Easter Travels Part II

Ok, so I've lost my motivation and discipline to blog regularly. I figured that would happen sooner or later, just didn't know when. But, I'm gonna try to keep going.

Staubbach Falls in Lauterbrunnen Valley

6-7. April
Our first full day in Switzerland was sunny and gorgeous. We decided that with the risk of continued wet weather, Lauterbrunnen Valley was our first destination.  As we drove the valley, the mountains became rockier, taller, more pronounced.  Soon a waterfall appeared here and there, looking like nothing but a trickle against the massive cliffs.  We parked Sparky and continued on foot down the tiny road leading through the fields and homes, down the middle of the valley with magnificent rocks, mountains, and waterfalls on either side of us.  We also spent a fair amount of time (in the rain) that afternoon and the following day exploring the city of Interlaken.  My dream upon returning to Interlaken was to go paragliding in the Swiss Alps, landing on the green in central Interlaken. Unfortunately, it rained. And rained. And rained. Maybe next time.

8. April
Easter Sunday.  Still precipitating, only this time it turned white. We walked in the snow to the edge of Interlaken where we found the little Reformed church. The rhythm of the service was very similar to the rhythm of a traditional service in the ELCA. The biggest difference for me (without full understanding of the language) was the Eucharist. Only once did I hear "The body of Christ given for you" and "The blood of Christ shed for you". It was said once for everyone but not to the face of each individual. That bothered me. The other thing that bothered me was that there was little indication that it was Easter. The preacher mentioned Easter a couple times in the sermon, but never did we say, "Christ is Risen, Alleluia!" There was no atmosphere of celebration. No masses of flowers, as I am used to on Easter morning.


After the service we headed off, in the snow, toward Schaan, Liechtenstein. I panicked and made Dad drive through the mountains, the snow-covered switch-back roads on which no one else seemed to think going slower was necessary. Once we found our hostel (a rather pukey shade of pink), we had 2 hours before we could check in, so we walked. And we walked. And we walked. And we were frozen and the only thing we found open on Easter Sunday (kind of cool, if you ask me, even if inconvenient for us at the moment) in two hours of walking was a tiny grocery store. Finally, we checked in and settled for the night next to a room full of dudes singing "Somebody that I Used to Know" at the top of their lungs.


9. April
Assuming nothing was going to be open on Easter Monday, we planned nothing but to hike in the mountains. After a long trip up and down and back up the mountain again (thanks to the gas gauge jumping majorly and freaking us out), we found the ski resort in Malbun.  Next we found that hiking there was beyond our abilities! Deep snow, thin air, and constant steep incline brought our hike to a halt about half a mile from the start. Yet, it was spectacular and sunny. I was too slow with the camera when Mom's feet decided she needed to make a snow angel, and we occasionally got too near the edge of the path where we would sink past our knees in snow instead of just to our ankles. One of the coolest parts of this little hike was the St Bernhard chapel 200 meters up the path.

By the time we reached the Neuschwanstein castle, I was tired and cranky and just wanted to get to München for the night. Miss Garmin took us well out of our way before we arrived at the castle where we discovered that the trail to the bridge (the part we wanted to see most of all) was blocked off by scaffolding on the castle. Oh piffle. I told Mom that I'd go anyway if she wanted to, but she had better sense than I did and we didn't go. We only got pictures from a distance.

 

The bridge we couldn't get to.

The Wombat City Hostel in München was another whole adventure. It was by far the coolest hostel I've ever stayed in, but it was a bit much for my parents. The three of us were in a mixed 6-bed room and the other three beds were occupied by 3 very nice but quite rowdy (and drunk by the end of the night) young men who I'm guessing were Australian.


10. April
It was all I could do in the morning not to turn all the lights on and say loudly, "Ok sexy boys, it's time to get up and have breakfast!" Really, it was an awesome hostel though. There was a huge bar (that we only went to to get our free OJs) and a room full of brightly colored cushy chairs and hammocks strung between trees. And, the breakfast was amazing.

We left the Wombat before much of anyone else was awake and headed to Dachau where we spent the better part of the day walking the grounds of Germany's first concentration camp. What shocked me most about this one was how several of the camp's buildings are still used for various things today. I guess it makes sense, the buildings are there and if there is a need, to use them... but it just seemed eerie to me.

Gate of our vacation home.

We left Dachau and headed south to my favorite part of Germany: Berchtesgaden. There we stayed at a little vacation home where we had our own little kitchen and living room--definitely a few steps up from the hostel life! We had a deck from which we could look out over the farm's field and the ponies grazing (in the rain) and snow-covered mountains in the background. We walked down (WAY down) to the city center and amusingly enough, the only real food we could find was Italian, so we didn't eat German as we had hoped. Then we had to climb back up (WAY up).


11. April
Hiking around the city of Berchtesgaden, we found the salt mines but decided not to do the tour. Perhaps we should have, but we didn't. Mom and I spent the afternoon snooping in the shops.

Königssee

12. April Hiking around Königssee. Beautiful.

13. April

We started off early with the plan to meet my friend Sebastian in Regensburg for lunch. First, we had the city of Ramsau and its famous Pfarrkirche St Sebastian to see. In the rain. Thankfully, Mom didn't decide to make angels in the river, though she thought about it. There was no rail on one side of the bridge we walked on...and when there's a view as magnificent as the church with foggy mountains behind, where one is walking is the last place one is looking!

Hintersee on a rainy day.

From there, we headed to one of my favorite places in Berchtesgaden, Hintersee. The clearest water I have ever seen tucked in amongst mountains and a little town on one shore. Across the lake is, on a sunny day, a view of Hitler's Eagle's Nest perched on a peak.





Steinerne Brücke (Stone Bridge) in Regensburg

We made it to Regensburg with little trouble. Then it changed. Miss Garmin took us to a parking garage, supposedly the closest one to the city. It took us an hour of walking by the direction of what steeples we could see to find the City Center and Sebastian, who was waiting on the steps of the cathedral. We won't talk about finding our way back to the parking garage again.
Rather late, we rolled into Neuendettelsau and tucked in for the night.

14. April

Franconian Switzerland.  We had lunch at a neat little restaurant where we had some of the best cordon bleu I've ever had. We watched fish in the creek a bit and then toured one of the most famous caves of the area: Devil's Cave. Pictures were challenging, most quite fuzzy. We looked around at some other castles and a monastery, though we were unable to get in to any.

Holy Blood altar

15. April
Rothenburg ob der Tauber. In the rain. On a Sunday. Even though nothing is open on Sunday, it is an amazing city. Rothenburg is one of the most well-preserved medieval cities, basically untouched by the war. The buildings are magnificent, in places, the city wall is open to walk inside. The two highlights of the day were St. Jakob Kirche with it's amazing altars and the Criminal Museum.  St. Jakob holds not only the  famous high altar, or Twelve Apostles Altar by by Friedrich Herlin in 1466, but also the Holy Blood altarpiece carved by Tilman Riemenschneider, a wood carver from  Würzburg. 

Though I've been to Rothenburg before, I have never gone into the Criminal Museum. I was absolutely amazed and horrified at the things I saw there. Wagon wheels with blades to run people over. Once the body was broken, the body would be woven into the spokes of the wheel and left for all to see. So many of the methods of torture had such a large shaming component. Many masks of shame, different styles for different offenses.

16. April
Mom, Dad, my school friends, and I had breakfast together...the traditional Bavarian Weißwurst, Senf (mustard) and Hefeweißen, before Mom and Dad hopped on the train from Neuendettelsau to Frankfurt. There they stayed at a bed and breakfast and flew out the following morning. You'll have to ask them about the rest of their trip home.

Triberg im Schwarzwald and Interlaken

Holy Week.  I continue to marvel at the differences in practices and rituals between home and here in Germany.  Sunday's Palm Sunday service had no procession, no palms.  The only thing different than any other Sunday (and reading the usual Palm Sunday Gospel text) was the fact that my friend was installed as a Prädikant, or lay preacher.  Of course, this event was a big celebration for him and we continued after the service with Weißwurst and pretzels for lunch.

4. April
An early morning of 4:00 am started this 2-week adventure with my parents.  I hopped on the train, half awake, and was in Frankfurt to meet Mom and Dad by a little after 8:00 am.  Their plane arrived and we found our little rental car, Sparky, a Chevy Spark.  After several hours of driving, we were out of Frankfurt and into the Black Forest, and I was almost breathing behind the wheel.

We stopped in Triberg for the night, an adorable little town in the Black Forest.  First thing we did after checking into our hotel was hike up to Germany’s highest waterfall.  Spectacular, even in the rain.  On the way back down, we stopped at a restaurant for supper that was advertising Black Forest Cake…something Mom had her heart set on having.  Only, she about spit her first bite back on the plate.  Yup, there’s alcohol in Black Forest Cake.  I didn’t complain.  I got the rest of it after I finished my half-chicken.  Then we headed back to find ourselves locked out of the hotel that apparently locks before 8:00 pm even when that’s the specified time.

I miss taking part in Lenten services, and now I really feel discombobulated without any Holy Week worship.  It only helped, not very much, to pull up and listen to “Were You There” on YouTube.

5. April
Mom and I each found a cuckoo clock at an off-the-tourist-track shop.  They aren’t the cheap clocks sold in the main tourist shops.  They are made right there in that building.  Many people don’t understand why anyone would want a cuckoo clock so bad.  I LOVE them!  And, the deeper gong of the longer flute does things to my insides.  Mom understands my thing with the gong and my insides, but Dad is confused by it.  Perhaps you get it, perhaps you don’t.  I wish I had a picture of it, but I don't.  Have to wait till I get back to the US to see it again.

We got back in the car and continued south through the Black Forest to Switzerland.  Somewhere not too far out from our destination, Interlaken, we came to a halt.  After sitting in traffic for 15 minutes, our fabulous little Ms. Garmin says, “Extreme traffic ahead.  Recalculating.  Drive 9 km and take exit…”  Well, that doesn’t help much when you can’t go ANYWHERE.  She kept repeating various versions of this until her only option left was to recalculate us how to FLY somewhere, but she didn’t figure that part out for us.  She’s gotten us where we needed to go, but rarely ever the easy way.  I’m sure after taking care of us for 2 weeks she’s going to need therapy.

Dad and Hostel Dog

Finally, still in the rain, we arrived at our hostel, the Funny-Farm Backpacker’s Hostel in Interlaken, Switzerland.  Within minutes of receiving our room key, but before we’d actually found the room, Mom was in fits of giggles about trying to get the luggage and 2 people in the tiny elevator, and then back out again.  I took the stairs knowing there was NO way I was going to fit.  Funny Farm.  Here we are.

More to come soon!

Pax.