quite chilly in the mornings so I spent part of the morning getting my blog and pictures organized and posted, waiting for it to warm up.  Then we went for a walk around some canals and ended at the Choco-Museum and watched a demo of the steps to make chocolates.  After that we set out for the main square where we bought two tickets for us to see 5 of the many city museums.  We went into two museums that are in a building on the square and count as one on our tickets.  Portable hand-held guides come with the multi-museum tickets so we each had one and listened to as much about some items as we wanted.  The guide really was good to have in the second museum as it was really just an extremely ornate room where justice was decided by the town council in the past.  To get anything at all from the room we had to listen to most of what they said.  It was very interesting.  Back out in the square we went over to a church and read the signs about what there was to see.  Just as I was about to speak to Hans I felt someone bump my pouch that was against my back (strapped around my waist).  I quickly pulled the pouch to the front and found the zipper open and my wallet and one of our museum tickets gone!  I was totally distressed for several minutes.  After thinking about what had been in my wallet I realized the only think I had to do ASAP was notify VISA that my card had been stolen.   Everything else can be fixed later.  As it was not yet 8 am in Vancouver I decided I could carry on with our sight-seeing.  I hadn't had much money in my wallet so the whole thing is more a nuisance than a tragedy.  We continued and visited 2 more museums.  At the first one I gave them one ticket and said the other had just been stolen.  To our surprise the girl gave us a replacement ticket at no cost! After that we headed back to our B&B where I sent a secure message through the on-line banking system to the VISA people.   We went out to a restaurant called The Stove for dinner.  We got the only unreserved table.  There are only 8 tables in the place.  A man, the chef, and his wife, the waitress, run the whole thing themselves and that is all the clients they can handle.  The food was excellent and the evening most enjoyable.

21 September (Sunday):

After breakfast, about 10 am, we started a walk that took us past 5 old wind mills along the river.  Today is a Special Sunday the town has, I think once a month.  Cars are banned in the town centre and all the city museums are free!  We thus went free into one of the mills that has been turned into a museum.  The stairway in was almost like climbing a ladder.  The mills were used for grinding all sorts of grain.  The one we went into had two grinding wheels so could do two kinds at a time (or double the amount of one kind).  From there we went to the Belfry Tower, used our Museum Tickets (no free-bee there!) and climbed 349 spiral stairs to the look-out.  In the pictures you will see three views from the top.  With the crowds wanting to climb the tower they limit the number of people at one time to 70 and still passing people on the stairs, especially the upper part where it is very narrow,  is a bit precarious.

We walked for a total of 5 hours, going into every city museum we came across.  By then we were worn out and wanted to sit in cafe patio in the sun and have something to drink.  There were so many other people with the same idea that we ended up returning to our B&B so I got to get this blog up to date.

22 September (Monday):

Time to leave Bruges.  We went to get the car to the B&B before breakfast, opened the door and found it was raining!  Definitely time to leave.  We drove off about 10 am with the GPS operating once we made our way to the ring road, which was quite easy.  Then the GPS started telling us strange moves.  We did the first couple and found they took us the long way around to get to the freeway, though not too far.  There was once on the trip to and around Paris where they didn't tell us to go right be we know we had to because we know what road we had to be on.  Once we got near Chambord (our destination) the GPS started giving weird instructions again.  We ignored them and made our way to our hotel, right across the road from the Chateau we had come to see.  We arrived just after 4 pm.  We settled into our room then went for a walk.  The forest around the Chateau is immense.  We walked for over an hour, just down along a river/moat to a bridge and back on the other side of the water.  The only place to eat dinner is at the restaurant in our hotel.  The hotel seems a little run-down so we didn't expect much from the restaurant.  Wrong!  The food was wonderful, especially as, unlike the countries we have been in so far, the French focus on vegetables.  Our dinners were magnificent!  The problem is the we loved the breakfast so far but we know the French have just sweet buns and coffee, so what I am going to have I don't know.  We find out in the morning.

Regensburg through Frankfurt

9 September (Tuesday).

We were delayed leaving the Wirth's as Christian and I could not get the FPS to work.  We ended up going to the nearest Volkswagen dealer where I realized the problem was that the English version said 'Enter Location' which I took to mean where we were, which seemed strange as it supposedly knew where we were.  It should have read 'Enter Destination' and all would have been well.  We drove into Austria, heading for Innsbruck then Vienna.   We expected to see lots of the mountains and valleys of Austria but primarily saw the inside of tunnels.  Some were as long as 6 k.  The country we did see looked a lot like Switzerland only everything is at a lower altitude - only a few mountains are over 3,000 meters and still had snow.  The amount of traffic on the road amazed us, especially on the 'back road' we took to a place named Bad Hofgestein that the Wirths recommended.  The Palace Hotel there was very nice, with meals included at a very reasonable price.  We arrived about 6:30 pm, just in time for dinner.

10 September (Wednesday):

I managed to set the GPS to have Vienna as a destination but the system doesn't have the details about Austria to be able to take us to our hotel.  It can only get us to the centre of town.  (This had caused us to have to ask 3 time yesterday before we found the Palace Hotel).  We got to the centre of town and then followed the small map in our guide book and were amazed that we got to the hotel on the first try.  The hotel is excellently positioned so we can easily walk to everything.  Our Guide Book has 3 walking tours, so we did number 1 in the afternoon.  the old buildings are truly magnificent.  For dinner we found the street in front of our hotel has nothing but restaurants for several blocks.  They all have most of their seating outside.  The weather was quite hot (high 20s) so outside was perfect.  It was fun watching all the people walking past and there were a lot of them!

11 September (Thursday):

Last night we discovered a flaw in the position of our hotel.  Traffic and other strange noises woke us in the early hours and prevented me from going back to sleep until I remembered I had ear plus.  What a difference they make!  Today we started out following walking tour 2 but in reverse.  By the time we reached the Hofburg (the huge complex of official buildings) the museums were open.  we went through the Imperial Apartments where they have rooms full of silver, gold and porcelain dishes; cutlery; serving dishes; and everything related to eating.  There was a set of porcelain dishes with appropriate crests on them for each monarch from the late 17th Century on.  Each set had servings for at least 100 people.  It was an astounding collection.  Then we went through the rooms that were used by Franz Joseph and his wife Elizabeth of Bavaria (18th - 19th century).  Everything is in amazingly good condition.  next we toured the Schatzkammer (Imperial Treasury).  It is divided into two sections, the Imperial Profane and the Sacerdotal )religious) Treasuries.  They have the imperial crown which dates from 962 (10th Century).  They also have the 9th century saber of Charlemagne and an 8th century holy lance.  It is an awesome collection of precious things.  In the evening we went to a concert in the Konzerthaus.  The building is fairly recent for Vienna - not quite 100 years old.  the acoustics are first class.  The 'Wiener (Vienna) Hofburg-Orchester' performed for an hour and a half.  the music was mostly Johan Strauss and Mozart with three pieces by other composers.  there were also six opera singers who sang the parts for the opera pieces the orchestra played.  it was almost like being at the annual New Years concert the the Opera House that we watch on PBS TV every New Year's Eve.

12 September (Friday):

To day was mostly cloudy, q welcome relief from the hot sun.  The temperature was still warm so we were quite comfortable in T-shirts.  We visited The Albertina Muesum to see the Van Gogh and Picass/Monet paintings they had on display.  We also saw some of the rooms occupied by royalty in the past.  They are beautiful rooms even without much (or in some rooms any) furniture.  After that we did the third walking tour from our guide book.  It took us to an area not reached by most tourists.  all the streets are lined with beautiful buildings.  We saw two of the nicest churches we have visited.  we stopped at a Greek restaurant (included in the tour) for a late lunch and I had the most delicious meal I can remember.  It was pumpkin stuffed ravioli with walnus, cheese and vegetables and the total flavour was amazing.  After that we walked along the Danube Canal for a few blocks, finished the tour and eventually returned to our hotel.  Our last day in Vienna.

13 September (Saturday):

Since our destination for the day was in Germany I was able to enter the exact address into the GPS system.  The hotel is on the main plaza and, the system told us, access by car is restricted.  The town we were to stay in is Regensburg, a picturesque old town in Bavaria.  We had not yet reached the destination of our hotel when we found a big underground parking lot and went in and parked.  The distance to the hotel was farther than we had thought it would be and rolling suitcases for several blocks on cobblestone roads and sidewalks was noisy!  We had the entire afternoon to see the old town.  It is very compact and easy to get from one interesting building to another.   We also walked along the shore of the Danube River and crossed over most of the way on a very old stone bridge (now pedestrians and hose carriages only).  The Turm and Taxis families had a monopoly on the German Postal Service for several centuries thereby becoming very rich.  The now own the old Schloss in Regensburg and are still very prominent in the business world.  They have a major development well under way in the heart of Frankfurt.  We ate dinner at the Gaensbauer Restaurant, in a very old building near the river, with two or three small rooms for diners.  We chose their special 8th anniversary set menu with 6 courses! We hadn't had any lunch and were hungry.  The food was excellent and beautifully presented.

14 September (Sunday):

This day we wanted to just wander some back roads in the Wiesenttal, a part of Bavaria.  It is called that because of the steep rock cliffs and narrow river valleys with lots of hills and meadows.  I didn't set the GPS.  It asked if we wanted to continue the interrupted trip - getting to the main square of Regensburg.  I told it NO.  This caused it to start showing on the screen exactly what road we were on and what the nearest town was.  It was a great help when I wasn't sure how far to the next town or turn.  I don't know how you get that to turn on because after we stopped to visit the Burg Rebenbeck it didn't come on again.  We ended our wandering in Colberg, the town Queen Victoria's husband Prince Albert was from.  It was the capital of a very rich part of Bavaria and has the most splendid buildings we have seen.  the photos are labeled in the Kodak Gallery.

I set the GPS to get us out of the town and to our hotel in Frankfurt am Main.  It waved us a lot of trouble.  Once checked in to the hotel we walked across the Main River to a restaurant recommended by the receptionist at the hotel.  It had the atmosphere of a medium size beer hall in Munich.  The food was good but finding something I could eat was difficult - 80% of the items on the menu contained pork and all the rest had something I'm not supposed to eat.  I ordered a chicken salad and it came with breaded chicken pieces and little cubes of bread in the salad!  I are around the bread and was quite satisfied.

15 September (Monday):

I used my ear plugs last night as there was quite a bit of noise outside our window when I went to bed.  In the morning I was very glad I had used them as the trams that go down the street, under our window, were extremely noisy.  

We have flown in and out of the Frankfurt Airport several times but have never been in the city of Frankfurt.  In planning the trip we decided to spend a day here.  We have spent the day walking around the old centre of Frankfurt.  There has been a strong wind from the east all day and we got very cold (the temperature out of the wind was 10 degrees C.), especially Hans as he hadn't expected it to be so bad and didn't have on warm enough clothes.  I always expect the worst and was OK.  The old buildings are marvelous.  The new buildings are even more so.  The contrast is dramatic as they are frequently sids by side.  The old church spires are disappearing from the skyline.  we walked back to the Opera House to find a restaurant for dinner.  There is a good selection of restaurants there.  We chose an Italian place that was fairly expensive but the meal was worth it.  We move on tomorrow.

In Switzerland

Our Trip to Europe, September and October 2008

30 August (Saturday):

Left Lauchringen for Switzerland about 10:30 am with two cars. We had to follow Christian as he wanted to go the most direct way which involved small, unimportant roads on the map. We had the planned route marked on our map incase we lost them on the way but didn’t really want to try and follow that. If we had lost them I would have got our GPS system working and taken the more main roads. However we never lost them. Christian did take a turn that put us on the wrong freeway, going east instead of west so we had to turn around at an overpass/exit and got back on to the correct freeway. It being a Saturday, the typical Swiss road traffic was in effect – thousands of motorbikes and hundreds of bicycles working their way up into the high passes and then down again. The Swiss cyclists must be the most fit group in the world – those roads go up thousands of METERS, some very steep.

We arrived at our lodgings about 3pm. The house we are in is about 400 meters up from the valley floor. Our suites are both very nice I think there are 6 suites in this house, two per floor. The view over the valley is lovely.

31 August (Sunday):

We woke to a partially cloudy sky, but lots of blue visible. We are eating all our meals together in the Wirth’s suite. We decided to use that one as it has a better supply of cooking utensils and lots of herbs and spices we can use. It does not have a dishwasher but we decided the things it does have make up for having to wash the dishes by hand.

After a good breakfast Hans and Christian drove to the destination town of today’s hike and left our car, then returned. We started our hike from our house. It took about half and hour to climb up to the ridge, 275 meters higher than the house. From there it was reasonably level walk for about 90 minutes. We met lets of other people walking the route too. The views of the valley and mountains were wonderful. At one place there was a beautiful valley going up the mountain that was full of purple wildfire flowers. It was then we realized we didn’t have the camera with us! The third hour of the walk was down about 300 meters to the valley floor at the town where our car had been left. We had been walking up the valley and the floor had been rising so we were much closer to the floor than when we started. It was a very nice hike.

During the walk we had watched dark clouds gathering over the mountains. We had stopped at a small cabin we passed and talked to the owner (the cabin is his hunting lodge and he was getting it ready for the hunting season). He said it would not rain on our walk, but maybe in the evening. Sure enough, about 8pm the thunder and lightening started and it poured for a while.

1 September (Monday):

This morning the sun was shining brightly on us while the valley was covered in cloud. We thought the sun would burn it off quickly but instead the wind started blowing and soon there were clouds everywhere. We had to go grocery shopping (the stores all close for a 3 hour lunch and often for the afternoon as well) so we did that chore after breakfast and returned in time to have some lunch. The sky was showing some blue off to the west, the way we wanted to hike, so we got ourselves on the way by 2pm. We started the same way we went yesterday but turned west instead of east at the first trail junction. The path was much more up and down than the day before, with the path often clinging to the edge of a steep slope. This country is 80% vertical. Again we had one car waiting for us at the end of the trail, in Bellwald.

2 September (Tuesday):

A beautiful clear sky this morning – perfect for our trip to see the Matterhorn. The drive was about 2 hours, then we had to park the car and take a train to Zermatt. From there cog-wheel train takes you up to a spectacular view point called Gornergrat, with several stops along the way. At the top the altitude was over 10,000 feet (3,100 meters). Hans and I both felt the lack of oxygen. We had wonderful views of the Matterhorn on the way up but it was difficult to get a photo from the moving train. From Gornergrat we could see about a dozen glaciers, receded to the point where they no longer meet. We were above the snow line but there was no snow left where we were. We walked part of the way down enjoying the wonderful panorama. By the time we were part way down it was getting close to 2pm. We had been told that by that time the clouds would be covering the Matterhorn and they were covering one side and starting to work their way around the whole thing. After descending about 800 meters we reached a station that was still a 2 hour walk from Zermatt. My knee said enough as did the time (about 3:00) so we rode the train the rest of the way down then had a brief walk around Zermatt. What a tourist town! It’s a good thing no cars are there – pedestrians fill the streets – and I do mean fill. Not a place any of us would want to spend a holiday. We had left at 9:30 in the morning and returned at 6:00 pm. A lovely day.

3 September (Wednesday):

Today we had expected rain so scheduled a late start. Instead there was lots of blue sky so we changed our plans and set out for another hike. Our first hike had taken us eastward to the town of Gluringen. Today we drove back to Gluringen and hiked from there to Munster. The trail took us from 1300 meters to 1800 meters to get around a steep valley and over the river that made the valley. It took an hour of steady climbing to get to the bridge over the river. Then it took another hour and a half to walk down and over to Munster, where we did some grocery shopping before driving home (in the car positioned in Munster before we started). During the hike the clouds built up but the rain didn’t arrive until dinner time and then it was just a brief shower. However rain is forecast for tomorrow and the clouds are all around us.

4 September (Thursday):

We awoke to find we were inside the clouds. It wasn’t really raining but the moisture was condensing on the slate roof and dripping into the eaves trough. It was late morning when we drove east, the way we had come, to the foot of the high pass. There we continued up the river instead of turning to the pass. The river comes from the Rhone Glacier. Back in 1860 someone dug a cave into the face of the glacier and every year since a new one is created. The glacier is currently moving 10 cm a day so the cave has to be cleaned up every morning. We paid our 5 Swiss Francs each and walked the trail to the glacier view points and then into the tunnel and the cave. They have installed fluorescent lights (no heat from fluorescent lights) in holes in the walls so the deep blue colour of the ice shows up well. The glacier has receded some in the last 50 years but not far compared to the Mendenhal Glacier near Juneau, Alaska. (That one is at sea level where this one is over 1400 meters high.) What it has lost is height. The cave was dripping about the same amount of water as the clouds were outside. We have a hike planned for tomorrow so hope the weather co-operates.

5 September (Friday):

We awoke to a mostly blue sky so our hike looked to be great. Problem was, Hans, after a 10 hour sleep, felt too tired to do anything. He complained of sweating and feeling dizzy. After breakfast Christian insisted he see a doctor so arranged an almost immediate appointment with a doctor in Munster. The Dr. checked him out, found his blood pressure was at the very high end of the acceptable range, gave him some medications (pharmacy and blood testing lab attached to his office) and sent him home to rest. The Wirths and I decided we wanted to hike and left him in the house while we drove west to the town of Aletsch where we took a cable car up to 1900 feet and started our hike to see the glacier (the largest in the Alps). It took us two and a half hours to reach the farthest point of our hike at an altitude of 2333 meters. We returned along a path on a very old moraine, lower than the trail up. This path was fairly level. It took us one and a half hours to get back to the Cable Car. Ute and I were both aching in our sore joints by the end but the trip was well worth it. We had taken an hour longer than the guide book had said the hike would be so Hans was beginning to wonder about us by the time we returned, six and a half hours after leaving him. He was feeling just fine and had recovered fully, thank goodness, as he has to drive us back to Lauchringen (the Wirth’s home town) tomorrow.

6 September (Saturday):

The German schools open on Monday so there were a lot of cars on the road heading home to Germany. In spite of the heavy traffic we made good time and reached Lauchringen by 2:30pm. We had to shop for groceries in Munster, Switzerland, as all stores close at noon on Saturday and don’t open until Monday in both countries.

7 September (Sunday):

Today we drove for about an hour to the northwest. We went through Switzerland then back into Germany, this being the shortest route to see the ruins of a mountain top fortress (Burg) called Hohentwiel. The Burg was built on the remains of a volcanic cinder cone so the trail up was very steep – just as much energy needed as the trail up to the Aletsch glacier on Friday, though this one was not quite as long. From various parts of the castle, especially the lookout tower, we had a wonderful view of the surrounding country, which included the town of Constance and Lake Constance (the Boden See). Part of the trip was through downpours of rain but at the Burg the sun was shining. We returned the long way, staying in Germany.

8 September (Monday):

Today the sun burned the clouds off in the morning. We went for a hike in the afternoon. We placed one car at our destination then walked from the house here. It was a pretty walk through the woods and pastures where we saw a few deer, then up to another ruined Burg. The first use of the lookout was by the Romans! The ruins are the remains of structures started in the 12th Century. There is not much left but there is a tower with a 360 degree view of the whole country-side. A great finish to our stay with the Wirths.