From Lichtenstein to Lucerne

December 15-17, 2017:

Dear Readers:

What a wonderful year it’s been!  I thank each and every one of you for your really positive comments and support!  We promise to keep your travel curiosity satisfied next year, but this is our last post for 2017 (as always, just a tad late!).

so it was with some sadness that we left our cozy mountain retreat in Zûrs on Friday, December 15th.  However, the open road beckoned, and we set off after an epic snowfall (with really nicely cleared roads) for Lucerne, Switzerland.  This whole detour through the Alps was necessitated by the fact that we are really cheap travelers (when it makes sense), and we had to wait until Monday to get a frequent flyer flight out of Frankfurt at the lowest points level.  Hence, our journey through the Alps (and the bonus of picking up another country on the way).

Leaving Arlberg

What can I say … the drive through the Alps the day after yesterday’s snowstorm was just amazing!  We did stop in Lichtenstein for lunch, but it literally only took about 20m minutes to drive from Austria to Switzerland.

Crazy Alpine tunnels

Welcome to Lichtenstein!

Then we had a magical drive to our destination tonight, Lucerne. Lucerne lies on one of the plentiful alpine lakes in Switzerland, and we arrived about 4:00 in the afternoon, just as darkness was beginning to fall.

However, despite Jim’s best laid plans, our approach to the hotel did not go according to plan. He had first tried to map the entry route to our hotel, Les Balances, on Google Maps, but gave up when the app crashed with the ominous “spinning rainbow pizza of doom” (it’s an Apple thing).  Failing that, Jim called the hotel to ask directions. With those in hand, he plotted our approach on the GPS. Ruh roh!  It would have worked just fine except that there was a Christmas market right in the middle of the square we needed to drive through to get to our hotel!  Backing out of the old town, I jumped out to ask two traffic guys how to get there. One didn’t speak English (a pretty rare thing in Switzerland) and the other guy sent us back to the other side of the river to try a different approach. After ending up in another Christmas market, we skirted the edge and got bak over the bridge to the correct side of the river. The crazy thing was that we could see our hotel from the bridge. However, all roads led away from the hotel, and we flagged down a traffic cop to ask directions, She sent us into a pedestrian walkway makes very clearly as a no driving zone. We pulled to the side of the minuscule street and called the hotel. They told us that notwithstanding the signs, guests of the hotel were allowed to drive on the pedestrian cobble-stoned streets. The sight of a few delivery vans made us feel marginally better, but JIm needed a really large martini after we had finally arrived and handed the car over to a capable valet. Whew!

The narrow little street we had to drive on to get access to our hotel is to the right of the green building!

The front entrance to Hotel des Balances

The Christmas market in the plaza blocking our access to the hotel.

 

Our last Christmas market; I promise!

Building decorated like an Advent calendar

We awoke the next morning to rain (instead of the predicted snow) and set off to do a bit of sightseeing and to grab a latte.  For the most part, we walked along the edge of Lake Lucerne, and then turned inland to the old part of town.  There was a lovely and fragrant Christmas tree market right by the lake.

Probably the most notable sight we saw was a memorial to the Swiss Guard soldiers lost in the French Revolution. As a protective force, they were pledged to guard the French King Louis XVII and Marie Antoinette. However, by the time they were called up, it was obvious that the French monarchy was going to fall, but the Swiss Guard members fulfilled their duty anyway. The memorial to their bravery is a resting lion carved into a stone wall in a lovely park.

Jim drinking wine in the snow

Finally after a day of trooping around Lucerne, Jim and I returned to the room just in time to see a really beautiful snowfall with fat, fluffy flakes falling right outside our balcony.  Out lovely stay in Lucerne was capped off by a fabulous meal in the old sector just across the river from our hotel called Stern.

Tomorrow, we drive on the Autobahn up to Frankfurt, where we will overnight at the airport hotel. From there, we fly home to celebrate the holidays with our family.  Again, from the bottom of our hearts, thank you for your support and Happy New Year! Stay tuned for our next adventure, which is right around the corner, as we cruise down to New Zealand andAustralia from the port of Los Angeles.

 

Panic in Basel

Nov. 26, 2017:

 

After our day at the Basel Christmas markets yesterday, Jim and I had a FABULOUS dinner last night at a traditional Swiss restaurant called Walliser Kanne. I was craving fondue, and I talked Jim into indulging with me. I have to say; it was the BEST fondue I’ve ever had!

Today had its high points and low points … as a transition day, there is always a great deal of “hurry up and wait” for which we try to mentally prepare. However, today was especially trying, as I found myself channeling my inner “Kaplan” (Virginia peeps; you know what I’m talking about). After a less than complete night’s sleep (trying to adjust to the time zone change), I got up finally about 6:30, and started getting my stuff together to transition to the river ship, M.S. Inspire. Loud gasp; where was my purse?!!!!!!!

After looking through the room several times (including getting down on my belly so I could scan under the beds), I concluded that I must have left it at the restaurant last night. We quickly planned that we would walk back over to the restaurant to retrieve it if it opened before we left at 3:00 this afternoon.   Except … the restaurant was closed today all day! So, I went to the concierge and asked her if there was any possibility that someone could find the owner of the restaurant to let me in. The concierge was able to find someone at the sister restaurant to Walliser Kanne who said there was someone who would arrive at noon, who could go over and check. After a nerve-wracking 3 and half hours, she reported that they were not able to find my bag. Fortunately, before I could go into full panic mode and start canceling all our credit cards, I remembered my iPhone was in my purse, so I had Jim activate the tracker. Strangely … my purse appeared to actually be in our hotel in! I went running back to the room while Jim activated the pinger on the phone. Sure enough, I found the purse hiding behind the curtains in the room. Whew!!!!!!!

 

As an aside, I am having some technical difficulties uploading my photos right now, so it appears this will be a photo less post. However, I have my tech gurus working on a solution right now (thanks, JIm). Hopefully we’ll be back up and running in just a couple of days.

Disaster averted (although still feeling massively foolish), Jim and I took a walk along the river to burn off some excess adrenaline. We were even able to see our ship.  After walking back to the hotel, it was finally time to board. Our room is lovely and the ship is nicely equipped, so we had a good day to a day that started our pretty shaky. Tomorrow, we dock in our first port; Breisach, Germany. From there we will be visiting two town in the French Alsatian region, Riquewihr and Colmar.

 

Welcome to Basel!

Nov. 25, 2017:

Dear Peeps:

Jim and I landed in Zurich late yesterday afternoon, and arrived in Basel after dark.  The city sits on the River Rhine, and our hotel, Les Troix Roi, is right on the water. It was spitting rain as we arrived and a lovely 57 degrees!  Gosh, I’m so happy to be somewhere cool after all our Southern California heat!  It was 94 degrees in Long Beach on Thanksgiving Day, and that’s just too hot to tolerate, particularly when we drove to the airport lugging my down coat!

Our hotel is one of those lovely old European institutions (nicely upgraded) which was built about 300 years ago. They had just finished decorating for Christmas when we arrived, and there were Christmas trees and evergreen swags everywhere. By today, the whole place is smelling like a forest. Yum!

We took a brief walk around our hotel and up to the Münsterplatz in the old part of town to see our first Christmas market.  There are all these cute little stands that look like Alpine warming huts, and every third stand is selling glühwein, the quintessential holiday drink of hot mulled wine.  It comes in a cute little decorated ceramic boot, which you can keep or turn back in for your deposit.  We let them warm our hands (and our tummies) while we wandered around the market, but since it was really too wet for pictures, we wandered back to the hotel.

The bridge next to our hotel over the Rhine

Christmas lights

The Christmas market at the Münsterplatz by night

It’s raining again here today, but the Gringos were not deterred.  Jim had planned a walking tour for us of most of the older part of town, including the other Christmas market we missed last night at Barfüsserplatz.  On the way, we walked through the Marktplatz (market square) with its highly decorated Rathaus (town hall), and there was a farmers’ market going at full tilt.

Jay: This is for you!

The Rathaus

Roasted chestnuts for sale

Everywhere we walk, the streets are hung with holiday lights, which add a certain cheer to this gray day.

Soon we arrived at the Barfüsserplatz (named after bare-footed Franciscan monks) where the largest of Basel’s Christmas markets is located.  The first thing we noticed was the huge wooden Christmas sculpture which looked like the little mechanical Christmas lights powered by candles(which we used to have until they caught the wood on fire one year).  There were lots more stalls here than the market at Münsterplatz, selling everything from sausages to snowglobes.  It smells marvelous here, with a mixture of Christmas greens, homemade candles, and melting cheese!  Art glass, wood carvings and woven woolen products seem to be the most popular, but there were many other arts and crafts and millions of Christmas ornaments.

Jim and I then spent some time wandering around, and watched the river-powered ferry making its crossing, before we walked back to the hotel. We stopped back by the Christmas Market at the Münsterplatz now that we could see what we were doing, sampled some more glühwein, and ate a sausage.

The Münster (Cathedral)

The cloister in the Münster

Back at the Christmas Market at the Münsterplatz

Jim sampling a gluhwein

Tomorrow, we board our ship, the MS Inspire, for our cruise up the Rhine, but tonight we’re going to hunt for an authentic fondue restaurant.   Stay tuned for our next port of call in Strasbourg, France!