travel70

The old part of Strasbourg is dominated by the cathedral, Notre Dame. The old city is basically an island surrounded by the river L’ill. The cathedral dates from the 13th century and like most churches we have visited was built over many years with each part being a different type of architecture.

A few views of the exterior

Note the flying buttresses

It has only one tower. At the time of building it was the highest structure in Europe and the architect thought 2 towers would be too heavy.

Now a few pictures from inside. The rose window is supposed to be the largest in Europe.

Strasbourg is the capital of Alsace area of France. The district has gone back & forty from French to German 6 times over the last couple of hundred years. It is one of the capitals of the European Union and several major European agencies are housed here. The Council of Europe, which has 46 members and predates the EU has it’s headquarters here. The European Court if Human Rights and the Pharmaceutical control agency are both headquartered here. The EU has its monthly meetings here as well.

We explored the island which is a world heritage site. Narrow streets, cafes and the charming La Petite France area. I was surprised at the number of half timber houses – a reminder of England.

Banners in the streets indicated which trades were located there

While waiting to get into the cathedral we were entertained by buskers – breakdancing, bag piper, a stringed instrument, accordion, singers

As the old part is on an island we were able to walk along the water for part of our excursion.

Johannesburg Gutenberg inventor of the printing press

We came across a couple of carousels, a popular thing here

A couple of other things from our walk.

The traditional clothing, each piece a symbol of some status – married, single, wealth etc

Tomorrow Heidelberg and Mannheim

We were to take a bus to Bern to have a tour of Bern and meet our ship. However, due to commercial traffic our ship could not make it to Bern. Instead we had to skip the walking tour and drove on the bus all day.

We did stop at Interlaken for a short break where we could see the Jungfrau.

We had a short break – just long enough for a hot chocolate and a bun.

We also watched the hang gliders. The guides took people up for a 15 minute ride. Hopefully this short video will play and you will see their expertise.

On the bus trip we passed through lovely country. About 30% of Switzerland is flat.

This fellow was watching over us as we had lunch in Bern at the old Granary restaurant.

Once we boarded the ship – Amedeus Silver II we discovered a lovely room – walk in closet, small deck, marble bathroom and small sitting area with sofa.

We also saw several flocks of swans along the banks

Enjoyed a sunset while we had dinner on board

Our day started with a 2 hour walk through the old part of Lucerne. We passed a number of watch shops – watches in the windows generally priced upwards of 1000 SF. The Asians apparently go there first and buy lots of watches. The first stop was a covered bridge. Flowers adorn the outside while original paintings dated from the 1400s.

At one point in time the bridge burned and while some of the paintings were saved the burned paintings were left there to remember the fire.

From the bridge, which spans the Reuss river we had good views of both sides.

On the other side of the river we found a model of the city

Next we visited a Baroque church. The Jesuits had established schools and churches in the area and built this church in

The inside was decorated in the baroque style but instead of marble they used a faux marble and plaster.

This is the patron saint of eyes and eyesight

We next visited one of the government buildings.

As we walked we passed many fountains. The water running in the fountains comes from Lake Lucerne and is drinkable. You see people drinking right from the fountain or filling their water bottles.

Others fill their water guns at the fountain and when instructed by parents to not shoot the tourists they find other targets

Our walk through the old part of the city passed buildings with decorated facades.

We also visited some of the squares with lots of outdoor cafes.

Also a wedding at city hall – the wedding party in medieval dress

The river is controlled for water conservation. This year the water is high so the gates are open. The last 2 years they had droughts in summer. This winter there was a lot of snow which has led to flooding and high lakes & rivers throughout Europe. Because of all the snow some of the high passes are still not open and the cows have not yet been taken up to the mountain pastures -usually the passes are open and the cows in the pastures by early June.

Another covered bridge

A castle, now a hotel overlooking the city

William Tell depicted in one of the buildings

The afternoon was spent on the mountain overlooking Lucerne – Pilatus. We traveled up the mountain, first on a cable car to a mid station. Here we saw some zip liners

Next we took a cable car to the top

To get down we rode the cog railway down. The steepest cog railway in the world with an average slope of 48%. It was built in the late 1800s. We saw hikers along the way, a 5 hour hike uphill!

The cog mechanism

For some reason there are dragons used as the logo – an ancient myth.

We ended our trip with a ferry ride on the lake back to Lucerne.

The lake is home to many swans, it does not freeze in winter and has a number of small villages lining the shore.

Our hotel is across from the theatre, home to many concerts. The musicians often stay at the hotel. Each room is dedicated to a musician. We were in the Willie DeVille room. He was s blues singer best known for “Hey Joe” ( never heard of him or the song)

Tomorrow Interlaken, Bern, Basel and board the ship.

On Thursday we boarded the Glacier express for the first part of our journey to Lucerne. We transferred to buses at Andermatt. We passed more mountains, mountain meadows, villages, vineyards and drove beside a mountain stream which feeds into the Reuss river.

The route of the Glacier Express which they called the slowest express train

The altitudes along the train route

Our restaurant in Andermatt

On the bus – mountain road switchbacks

The start of the Reuss river

Our first view of Lake Lucerne. A huge lake about 26 miles long. The shoreline is dotted with villages.

We arrive in Lucerne. A beautiful city at the end of the lake.

The first order was to see the Lucerne lion. This sculpture was commissioned as a memorial to the Swiss soldiers that were hired by the French king during the French Revolution. At that time the Swiss were hired as mercenaries by foreign governments. All of the 900 Swiss soldiers who fought for the French king perished as they were vastly outnumbered. The monument was created in their memory and the names of the officers are listed below the lion.

Mark Twain had called it the saddest and most mournful piece of sculpture. You ca n see the French shield and Swiss coat of arms.

The sculptor and the group that commissioned the work argued about payment and the sculptor took his revenge by making the niche within which the lion resides look like a pig.

We left Milan on the train for Zermatt in the morning. The train took us north of Como and into Switzerland. Where we started to see mountains, mountain streams, Swiss style houses

We changed trains in Brig and when we arrived in Zermatt we found our hotel just around the corner from the train station. So we walked to the hotel – a very interesting building with some unique decor.

A place for wood storage in the lobby

The elevator door

Our room door (they are all different and very heavy.

After checking in we went for a stroll. No cars are allowed in Zermatt. There are a few electric vehicles used by hotels to transport luggage to & from the train station. Also one hotel has a team of horses to transfer guests and their luggage.

The street is lined with restaurants and small shops. Every second shop is a watch store with some unique offerings.

A lot of Asian tourists much as we found in Banff and Queensland, New Zealand. Zermatt is in the German section of Switzerland, the waiters, shop people and hotel staff speak many languages. We went for a stroll to get our first look at the Matterhorn.

At night there was a dinner for the group we are joining and will be with for the rest of our trip.

Today, after breakfast we headed to the cog railway for a journey on the Gornergrat Bahn. There are 5 stops on the way to the top (9277 feet). Zermatt is at 5276 feet. We got off at a stop about half way, walked about 10 minutes up to a hotel and restaurant where we had amazing views. We were the only ones that made this trek and the beauty and silence of nature was breathtaking.

We returned to the cog railway and continued to the summit. The Matterhorn had started to collect some clouds in the meantime. Again the views were amazing. Much prefer this to Madrid!

A waterfall we passed on the way down (sorry about reflection as this was taken though the train window

Also passed a sheep farm with very lazy, long haired sheep

The engineers reading will want to see the cogs

The first person to successfully climb the Matterhorn was this guy

We saw a couple of paragliders near the Matterhorn plus we could see the ski lifts and skiers on the glaciers.

After our return down the mountain we stopped for a traditional Swiss cheese fondue for lunch.

Another stroll along the Main Street – interesting art work.

Lots of outdoor patios. Also visited a few shops – small and if not selling watches they were selling sporting clothes, skis, hiking gear etc.

Tonight there is a reception and dinner for our group and Tomorrow we are off To Lucerne.

We took the train to Milan on Sunday. A little confusion as usual but basically a smooth trip. After leaving our bags at the hotel we headed off to see the Duomo. We had an experience with the subway and got scammed – a combination of being tired, acting like the tourists we are and a run in with a “Roma”. The short story is we ended up paying 14 Euros for 2 subway tickets that should have cost us 3 Euros. Well if that is the worst that happens this trip all is good and a Roma family ate well and had a good laugh.

The Duomo is a 14th century cathedral – second largest in Italy. Beautiful stained glass and art work. We could not explore close to the main alter as it was Sunday and a service was in progress.

I will let the pictures speak for how wonderful this building is.

Now inside

After visiting the cathedral we went to the Galleria, an old shopping area now housing some well known names – who knew Prada sells decorative cakes!

We stopped at a restaurant near our hotel for dinner.

Monday we went on a “hop on hop off bus” for a city tour.

One intriguing building was a condominium which is covered with trees and bushes. There are 2 “flying gardeners” which are automated tree trimmers that crawl down the building every 3 months to trim and maintain the greenery.

We hopped off at the LaScala and enjoyed a tour even though we could not go into the main theatre as there was a rehearsal underway.

Milan has been disappointing – basically a big city with too many people and too many tourists. It was basically destroyed during the Second World War due to bombing by the Allies. It lacks the charm of Paris and has largely been rebuilt since 1944. However glad we have seen it, 2 days was enough.

Tomorrow off to Zermatt and an escape from the unrelenting heat.

Our last day in Como and we had a relaxing day of wandering the streets so far unexplored. A couple of churches, more cafes and lots of narrow picturesque alleys to walk down.

There were a few stores with colourful silk scarves and ties made in Como

Marijuana is available in vending machines on the sidewalk. There is leaf to smoke and candy. Each package is marked with the THC and CBD content. We saw no evidence of potheads hanging around.

Some observations

– in general the Europeans are much better dressed, especially the Italian men. We did not see a single male with pants crotch down to his knees and underwear on display. Business men have suits or nice jackets and pants – no “casual Friday” wear.

– jeans with holes are very popular with women but the Italian women were usually very nicely dressed.

– lots of smoking and vaping although not as much as we saw years ago. All cafes and restaurants have ash trays on the tables.

– I cannot figure out how the Italian women can eat pasta and ice cream and stay so thin. Of course they walk everywhere. Another mystery is how they can manage to walk or ride bikes in high heels on the cobble stones and uneven pavement.

– lots of dogs, many people with 2 or 3 yet no mess on the sidewalks (there is no grass in town).

Tomorrow we will get on the train to Milan in the morning.

Well my posts from June 13 & 14 ended up elsewhere on this blog. If you are interested in seeing them click on the search button at the top of the page and type in June 13.

Sorry for the extra work. I cannot get a response from the WordPress help function.

Yesterday I mentioned the high waters. Today the lake overflowed. From our room at 3:00 pm this was the scene

At 6 pm it looked like this and we can see the water rushing in.

We understand there have been flash floods, landslides and evacuations in some areas around the lake.

The square shown above has flooded before. Turns out that in the late 1800s the square was the Como harbour. So I guess it is not surprising it floods regularly. While we have not experienced rain, it did rain last night and reports are that at one point there was over a thousand cubic meters of water entering the lake every second. Apparently there was torrential rain and huge hail falling in the north during the night, with accumulations of hail that people were shoveling.

I was worried before we came about the forecast for temperatures in the low 30sC and rain. Now they are predicting temperatures of 42C for tomorrow. Up to now it has been perfect weather. Well we will see. With roads closed around the lake just as well we didn’t rent a car!

Earlier in the day we took the funicular up to see the views. Here are some pictures looking down at Como

There was too much haze to see the alps today. The top of the funicular was at 710 meters.

In the afternoon we went into the cathedral – it was built between 1396 and the mid 1700s with different areas added over the years. Inside there was a rose window (Gary says my pictures of the windows are washed out)

There were many beautiful tapestries here are a couple

The ceiling was very colourful

Some of the other art work

The dome from inside

Other areas

Meanwhile the water keeps rising and by 10:30 there are ducks swimming and swans sleeping in the square as workers put up more board walks

After a lovely breakfast in the dining room at our hotel we decided to cancel our car. Instead we took the ferry to Nesso to have lunch there.

Arrived at Nesso to find this

This information point was staffed by the ferry man who told us the path to the right was the quickest route to the village.

So we struck out to find a restaurant walking and climbing up a narrow cobblestone path.

After about a half hour with no end in sight we turned around and went back to the now deserted info centre. It is now 2 pm – no food, no Prosecco, no beer. We did have water. A couple of English girls who got off at the same spot and passed us on the path brought us back some pizza.

The ferry ride was lovely we passed beautiful mansions and hotels on the shoreline and dotting the hills

We stopped at 9 village before reaching Nesso

After dinner at one of the outdoor cafes in the square we walked over to the area near the funicular. The streets were lined with outdoor cafes

As we walked over we could see how high the water is in the lake -sandbags in place and the boats hanging over the sidewalks they are so close

There has been a lot of rain and runoff from the alps.

The weather has been great so far. Depending on weather tomorrow we will ride the funicular or explore the cathedral