June 14 - 17, Monday – Thursday - Switzerland

June 14 - 17, Monday – Thursday - Switzerland

After heavy rainfalls during the night, we woke up to less clouds and a beautiful view of the Alps. We spent the morning on the deck reading in the sunshine, encircled by the mountain peaks. After lunch we went for a walk to the Tourist Center and spent several hours there working on our pictures albums, since internet connection is better there than in our chalet.

The view from our deck when the clouds broke

We hopped on the city bus for a tour of Leysin, picked up some groceries for a good pot of chili and fresh baked bread. Another heavy rain shower came through shortly after we got back.

Our Swiss coffee pot

Our last two days in Leysin were cloudy and cool. Internet connection did not work well even at the tourist center so we spent much of our last day reading, playing a few games of Quibbler and packing for our last tour.

View from our deck -- a flag that says "Relax"

Our departure from Leysin proved to be another adventure! Jim had reserved a taxi to pick us up at 7:30 am. Who would have thought that we would resort to hitch-hiking in a foreign country? Well, when our taxi had not arrived by 7:35 we walked to the main road with our luggage, hoping the taxi was “just around the corner.” Our train was leaving in 20 minutes (yes – the “Little Engine That Could” cog train that we arrived on a few days earlier) and we knew we could not pull our 80+ pounds of luggage up the hill to the station. A man in a vehicle stopped and spoke enough English to understand that we needed to get to the train station. So the lumberjack cleared enough space in his vehicle for us to sit, threw our luggage in the back and got us to the station on time.

Train station in Leysin

The train ride to Geneva was alongside Lake Geneva, but the cloudy conditions blocked our view of the lake and the mountains. When we got to Geneva we took a city tour via bus and mini train -- in the rain. We saw some of the historical sites in Geneva, like the Red Cross and United Nations headquarters. However, the one thing we most wanted to see, the Reformation memorial, was half covered by tents which were set up for another event. The rain and distance prohibited us from going back on foot to spend more time at the place where John Calvin is remembered. We ended our time in Geneva with a great fondu meal at a local restaurant.

Reformation Memorial Wall

On Thursday morning our flights went well and we were happy to arrive safely in Athens (via Vienna) and see our Pilgrim tour guide waiting for us with a vehicle to bring us to our hotel. And so our R&R in Switzerland ended – with memories of cog trains, hilly streets, clouds, rain and lots of time for rest.

View of the Alps from the airplane

June 11 -13, Friday – Sunday - Switzerland

Leysin Switzerland

“I think I can. I think I can.” This line from the children’s storybook, “The Little Engine That Could” echoed through my (Lois’) mind as we chugged up the Switzerland mountain side from Aigle to Leysin, after traveling for 6 hours on the train from Munich, Germany. The first two trains were relaxing means of transportation, but when we boarded our third connecting train a few “yellow flags” were raised in my mind. It was a small (and a bit antiquated in my opinion) cog train, filled with junior high and high school kids on their way home from school. As we slowly ascended the mountain, the view was spectacular, as long as I didn’t think about how far down the valley was and how steep the cliffs we were climbing. We slowly ascended, and I was very happy to see the Leysin train station, relieved to have arrived safely and get off this questionable (in my mind) mode of transportation.

View from the cog train as we climbed the mountain to Leysin

Little did I know the panic that would overtake me within minutes. As the train slowly went onward, we walked to the train station only to find no one there, no one in sight and no public mode of transportation. Jim opened up the map on our laptop and found we were a couple miles from our Swiss Chalet. Since we had no way to call anyone, he said we would have to start walking. I was scared, tired, and not a happy traveler at that moment.

Just as we started walking (pulling our suitcases and wearing our backpacks) a van pulled up and young man got out. “Are you Jim?” he greeted us. Here was the manager of the chalet we had rented. He told us there were more than one train stations in Leysin and that he was waiting at the station where we should have gotten off. When we were not on the train he figured we had gotten off too early and came looking for us. I must say I thought Blaise was an angel God sent to deliver us in response to my SOS prayer!

I know I have to take the same train down the mountain in a few days, but hopefully going down will be less stressful and knowing there are better trains ahead will be good incentive!

We were happy to get to our comfy chalet, with a deck overlooking a meadow of wild flowers and a panoramic view of the Swiss Alps. We took a walk into the village, to the tourist center, the grocery store and a local restaurant. Leysin is a quiet village right now, being the off-season from their ski tourists. I thought it was hilly in Austria. The incline of these hills made Seefeld streets look like gentle slopes. The one advantage is that we walk uphill to get to the village and downhill back to our chalet.

We are staying in the upper level of the brown 'chalet' on the right

This is a good place to rest and relax. We decided to buy groceries and cook most of our meals while we are here. Today is the first day since we left home that we never left our dwelling place. Mornings have been so cloudy (we are so high we are actually in the clouds) but throughout the day it clears up. We hope we get one day of good sunshine and blue skies while we are in Switzerland.

View from our deck and living room

Horses are in a pasture next to us

We continue to review all our notes of Egypt, Jordan, Israel and Germany to help us retain more of what we have seen and experienced. It was good to talk to each of kids this weekend as well as our parents.

Our internet connection is slow and I can only get a signal sitting outside.  :-)

June 6 – June 10, Sunday – Thursday - Germany

June 6 – June 10, Sunday – Thursday
The Footsteps of the Reformers

We left a sunny, warm Seefeld behind as we boarded the train for Munich, Germany. There were many miles of mountains and grassy valleys as we left Austria and entered Germany. Our hotel was close enough to walk to from the train station. Others from our tour had just arrived from the airport so we met a number of people right away – including a couple who live in Tea, SD – just a few miles outside of Sioux Falls. We later found out she works with someone from Heartland!

Monday morning we toured Munich, Germany. We especially enjoyed the glockenspiel in the city square and walking through the market. We toured two castles – Nymphenberg Castle and Neuschwanstein Castle. This is the castle Walt Disney used as a model for the castle he built in the Magic Kingdom. It took 17 years to build this castle and was only lived in for 187 days.

Nymphenberg Castle

Neuschwanstein Castle

Tuesday we went to Oberammergau, the site of the Passion Play. Although rain had initially been predicted, we were thrilled to have blue skies and sunshine. The 5-hour production was done entirely in German and neither of us understand German. We had the script in English to follow along. We didn’t need to understand the language because we know the story. It was so much more than the events of the last week of Jesus’ life – it included many Old Testament stories which paralleled circumstances in Jesus’ life. The theatre holds 5,000 people. Approximately one-half million people come to see the production in a summer. What an impact they are making.

Wednesday we first went to Augsburg. We went to St. Anne's Church, where Luther met the papal legate who demanded that Luther submit to the pope. The Fuggers, a Catholic family, were weavers who initially were very poor, but over a 200-year time span became very wealthy through the transportation of goods. Fuggerei was a social community established by the Fugger family for poor people. To live in the Fuggeri housing community one had to be Roman Catholic, poor, be willing to say prayers 3 times a day for the Fugger family members. The yearly rental fee was one Dutch guilder equal to 88 cents today. This Fuggerei community is still occupied today. We toured a Fuggerei home as it was originally and saw pictures of how they have been modernized.

Rothenberg was our next stop. Here we enjoyed walking the streets of this beautiful town, visited the Kriminal-museum, which houses Medieval instruments of torture and some ways to correct wrong behavior especially for women. We also walked on a stretch of the city wall.

We spent about 6 hours in the bus today as we travelled down the Romantic Road. We saw quaint little villages, churches and fields of grain and corn as well as many grape orchards. Everything is very green and clean.

Thursday morning we saw the coliseum built by Hitler in Nurnberg. It is still used today for a variety of events. Hitler also constructed a huge open stadium that holds up to 200,000. Here from the Zepplin Tribune he hosted rallies and promoted his vision for a new Germany.

Our next stop was in Heidelberg, a stronghold of German Reformed Protestants beginning in 1560. One of the great confessional statements of the Reformation, the Heidelberg Catechism was produced here in 1563. The Heidelberg Castle, a most impressive historic landmark of Germany, stands majestically overlooking the Neckar River. Heidelberg was not destroyed in WWII as the allies wanted it as a base of operations.

The church in Heidelberg where the catechism was most likely written.

The castle of Heidelberg

We visited three things relating to Martin Luther at Worms (pronounced Warms)– the bishop’s hall, the Luther Memorial and the Protestant Church. It was at the bishop’s hall, during the Imperial Diet in 1521, that Martin Luther challenged the entire Roman Catholic establishment by his refusal to recant the great doctrines of Protestantism. Friends of Luther ‘kidnapped’ him to Wartburg where he stayed for a year. While waiting here, Luther was bored and so he translated the Bible into German.

St. Peters Church - The Bishop's Hall where Luther was judged

was joined to the back corner but it was destroyed

The Luther Memorial was built in 1868 to honor him and other Protestant leaders (Calvin, Wycliffe, Zwingli, Tyndale to name a few). At his trial he declared, “Here I stand, I cannot do otherwise. God help me.” This may have had reference to the fact that the church and castle had stood strong against destruction. The song, “A Mighty Fortress Is Our God,” might also have had reference to the castle of Heidelberg.

The Protestant Church built 1689-1725 on the site of the former town hall. At the time that this church was built, it was thought that they were building on the site where Luther made his declaration. However, later it was determined that this was the wrong location for that but the structure remains, with beautiful carillons in the bell tour, the Apostles Creed written on the interior walls, and 15 stained glass windows visually depicting the 3 sections of the creed.

We spent our last night in Frankfurt before taking the train to Leysin, Switzerland for a few days of rest and relaxation.

June 9 - Wednesday - Germany

We are on our Tour of Germany and hope to update our blog in the next couple of days.

June 3 – June 5, Thursday – Saturday - Austria

The rains continued on Thursday and it was very cold. We stayed in our apartment most of the day, working on the photo album for Egypt and Jordan. The pictures continue to be an excellent way to relive and remember what we saw, learned and experienced. Jim is becoming a good scrapbooker!

Friday the rain stopped, the sun peaked out of the clouds and we could hear the birds singing. It was nice to walk to the village square without our umbrellas and be able to eat lunch outside.

Saturday morning we woke up to an absolutely beautiful, sunny, cloudless day. We took the city bus to the base of the ski lift, walked the rest of the way up to get our lift tickets. What a great surprise to find that everything was free today! We took the funicular up the mountain and then two lift rides to different areas of the mountain. We walked around the top of the Austrian Alps, soaking in the sun and the astounding view of the mountains all around us. It was warm enough to wear shorts, even though we were walking in the snow. We are thankful for the perfect weather for our last day in Seefeld. The R&R time has gone so fast. Tomorrow we will be on the train to Munich and begin our “Footsteps of the Reformers” tour on Monday.
 

 

 

The view from the top at Seefeld in Tirol.

 

Once again at the bottom looking up at the Austrian Alps.

May 31 – June 2, Monday – Wednesday - Austria

Monday morning we took a bus ride around the city of Seefeld, enjoying mountain ranges we had not yet seen. The mountains were beautiful with the fresh snow that fell during the night. The flowers are beautiful – lots of tulips, hyacenthias, daffodils, begonias, and petunias in the village square. People walk all over the stone streets and the few cars that drive through watch out carefully for the people (the exact opposite of Cairo Egypt!). Sometimes we feel like Seefeld is ready for the festivities of a Tulip Festival! We walked through the Olympic Center and around the village.

Tuesday we left the apartment at 6:45 am, walked to the train station and took the train from Seefeld to Innsbrook and then from Innsbrook to Salzburg – the city where Mozart lived and where much of Sound of Music was filmed.

 House in background is where part of "Sound of Music" was filmed.

Mirabel Gardens where part of  "Sound of Music" was filmed.
 

We took a guided tour of the city. Our guide talked about the history of the city. He told us about the early trade routes through this area because of the salt that was mined in this region. However, today the water is more precious than the salt. During WWII the city was bombed a number of times because of the railway connection and Hitler came to Salzburg from his nearby Eagle’s Nest (his sanctuary/fortress during the war) to meet with commanders.
We ended up at the base of the hill on which was the fortress called Festung Hohensalzburg. We enjoyed sharing a great German Brat and a pastry at the base of the hill. We took the funicular (which is like a rail car that goes up a very steep incline) to the top where we had an audio guided tour of the fortress. This fortress was built by archbishops as well as for workers and prisoners. It was first built in the 1300s and was added to over the centuries. They were able to withstand all attacks. The fortress was peacefully surrendered to Napoleon, but returned to the Archbishops after he was defeated.

After taking the funicular down we set out on foot in the light rain to explore more of the city. We found Mozart’s residence and had an audio tour. It was interesting to learn more about his life, family and music. We took the train back to Seefeld – a 2.5 hour trip. We walked up the hill to our apartment in the rain and the dark – getting back here at 8:45 pm, ready for a good night of sleep.

Today we walked to the village square for groceries, and then spent the rest of the day in our apartment, reading, working on pictures, emailing, blogging and staying dry!

Every day we spend time going over pictures we took on our Holy Land Tour and review our notes and memories of what we saw, felt and learned each place. We are thankful to have the time to do this. We learned so much about the Israelites as well as Jesus and His disciples. As we listen to the news we are thankful we are not in Israel right now. (We did not go into the Gaza Strip when we were there because no tourists go there.)

We are having fun experiencing different cuisine: Hungarian Goulash Soup (no noodles), Curry Ginger Soup, Chicken in fruited sauce, Duck Entrees, Zwetschken Streusel (Plum Streudal), Nunberger Bratwurst, Spaghetti Bolognaise and lots of good varieties of breads. One day Lois ordered pancakes for brunch and was surprised when they came filled with chocolate and nuts and topped with whipped cream and ice cream! Who said lunch had to be healthy? Jim has cut down on coffee consumption since there are no free refills! Restaurants even charge if you want a glass of tap water with your meal.

Since our apartment is on a hill and the village square is in the valley we are doing lots of walking – and it seems like there is more uphill than downhill! It has rained every day in Austria and been cold so we wear lots of layers (Lois even started wearing sox on her hands since she does not have any gloves along) and burn a lot of calories every day. Jim commented that it is almost time for him to tighten his belt a notch.

People are very friendly in Austria. We have enjoyed meeting people who also speak English. Everyone exchanges notes about the sites they have seen, restaurants they have eaten in and foods they recommend. And everyone talks about the cold and the rain. We hear that all of Europe is unseasonable cold and wet right now. The trees and wildflowers are beautiful, even in the rain.

May 28 - 30, Friday – Sunday in Austria

Seefeld in Tirol, Austria

We are enjoying no early morning wake-up calls and leisurely breakfasts of coffee and breads. We have a very nice apartment here. There have been both rain showers and sunshine every day. When the clouds clear away we have a great mountain view as we sat on our patio. We spend time reviewing the life of Jesus and the life of the Israelites every day, trying to “lock into our memories” more of what we saw and heard on our Holy Land Tour. The Bible stories have a new dimension after having been at the actual places. And for Lois, history also has become more important and understandable. I guess you are never too old to learn!

Connecting with family and friends is challenging because we cannot get WiFi connection in our apartment. We were happy to find a nearby hotel which lets us sit in the lobby and use their service. We will not be able to add to the blog or respond to emails every day as we did earlier, but we will try to do so every few days.

Our walking shoes have become our most valuable belonging with our rain jackets taking second place! We walk everywhere – lots of up and down hills. (Seems like more uphill!) We never leave our apartment without our rain jackets, because we usually get caught in a misting or light rain shower somewhere along the way. We walk to the town square every day. It is has a cozy village atmosphere, relaxing and beautiful. There are lots of flowers, trees and water fountains with a panoramic view of mountains. Everyone just strolls around, and greets one another warmly. A perfect spot for our R&R!

Ordering food has become interesting. On the first day we ordered Sicilian pizza for lunch. When it came it was topped with pepperoni, salami and small fish (I think they were sardines). Not good! After a visit to a super mart we now pack sandwiches for lunch every day, and find scenic places on our walking excursions to eat. There are so many restaurants here that we decided to try a different one every night. So far we’ve had great dinners - wiener schnitzel, spatzel, spaghetti bolognaise, brochette pizza, apple strudel with hot vanilla sauce. We especially like the restaurants that include pictures on their menus or English interpretation so we have an idea what we are ordering. Jim has certainly cut back on his coffee consumption and after drinking Turkish coffee in Israel Lois has discovered she likes sweetened coffee!

Yesterday we walked around Wildsee Lake and then climbed to the top of a hill where we had a grand view of the city. On this hill we also found stone monuments of the stations of the cross and of the 12 disciples. Jim had his picture taken by the Disciple James’ monument. Today we walked uphill about 1.5 miles to get a ski lift ride over the mountains. Although the clouds and rain had cleared at our apartment, by the time we had made the climb it was raining up there. So we decided to wait until another day when we would have a clearer view of the mountain range. At least most of the way home was downhill.

We are definitely in R&R mode – sleeping well, eating well, enjoying new scenery, reading lots, reflecting and pondering everything we experienced on our Holy Land tour -- and getting lots of physical exercise. God is taking good care of us!