Good-Bye to Interlaken, Switzerland

This is the end of Album 3, Germany and Switzerland, on Wednesday, May 18, 2005. Album 4 will begin with our arrival in Geneva, France on the same day and will be the last leg of our 2005 European Adventure. The Europe portion of our trip ends on May 24 and we're not ready for it to be over!

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Breakfast at The Royal St. Georges

As much as we hate to, we have to board our train for Paris via Geneva, France after breakfast at our hotel, The Royal St. Georges. Bob's standing at the sumptuous buffet. The food was delicious! We feel we haven't seen or done everything in Interlaken and the surrounding areas yet, so we are making a mental note to return. And since the Franc is so favorable to the dollar, it makes sense to spend money in Switzerland instead of the rest of Europe right now.

Lovely Interlaken, Switzerland

This was our view as we approached Interlaken again. Such a beautiful sight! And the weather was so perfect - such a difference from the rain we had encountered when we first arrived the day before.

Berner Oberland-Bahn (BOB)

All the trains in this part of the country were known as "B-O-B" which stands for the Berner Oberland-Bahn train company. We rode the B-O-B all over Europe! On this afternoon the train was taking us from the cable car station in Murren through Lauterbraunnen, Switzerland and back down to Interlaken.

One More Visit to Murren, Switzerland

Marti wanted to spend a little more time in Murren, her homeland, she thinks. It was a cute little village, though. Note the clothes hanging on the line behind Marti in this photo.

Murren From Above

As we continued our descent, we watched Murren get larger and closer!

The View Ahead

This was our view as we continued to descend the mountain.

Our Descent

After we finished lunch and left the restaurant it was time to catch the cable car back down. This is what we looked like descending the mountain.

Another View from the Restaurant

As the restaurant turned, we were introduced to a new scene, and the weather was worsening - more clouds were moving in.

Our View from the Restaurant

As we ate our lunch we watched a skier disappear down this incredible mountain!

Revolving Restaurant

We loved the revolving restaurant at the top of The Schilthorn. We had lunch there as we watched the scenery glide by. We saw Titlis, along the Bernese Alps to Mont Blanc and far across the Mittelland to the Black Forest. It was great! We also saw The Eiger of the movie fame with Client Eastwood.

Bob's at the Top of The Schilthorn

Bob is freezing out there. This is the balcony off the restaurant and souvenir shop.

The Schilthorn in the Alps

We made it to the top. It's freezing up here and unbelieveably beautiful as shown in the next photos.

Cableway to The Schilthorn

We're in the cable car now and this is our view of the destination!

Marti in Murren, Switzerland

Marti's waiting for the next cableway to take us up to The Schilthorn mountain summit.

Another View of Murren

Murren, Switzerland was a village taken out of a picture book.

Murren, Switzerland in the Alps

Bob's in Murren, Switzerland, but his mind, as well as Marti's, is on two little premie babies in Chicago. However, we're in Switzerland and e-mails from the kids are keeping us in touch. So today we're on a train, then a funicular halfway up to The Schilthorn, the longest aerial cableway in the Alps. This served as the location for the James Bond thriller "On Her Majesty's Secret Service" from October 1968 to April 1969. Murin has some family history too. According to Marti's cousin, Jennyann Jensen, our Grandmother Jensen (her maiden name was Anderson) was from Murren, Switzerland.

"We Have Babies!" #2 Lauren Ann

Sweet tiny Lauren at 1 lb. 13 oz. arrived on May 16, 2005 just two minutes after Justine. She is so little and we wonder if we should cancel the rest of our trip and rush back to Chicago. Troy says the babies are in good hands in the Special Care Unit at the hospital and there's nothing we could do if we returned. Stephanie, however, makes arrangements with American Airlines and Hyatt hotels to extend our lay-over in Chicago by 24 hours so we can see the babies on our return trip home on May 24.

"We Have Babies!" #1 Justine Marie

We had quite a surprise phone call at around 9:30 AM on Tuesday, May 17, 2005. Stephanie was calling us from Chicago at 1:30 AM to us in Interlaken, Switzerland to annnounce the unexpected arrival of Connie and Troy's twin baby girls, Justine and Lauren. The twins were 2 1/2 months early due to complications and had to be taken in an emergency C Section procedure. This is a photo of Justine at 2 lbs. 9 oz. a few hours after she arrived.

Spectacular View

This was just one of the dozens of spectacular views we had of Interlaken. Little did we know that we would get a telephone call the next morning that would blow us away and give us something else pretty spectacular to think about during the rest of our trip!

Our Room at The Royal St. Georges

I loved our beautiful French doors leading to the balcony. This was definitely one of the best rooms we'd had in Europe. And it was the cheapest too - the Swiss do not use the Euro, they still use the Franc. The exchange rate was favorable to the dollar, unlike the Euro, so we were pleasantly surprised when our money went so much further here.

The Hotel Royal St. Georges

Our room was situated right behind me and to the left (you can see the open door to the room). The hotel was not full at this time, so we had the whole balcony overlooking the little village to ourselves. If it hadn't been so cold and windy, we would have enjoyed sitting outside. It was nice to have the very clear, fresh air in our room, though.

Our View of the Alps

Not only we were impressed with our beautiful hotel, but the scenery surrounding it was just gorgeous, even in the rain. It was cold, though. This photo was taken after the rain stopped.

Interlaken Ost Bahnhof

After the 7-hour-30-minute train ride, we arrive at the Interlaken Ost Bahnhof (or east train station) in a driving rain (this photo was taken later). There are no cabs (because of the rain) and we have no idea if the city bus will take us near our hotel. Bob sets off on foot with our umbrella to see if we could walk to our hotel. Just as he returns to get me, though, a single cab arrives and we immediately grab it!

Train Trip from Munich to Interlaken, Switzerland

Well, the castles of Germany are behind us now and it's the next morning. Once again we're on the train - this time to Interlaken, Switzerland on Monday, May 16, 2005. In fact, the train will cross the German/Swiss border and the staff will change. It has started raining again, but we are quite ready to leave Germany and are very excited to arrive in Switzerland.

The View From Neuschwanstein

This was one of King Ludwig's views from a castle window of the lake and mountains beyond. We thought we could live here just fine, thank you very much!

Neuschwanstein Castle

It was now time to tackle the hill. This was our view half way up - a very impressive castle. I guess King Ludwig was a bit of an introvert, so he had the two castles built away from the population. In fact, when at Linderhof (the previous photos) he had the builder design his dining room table so it could be lowered to the kitchen area, prepared with his meal, and lifted to the dining room via a pully. This was done so he wouldn't have to deal with any of the servants! Now that's really a loner!

The Muller Hotel

Before going up that 40-minute-hill, we needed some lunch and this was the neatest place. It's a hotel at the foot of the hill of the Neuschwanstein Castle. The lunch was good, but the best part was the bathrooms! It had the most beautiful marble bathrooms - something we hadn't seen much of in Europe. We felt that this would be a great place for a vacation. The area would be perfect for hiking, browsing in the little village, and just kicking back.

The Royal Castle Neuschwanstein

The next castle on the agenda was the highlight of the day - the famous Neuschwanstein Castle - the one that Walt Disney used as his inspiration for the Fantasyland castles in Disneyland and Disney World. This was our view through the bus window. Little did we know, though, that it required a 40-minute walk straight uphill! We were glad that we had done some walking at home in preparation for this trip and were in pretty good shape - we would never have made it otherwise.

King Ludwig's Linderhof Castle

This is an example of some of the ornate and detailed gold overlay work that adorned the interior of this castle. There were hand painted frescos on every ceiling too.

The Royal Castle Linderhof

On Sunday, May 15, we left Munich via bus for an all-day castle trip. The Royal Castle Linderhof was first on our itinerary. It was a cool, overcast day, but perfect for doing a lot of walking around. This castle of King Ludwig's was not so huge as it was grand - we'd never seen anything like it inside. Everything was done in gold and mirrors and very ornate fabrics. Not a square inch of this castle was left unadorned!

And the Beer Kept Coming . . .

We had a great time at the Hofbrauhaus, but had an early all-day tour the next day to see two of Germany's famous castles, so we had to end the evening and get back to the hotel.

We Find Something in Munich We Like!

We sat next to a nice couple at a table at the Hofbrauhaus. They couldn't speak a wordof English and we couldn't speak German, so there was a lot of smiling and nodding. But the band was playing, a German woman dressed in old fashioned garb, who'd had plenty of beer, we're sure, stood on her bench and sang along, and eventually ended up on the lap of one of the band members. Our meal of weinersnitzel and sauerkraut was wonderful, and the beer just kept flowing. By the middle of our meal, we couldn't stop laughing and decided we actually liked Munich . . . a lot!

The Famous Hofbrauhaus

I guess the Hofbrauhaus changed our opinoin of Munich. After walking all over the Karlsplatz and Marienplatz areas, we decided there wasn't much to see or do. We didn't go to the English Gardens or Nymphenburg Palace (and maybe we should have). Anyway, we knew we couldn't leave Munich without having dinner at the Hofbrauhaus, so that's where we went next. It wasn't so crowded this time.

Time for Some E-mail

The next day, Saturday, May 14, we easily found the internet cafe in Munich, but it was full of really weird looking people - kind of like Mike Meyer's "Deiter" on Saturday Night Live. It kind of creeped us out - in fact the whole of Munich kind of creeped us out at this point!

The Glockenspiel in Munich

We watched the Glockenspiel marinettes dance through the hour on the huge clock that was being refurbished, but that was the highlight of the day. Marti was not liking Munich much and wasn't impressed with anything at that point, so we called it a day and went back to the hotel for the night. Fortunately we did because it started to rain - seemed like a fitting end to a frustrating day.

The Augustiner in Munich

The Hofbrauhaus, our restaurant choice, was a madhouse at that point, so we walked in and walked out. We got a table at the Augustiner, away from the crowds. The waiter seemed impatient with our questions, in English, about the menu. All we wanted was a brat and sauerkraut. We ended up with strange looking white sausages that were floating in a broth. They were quite good, though, especially with the sweet brown mustard. A basket of pretzels was setting at our table and we ate them - but found out later that if you ate any, they charged you! So let's see, to sum it all up, the food was okay, but the atmosphere was anything but friendly!

Welcome to Munich Germany

We arrived in Munich on Friday, May 13, 2005, not a lucky day for us. We checked into our upscale hotel in a surprisingly seedy part of town near the train station, got settled, and started walking toward the Karlsplatz. Well, if we thought we had seen crowds in Italy, we hadn't seen anything yet! Bayern Munich had won the league championship and the town was celebrating, there were revelers everywhere -boistrous, scary, drunk bands of guys all over the place, chanting and being unruly. The police were out with barriers and clubs. It was a riot, and we were in the middle of it!