Home again from another wonderful "journey"

We are back home, and re-entered the “real world” with a bang!  Our plane landed in Huntsville at 4:00 yesterday afternoon, and by 7:00 last night Olen and I were attending our gospel meeting…Jack was at an elders’ meeting…and Donna Jo had driven to Nashville and was singing with her chorus.  Whew!

We had a fairly non-eventful return flight home, except for one event, described below.

I admit it.  I am a luggage snob.  Carry-on bags on airplanes are limited to 9” x 14” x 22”.  What part of that do airline passengers not understand?  On the long flight from Zurich to Atlanta we saw people lug on bags the approximate size of a steamer trunk and refer to them as “carry-ons”. 

People:  If you can’t get whatever you want to carry on an airplane into a bag the correct size…check the bag!

During our return flight, somewhere over the Atlantic Ocean, a huge bag (with rollers, of course) came falling out of the overhead bin above me, grazing me on the way down.  The tiny little Oriental lady who caused the carry-on avalanche apologized profusely, but the particular offending bag should have been in the cargo bay in the first place. 

Thankfully, no one has ever been killed or injured by my little soft-sided 9” x 14” x 22” bag I have used to carry three weeks worth of clothing on trips.  I do not mind people taking more luggage than I do, but if you can’t get what you need in a small bag, check the bag!  Yes, I am a luggage snob, and I have a slightly bruised shoulder to prove it.

But, in spite of the oversized luggage falling from overhead, we had an absolutely wonderful trip.  The beauties of the scenery in Switzerland can’t be adequately expressed in words…or photos, either, for that matter.  It must be seen by the human eye to be appreciated, and we were honored to have shared both the scenery and the memories with Jack and Donna Jo, our dear friends.

And thanks to all of you who journeyed with us through the blog.  You honor us by reading along. 

So, another “journey” comes to an end.  The end of a journey always makes us sad, but we hope there will be many other journeys to take in the future…more beauties of God’s world to experience…more Christians to meet in other parts of the world…more memories to make…

Singing "in tune"

It was a very warm, sunny Sunday in Switzerland. We left our hotel this morning and walked to the train station where we found a Co-op Pronto, a small grocery store. We bought some cups of coffee, juice, and a “surprise pastry” for breakfast. The pastries were a “surprise” because we could not read the German description of the items. We all thought we had purchased some sort of apple pastry. Ours turned out to be some sort of pastry with vanilla filling, while Donna Jo and Jack’s pastry turned out to have some sort of brat/hot dog in the middle. Surprise!


We left our large backpacks in the lockers at the train station and walked to the place where the church was meeting, which was only about ten minutes away. The Christians were meeting in a nice building in a residential area. The building is shown in the photo.

The service was in German, but we could understand part of the lesson, and of course the communion service. After the service we visited with several of the members and the preacher, Ivan. We met a lady named Martine who knew many of the same people we knew, and we enjoyed name-dropping to see how many people we knew in common. It was a fascinating conversation, and we enjoyed both the service and the people we met.

I was hoping I could join whole-heartedly in the song service since I am tone deaf and rarely sing “in tune”. I wanted to be able to say that just once I sang “in Thun” (pronounced Tune). (I know…that was a cheap joke! Sorry.) The worst part is that of all the songs they sang this morning, the only one I recognized was “Shine, Jesus, Shine” and the German in the song was so difficult I never could catch on to it. Therefore, I never got to sing “in Thun”.

After the service we walked back to the train station, retrieved our backpacks from the lockers and got on a train. Since we have the wonderful Swiss Pass, we were able to travel anywhere in Switzerland for no additional charge. We had read about a small town called Murten that was slightly off the route from Thun to Zurich, our destination for the night.

Murten is a small town in an agricultural area, and only local trains go to that location. When we got on the train, something just did not appear to be right. Fortunately, there was a very helpful Swiss lady sitting across from Jack and Donna Jo. She explained that the train would be divided at one point along the trip. Certain cars would at that point go one direction, and the rest of the train would head in the opposite direction. We were, indeed, on the right train, but on the wrong car! She gave us detailed instructions for changing cars at the next stop, and we were off in the right direction. We have found so many helpful people along our journey!

Murten is in the French-speaking area of Switzerland, and the lady sitting next to us in the final leg of the trip gave us information about the Murten area where she lived. It was rather refreshing listening to English spoken with a French accent instead of German.

When we arrived in Murten we found a shady park where we ate the last of our snacks we had brought with us, plus the other items we had purchased here…apples, fresh bread, cheese.

Murten is an interesting little town with much history. It is located on the edge of a beautiful lake. The old part of town dates from medieval times, with an almost entirely preserved city wall.

We walked around the village. I particularly liked this old man who was looking out of his second-story window observing the people walking around his town on a Sunday afternoon. I took a photo of him doing his people-watching.

We walked on the ramparts on top of the wall around the city. On the wall-walk we could see the rooftops of all of the buildings within the city walls. At first glance it makes you want to break out in a chorus of “Chim Chim, Cheree”.

The next two photos show a couple of views from the walk on the ramparts.

We took the late afternoon train from Murten to the Zurich airport. We had reservations tonight at the Best Western near the Zurich airport. The free shuttle was parked and ready to bring us to the hotel, and the rooms are lovely. We ate dinner and are preparing to retire for the evening. Tomorrow's flight home will make for an extremely tiring day…and a very long one. We will not post tomorrow night, but plan to do a final post within a day or two…depending on the jet-lag level we experience.

Switzerland was Heidi’s special place in the world, and it is easy to see why. It will always hold special memories for us…but so does rural north Alabama, where those ten special grandchildren live. So it is time to return to that special place in the world where they are.

A day of rest for hiking feet

The weather was spectacular again today. We enjoyed every minute of our day, and so did our feet. Today we gave them a rest from miles of hiking, but we still covered much ground today, using other means of transportation.


When we woke up this morning and looked out our window there were local merchants setting up a fresh market in Rathausplatz, the square our hotel is located on.

After breakfast we visited the market and purchased fresh apples, pears, cheese, olives, dates, and home made bread. We bought our bread from the lady who had made it, using the wheat they had grown on their farm.

Our first sightseeing stop of the day was at the town church, which was built about 1330. We climbed up into the bell tower just about the time the bells sounded, which was an ear-shattering experience.

From the church we walked up to the Schloss Thun (Thun Castle), which towers over the entire town. When we got to the gate to pay the admission, we were told that with the Swiss Pass our entrance was free. Great!

We walked around the inside of the castle, which has walls 12 feet thick. We went into the dungeon and while in there we tried on the leg irons and stocks. They were heavy and terribly uncomfortable, but I suppose the people they were used on were not there because of their good behavior.

We climbed up into the turrets and looked out the openings to the courtyard, 84 feet below. Most of the town of Thun was still several feet below the courtyard level. We were able to spot the Rathausplatz where we had visited the market earlier that morning.

We took photos of the town below us and of one of the other turrets.

As we left the castle we could not resist taking the ultimate tourist photo.

Armed with all of the delicious fresh food items from the market, we walked to the dock and boarded a ship for a cruise of Thundersee (Lake Thun). When we went to get our tickets for the cruise on the lake we were told that the price of that was covered by our Swiss Pass also! We LOVE our Swiss Pass. It has covered every train trip we have taken between towns and given us a substantial discount on the more expensive lifts in the area of the Alps. It covered all that, and we managed to purchase them on a 2 for 1 discount. What a bargain!

Our cruise was on the paddle-wheel ship, the Blumlisalp. We sailed from Thun, passing the Schadau Castle, which was built between 1847 and 1854.

On the Thundersee cruise we passed other castles, large lakeside hotels, picturesque church buildings, beautiful mountain views, and grassy hillsides. We watched para-gliders float over us, trains run beside us, and hikers walk along the edge of the lake while we glided across blue glacial water. When the ship’s horn sounded, it echoed off the mountains.

When lunchtime arrived, we ate our treasures we had purchased at the fresh market. It doesn’t get much better than that!

After several stops at various towns along the lakeshore, we reached our destination, Interlaken (west). The cruise lasted slightly over two hours. By this time we had decided that since it was such a beautiful day we would take the cruise on the second lake, Brienzersee. (Knowing that the price of our boat ticket was covered by the Swiss Pass made our decision a little easier!) So, we got off the first boat at Interlaken (west) and took a train across town to Interlaken (ost) where we had just enough time to eat an ice cream cone before boarding the boat to cruise Lake Brienz. This cruise ended a little over an hour later in Brienz, and from there we took a train from Brienz back to Thun where we ate dinner and are ready to end a perfect day.

We just heard from our son, Barry, who took his own cruise today on the Sea of Galilee. This has been a day of family cruises in various parts of the world.

Tomorrow is the Lord’s Day. We plan to meet with the Christians in Thun before doing a little more sightseeing and then heading back toward Zurich for the night. Monday we will return home. The time has simply flown by. How could our trip be this near the end? We would love to stay longer in this lovely place, but that isn’t possible this time.

Tomorrow our oldest grandchild will celebrate his sixteenth birthday. We send you love, Jacob…from Switzerland.

A great day for a "short" hike

We awakened and looked out the window the first thing this morning, and the skies were clear and blue…a perfect day to spend in the Alps! After a delicious breakfast with an even-better view, we reluctantly left the lovely Hotel Baren in Wengen and caught a train down to Lauterbrunnen.

At the Lauterbrunnen train station we got a locker and left our big backpacks there for the day, using only our smaller daypacks. From there we hopped on a lift that took us back to Grutschalp. From there we hiked the “Mountain View Trail”.

In case the name of that hike sounds familiar, it is. We took this same trail on Tuesday. If you remember, it was the trail that was supposed to take an hour and a half, but we managed to spend three hours walking the distance. There are literally hundreds of trails we could take in this area, but we decided to take this trail again because it was up in the mountains and passed so many wonderful views of the even higher mountains. Besides that, the weather was so much clearer today. However, today we hiked the trail in the reverse direction, and this time it took us four and a half hours. We are getting older, not better. We stopped many times on the trail…sometimes just to look at the beautiful vistas.

We saw some people who had left the trail and were working on something, so I asked what they were doing. They were picking wild blueberries, and we quickly saw that the wild blueberries were in abundance along the trail and in the nearby pastures. We made more stops to pick-and-eat blueberries as we slowly hiked along.

Cows in the pastures always slow up our progress, also.

We stop and take lots of photos. At one particular scenic spot we tried to pose wistful, romantic shots of each couple. The light had to be coming from just the right angle on each face, so we decided to “look toward Jack” to get just the right angle. At the moment the photo was taken, Jack did “the weasel”, and that was the end of the dreamy photo we had in mind. (If you are not familiar with “the weasel”, just ask Jack about it the next time you see him!) You won’t be able to keep a straight face, either!

We stopped along the trail to eat our snacks we had brought for lunch. It was a spectacular view…and more time was taken up with more photos.

A little farther along the trail we found the perfect spot for a group photo of the four of us, but there were no other hikers in the area at the time that we could ask to take our photo, so we decided to put the cameras on small tripods, set the timers and take the photos ourselves. As you can see, this put the photographers in strange contortions prior to setting the timers and running to make it in the shot before the photo was taken.

However, we did get a suitable shot…eventually.

A little while farther along the trail we found a perfect bench and sat and enjoyed the view. While we were there, a young couple from Poland came along and we persuaded them to take our picture. Incidentally, their goal was to hike the hour-and-a-half trail in one hour. We didn’t tell them how long we had been at it!

It seemed that the longer we were on the trail, the better views of the mountains we had. We could not stop taking photos.

Finally we completed the hike and took the train to a city named Thun…but is pronounced “Tune”. We arrived at our hotel, the Zuntfhaus zu Metzgern, late in the afternoon. Our hotel is the white building on the left. It is a medieval building that dates to 1361. And…oh yes…there is a castle behind it. But, the castle is on the “to-do” list for tomorrow. Tonight we are going to bed early to rest up from the all-day “short hike” we enjoyed today.

We have had a wonderful day and made so many happy memories. As Olen put it, “I think I am getting too old to have this much fun.” We hope your day was full of fun and happy memories, no matter how old (or young) you are.

Red Shirt Day

Today was “red shirt day”. It wasn’t planned that way, but as we showed up for breakfast this morning, we each had on a red shirt…and a khaki travel vest. Since none of us have but four shirts with us on the trip, I guess it was bound to happen sometime. We looked like the Bobsey twins (for those of you who are too young to relate to that comment, the Bobseys were two sets of twins…Nan and Bert, Freddie and Flossie…of storybook fame). We left the hotel in Schynige Platte and headed for another small village named Wengen (pronounced Vengen). We were the only ones on the early train, and we arrived before we were expected in Wengen.


We located our hotel and were able to check in and leave our big packs in our rooms, so we walked across town and took the lift to an area high in the mountains called Mannlichen. Mannlichen is on a mountain, and other than the lift station and a small restaurant, that is all that is there. However, Mannlichen has an abundance of scenery.

We ate lunch there and waited for the clouds to lift off of the mountains even higher up. The restaurant was cafeteria-style with a menu in German on the wall. We finally figured out what French fries were, and a couple of other items. Jack went to the counter first, and in butchered German, gave the lady his order. She looked back at him, and in perfect English replied, “So, do you want a brot and French fries?”

The clouds had indeed cleared by the time we finished lunch, so we began the trail from Mannlichen to Kleine Scheidegg. It was a beautiful day, and the trail was wide, well-kept, fairly level, and had unbelievable scenery.

There were snow-covered Alps, green valleys, cows with Swiss bells, and a few patches of snow here and there in the shaded parts. We had not walked long before Jack admitted that after today his daily walk on the Indian Creek trail in Huntsville is going to be pretty dull.

We met a nice young couple from San Francisco. (We are beginning to think that most of the people in the U.S. are in Switzerland this week!) We asked them to take our photo on the trail.

Then we asked them if they would take us in a YOLO (You Only Live Once) pose.

Then we took their picture in the same spot, and they wanted a YOLO picture, too, but since there were only two of them, they asked Jack and Donna Jo to pose YOLO with them.

At one point we paused on the trail and looked down at the peaceful valley below with the small farmhouse with cattle grazing nearby. We decided that they were at peace because they were unaware that Obama was giving his acceptance speech tonight.

At one point on the trail we had to stop and throw a few snowballs over the edge of the trail down into the valley below. No cows were injured in this activity.

Olen and Jack hiked slightly behind Donna Jo and me some of the way, enjoying the scenery.

The views were spectacular. It is easy to fill up a camera’s memory card on a day like today.

When we reached Kleine Scheidegg, we passed a small pond where we were able to see Jack and Olen’s reflections in the water…and if you look closely, you can also see the reflection of the peak of the Jungfrau behind them.

We took the train from Kleine Scheidegg back to Wengen, and the views out of the train window were spectacular.

After dinner tonight we went to a “Folklore Evening” that was held in a tent in the center of the village of Wengen. It was free, so we figured it would be worth the price of admission, and it definitely was! In the back of the tent were two ladies, one sat the entire evening spinning “sheep’s wool”, and the other made lace with bobbins.

When the program started, the bell-ringers entered from the street.

Then the local folk dancers performed.

An alphorn player followed next.

And two ladies from a neighboring village came and yodeled.

It was a perfect day. We were late getting back to the hotel, but it was worth it. We plan to sleep a little later in the morning, but if the weather is as good as it was today, we hope to be out in it all day. Goodnight from Wengen, Switzerland…where we attended an entertaining folk festival rather than listening to another Obama speech tonight.

Flowers, fog and fun

When we got up this morning the skies were beautiful.

As the day progressed the clouds lowered, and we were in sunshine one minute, and fog the next minute. However, the weather was warm, so we decided to take the hike to Aussichtspunkt Daube. (Seriously, that is the correct spelling!) The round-trip hike to the top of a mountain for a view of the terrain below was supposed to be 50 minutes long. When you convert that to Britnell/Bradford terms it resulted in a two-hour hike, allowing for plenty of time to try out the benches along the trail and take photos. The first photo is of Olen, Jack and Donna Jo. Our destination was the area beside the huge monolith in the distance.

We had some lovely views on the hike, from time to time when the fog cleared and we could see the mountains in the distance.

After the hike we returned to civilization…such as it is in this area. One man was selling hot dogs, and we decided that sounded like a sufficient snack for lunch. It was interesting to watch him make them. The bun was not sliced like ours are, and they are made of the Swiss crusty bread. He took the bun and slid it down a heated rod that was the exact size of the weiner. That heated the bun and also put a perfect-sized hole in the bread. Then he took the hollowed-out bun and squirted ketsup or mustard, or both, inside the bun and then poked the weiner down in the hole. Rather clever!

Being refreshed by the hot dog, we decided to tackle the Alpengarten hike, which was a nice little walk through an area of Alpine wildflowers. There were 600 species of plants in the area and all were labeled. The sign at the beginning of the hike was clear in any language!

We enjoyed the wildflowers for a while, and I photographed one for my friend, Lucy, who is a big enthusiast of flower-photography. This one is for you, Lucy.

We did not complete every twist and turn on the Alpengarten hike because we sort of lost interest. The plants were all labeled, but the information was in German, which didn’t help us much at all.
We left that area and saw a hike that headed off in what we thought would be an interesting area. We followed the marked trail for quite a while. At one point Olen and I realized that if the plane Barry was in flew over Switzerland on the way to Tel Aviv, he would be flying high above us at that time.

At one point we left the trail and hiked to the top of a hill on the farm we were walking through. We all chose large rocks and just sat for several minutes enjoying the view. We decided that this would be the place we would return to (mentally) when the cares of everyday life hit us later. It was a delightful, peaceful scene, and one we will remember always.

We hope your day was full of peaceful memories that will sustain you in the hard times.