Sunday July 29 - Castelrotto, Italy

When we woke up, we were still a bit tired from yesterday, so we chose to drive around the area, rather than go on an additional hike. We looked at the maps and decided to go on some of the smallest roads on the map......... that went up the mountains and through the smallest towns. Again, I cannot even begin to describe the scenery and views in this area. It was just too much. If anyone reading this blog ever has the opportunity to get to this part of Italy, I highly recommend it.......the sights you will see will be like nothing you have seen before. I am sure that most of the roads in this area must be closed in the winter months. At one point during the day we stopped and took a cable car up to the top of one of the Dolomite mountains in Pardoi. Because of the nature of these limestone mountains, I thought I was walking on what appeared to be the moon. There was no grass, shrubs, trees, etc., just limestone. Very, very strange and weird. Besides being weird and strange up here, it was also quite cold. I do not know the elevation for this mountain, but we were way up........we could see the small towns way down below. After coming back down to “earth” we headed back to the hotel. We had no idea where we were, or where we were going, but eventually found a familiar road that took us back toward the hotel. I must point out that some of the bicyclists on the mountain roads were even more insane than some of the drivers on the Autostrada. I can't or won't even attempt to describe what we saw today, but it was nothing short of outrageous. Again, all I can say is “Wow”. Finally reached the hotel, rested a bit before dinner and again off to bed after finishing our “Tyrolean” style dinner, which was part of our hotel package.

Saturday July 28 - Castelrotto, Italy

We woke up early, had breakfast and headed out to explore and hike the area. This area in the Dolomites is especially known for hiking and its hiking trails. We took a 10 minute drive to the base of one of the mountains in the area, and took a cable car up to the top. Cable cars are all over the area and choosing which one to take is not easy. We had gotten a suggestion from someone at our hotel and therefore headed to Seis Am Schlern to board the cable car up to Compatsch. For the next 3 or 4 hours, Gail and I hiked throughout the meadows and hills of the Alpe Di Siusi. It really was a wonderful and exciting time, but when we completed the “suggested” hike, we were exhausted. Obviously, we are not in the same shape as many of the natives that we met along the paths. All along the hiking trails were “huttes” or small places to get some food or drinks, so at one point we stopped for a beer and a cola. After taking the cable car down the mountain, we drove a bit around the area and returned to our hotel and dinner. We were both rather tired from all that hiking, so we went to bed earlier than usual.

Friday July 27 - Verona to Castelrotto, Italy

We knew today was going to be a very scenic drive as we headed north to Castelrotto, Italy. Castelrotto or Kastelruth as it is also known, is right in the mountain range in north Italy, known as the Dolomites. Prior to WW I, this area of Italy was part of Austria-Hungary, but was “given” to Italy after the war. As a result, the area still has a very strong Austrian cultural influence and most people are bilingual, speaking both German and Italian. As has been the case for our entire vacation, we did not take the highways if possible. We left Verona and headed north to drive along the coast of Lake Garda, which is one of the largest lakes in Italy. The water was a beautiful turquoise color, and reminded me of the the water off the coast of Cancun, Mexico. We drove north along the banks of the lake and passed through many small Italians towns and villages filled with many vacationers, particularly a large number of campers from the Netherlands. After passing north of Lake Garda, we began to drive more directly toward the Dolomites. We drove up and through all of the various mountain passes and small towns in the area. Neither words nor photos can describe or do justice to the sights we actually saw. The way the roads would wind up through the mountains with constant hairpin turns was amazing. Driving the VW with a standard transmission, it was rare that I was able to get out of second gear. The roads we took were not for the light hearted, especially as the Italian drivers would take incredible risks, especially those on motorcycles. As we began to reach the higher elevations, the sights continued to be amazing. The Dolomites, are huge white/gray mountains made of limestone, which have a totally different appearance than the Alps which we had just seen in Switzerland. After a long day of driving and constant stopping to take in the scenery, we finally reached our hotel by 5:30. Since Castelrotto is basically in the middle of nowhere and not on the typical American tourist path, it was difficult to find people that spoke English. This was rather challenging, but we adjusted..........checked into the hotel, had dinner and browsed the town before getting to bed.

Thursday - July 26 Verona, Italy

Today was basically a rather relaxing day. We were still in Verona, Italy, but had no definitive plans for the day. We basically just walked around the city, looked into various shops and took some photos. Lunch today was at a self-service restaurant....it was rather interesting. Large amounts of salad fixings to make your own salad, and women behind counters cooking up different types of pastas with various sauces. Not a bad lunch, but again, relative to prices back in the U.S. it was rather expensive for what we had. Europe for many years was a bargain for Americans, but with the current exchange rate, everything is quite expensive. As the day went on, we just walked the streets of Verona and sat in the park area outside the Arena. It was a very hot day, which slowed us down a bit. After dinner, we again sat outside the Arena and watched all the crowds going into the Arena to see this evening's performance....The Barber of Seville. Eventually we headed back to the hotel for bed.

Wednesday July 25 - Lake Como - Verona, Italy

Today was going to be another long driving day, as we headed southeast to the city of Verona. We had our breakfast on the balcony again, overlooking Lake Como and headed out. As usual, we did not take the shortest route available, but attempted to take a scenic drive. The drive started out to be rather nasty, as we crossed northern Italy through industrial centers with a lot of truck traffic......not what we had in mind. Eventually we broke off one of the main roads and headed south through some winding mountain roads, which were rather pleasant. I now began to see the Italian drivers in action......attempting to pass any vehicle on the most winding mountain roads. As we eventually came down from the mountains, we had to get on more highway type roads, not by choice, but this was the only way to approach Verona. The driving now became totally insane. The Italian drivers (I could tell by the I on the license plates) were completely out of control...... they would pass other vehicles over any line......single, double, double yellow, cross hatched no passing zones, etc. etc, It appeared that anything goes....... they would weave in and out, back and forth, in any direction. I thought Gail was going to hide on the floor in the back seat or trunk. Basically, there are absolutely no rules of the road around here.......cars, motorcycles, and bicycles, do whatever they want at anytime.....very, very scary. Even for me, a rather aggressive driver, this was a bit much to deal with. We finally reached Verona after a very stressful drive and had a crazy time trying to locate our hotel. Italian cities are not laid out in a systematic way such as NY city, so we drove round and round and finally asked someone for directions, not an easy task, since very few people spoke English. Finally after parking the car and walking a bit we found the hotel. Sounds great, right??? No way. The woman at the hotel spoke no English and had to locate her husband to help us out. He finally arrived after a bit and helped us settle in, find the parking garage, etc. Eventually, we had dinner, and picked up our tickets to the opera..... Aida. We arrived at the area by 7:45 PM to secure some reasonable seats and the opera began at 9:15. This was an event in and of itself. I understood nothing, but enjoyed the entire performance which after two intermissions was over at 12:45 AM. We finally got back to the hotel and got to bed by 1:30 AM......... what a day, but in hindsight rather interesting and exciting.

Tuesday July 24 - Lake Como area, Italy

After eating breakfast on the balcony overlooking charming Lake Como, we were off. Today, our itinerary was to explore the towns of Bellagio and Varena, both along the shores of Lake Como. We parked our car not far from the hotel and took a ferry across the lake to Bellagio. Bellagio turned out to be a smaller town than I expected, but quite interesting with many small shops and restaurants. What amazed me the most, was the number of tourists in the town that were speaking English. After browsing many of the shops in Bellagio for awhile, we took a boat up the lake a bit to the very small, quiet town of Varenna. We walked the streets and small alleys of Varenna for awhile and then hopped the ferry back to Bellagio for some dinner, coppucino and gellati. We caught the 9:20 PM ferry across the lake and back to our car. After a very hot and tiring day, we were happy to arrive back at our air conditioned hotel by 10 PM. We were off to bed for another long journey tomorrow.......to the city of Verona.

Monday July 23 - Thun, Switzerland to Lake Como, Italy

We left Thun, for a very long ride today to Italy. Our destination was the town of Tremezzo, on Lake Como. We knew it was going to be a very long day, but I looked at the map and still decided to take the route that would go through the mountain passes with the highest elevation. One of the first mountain passes we went through was the Grimsel Pass with an elevation of approximately 2800 meters. The scenery and views were astonishing, even though the sky was was overcast and hazy. Viewing the snow covered Swiss Alps in late July was something I was looking forward to for months.........and here we were. Cows with large bells meandered around the mountains sides as well. As each mile passed and we climbed higher and higher up the mountains, I could see the ambient temperature gauge in the car gradually go down......reaching a low point of 8 degrees Celsius (45 Fahrenheit), and the strong blowing winds made it feel even colder. We eventually began to descend down the mountains, which was somewhat disappointing, because we knew we were leaving Switzerland for the last time on this trip. Switzerland is actually one of our favorite countries and we hope to be back here very very soon. As we were getting closer to the Italian border, it became rather obvious......many of the street signs and advertisements began to appear in Italian and the architecture of the buildings began to change as well. As the late afternoon gradually ended, we reached Lugano, Switzerland, near the border, and finally crossed into Italy at 5:30 PM to get stuck in complete standstill traffic for approximately one hour. How depressing. We now had to continue our journey toward Lake Como. We finally arrived at our hotel in Tremezzo, across the lake from Bellagio, at about 7:30 PM. After eating a quick dinner at a local Pizzeria, it was off to bed for another exciting day again tomorrow.

Sunday July 22 - Thun, Switzerland

As routine, we woke up early, had breakfast and had to decide what to do. We had a full day in the Thun area and wanted to explore. Thank goodness the weather was a lot better than yesterday, so after we looked at a map of the area we decided to journey up to the closest, but highest mountains......and came up with the area around the town of Lenk, Switzerland. After approximately a one hour drive we arrived in Lenk, which on our map was basically a dead end before the impassible Alps. In Lenk we found the Betelberg Cable Car system. We took the cable car up to the very top, approximately 1900 meters (6000 feet). Once at the top we explored the area and decided to hike down, following the designated walking paths. The views were outstanding. Too much to even describe. At the halfway point, as the hike down was getting rather steep, we hopped on the cable car and rode the rest of the way down. We explored the town of Lenk a bit and were now on our way. As we drove back to Thun we stopped occasionally to take a few more photos. Once back in Thun, we walked around a bit, had dinner and went to bed.

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Saturday July 21 - Lucerne to Thun, Switzerland

As usual, we woke up early and were on our way. Today we left Lucerne with a destination of Thun, a medieval city in central Switzerland, on Lake Thun, which is one of the largest lakes in Switzerland. Along the way, we made a stop in the town Interlaken, which is between the two lakes of Brienz and Thun. I had been to Interlaken in 1970 while camping throughout Europe and again in 1977 with Gail. As was the case with Lucerne, Interlaken was basically unchanged except for the increase in the nature of the tourist population. Many more tourist shops have also made their way into the town. As Gail and I did 30 years ago, we went into a supermarket, bought bread and Emmentaler cheese and ate it in the same park in the center of the town....... it was great to be back, but 30 years was much too long. After playing typical tourist, looking in the shops and buying postcards we continued on our way to Thun. We arrived in Thun an hour or so later to be greeted with major road construction and heavy rain. After a major ordeal to get the car parked, we finally checked into the hotel. Finding a place to eat dinner in the pouring rain was not quite what we had in mind. We finally found a very small, excellent Italian restaurant (http://www.trattoria-rimini.ch)quite close to our hotel. The food was all homemade and excellent, and after a very relaxing dinner and a few glasses of wine we went back to the hotel for a good nights sleep.

Friday July 20 - Gossau to Lucerne, Switzerland

This morning we woke up and had to leave Gossau for Lucerne. It was a rather difficult departure for us.......we had spent the past few days with the Giger family and had such a fun filled and rewarding time, that it was difficult for us to say goodbye. They did so much for us and made us feel so welcome, that we thought we were part of the family. After a sad departure, we were on our way to Lucerne by approximately 10:30 AM. The rest of the day was rather uneventful except for the magnificent scenery along the way. We arrived in Lucerne in the early afternoon, found our hotel, and set out to see the city. This was my 5th visit to Lucerne and Gail's 2nd. The city, for the most part was rather unchanged except for the makeup of the tourists. The tourist population was now much more diverse than we had seen in the past, with a much larger proportion of people from Asian nations. We visited the typical tourist stops, the medieval covered bridge across the Reuss River and the famous Lion Monument. We next visited all the typical shops in Lucerne........Bucherer and Gubelin for watches, among others. Prices were so high, that we purchased nothing substantial What makes everything so expensive for us is the depreciating U.S. dollar on world currency markets. It began to rain rather heavily in the early evening, so we had a quick dinner and headed back to the hotel earlier than expected.

Thursday - July 19 Appenzellerland, Switzerland

We woke up early again today, had another great breakfast (Eliane went out each morning to be sure we had fresh rolls and bread on the breakfast table) and then we were on our way for another eventful day. Today Seraina's grandparents joined us on our journey...... they did not speak English, but we all had a great time together as we were all able to smile, laugh and somehow exchange and share our thoughts. The first major event of the day was a journey to Schwagalp for a a short hike at the base of Mount Santis. Before our walk in the area we saw how cheese was made......an interesting process. Our walk was quite amusing, as we shared the paths with cows and had to be sure not to step in their “pies”. After taking many photos, we left and headed down the mountain, as several of the cows also shared the roadway. Our next stop was a short visit near the town of Jakobsbad to see a rather small but interesting amusement park. Again, a lot of smiles and laughts with the Giger family. Continuing on our journey, the next stop was the small quaint village of Appenzell, where we had lunch and walked around the picturesque village and browsed in many of the traditional tourist type shops. At this point in the day, everyone was rather tired so we headed back to Gossau for some relaxation. We had another fine dinner with the entire family and had to face the reality that we were leaving our new friends the next morning. Before that reality set in, we had some Turkish coffee, dessert and of course some more good conversation and laughs before going to bed for the night.

Wednesday July 18 - Gossau, Switzerand & Surrounding Area

We knew today was going to be another exciting day. After a very filling and relaxing breakfast we were off to see the city of St. Gallen. On our way into the city we stopped off at some very scenic overlooks where we could see almost every corner of St. Gallen, quite an old and beautiful place. After parking the car downtown we walked a bit to get a flavor of the city. The highlight of our visit in the city was an extremely well preserved Baroque Cathedral from the 18th century, that houses many manuscripts from the early Middle Ages. The interior of the church and the organ were quite impressive. After leaving the city we headed to a local zoo where we had a picnic lunch of delicious St. Gallen bratwursts. Continuing on our fun packed day, we were off to visit the Maestrani Swiss Chocolate factory in Flawil (http://www.maestrani.ch). The tour was quite interesting, but what was more special was that we were constantly being given samples of many of their very tasty products.......too good to resist! We now headed back to our host's home for a bit of relaxation and joyful conversation. After another excellent dinner, we were now headed out again........ to Lake Constance. Hard to believe, but at 9:30 PM I was actually swimming in Lake Constance, a large lake on the Rhine between Germany, Switzerland, and Austria. After a lot of fun, laughs and good friendship, we headed back to Gossau for a good nights sleep. Again, another wonderful, fulfilling and great day.

Tuesday July 17 - Freiburg, Germany to Gossau, Switzerland

We woke up early today for our trip to Switzerland. After breakfast we headed for Gossau, Switzerland to visit Seraina Giger and her family (Seraina was a foreign exchange student I had in school this past year). On our way to we stopped at Rhine Falls near the town of Schaffhausen in northern Switzerland and close to the German border. The falls are a spectacular sight to see and are the largest waterfalls in Europe. After a short visit to the falls, we were off to Gossau. As most people are well aware, Switzerland is one of the most scenic nations in the world, and this was reinforced as we headed south toward Gossau. Gossau is a small city in the eastern part of Switzerland, near the larger city of St. Gallen. We arrived at the Giger's home at about 2 PM to a wonderful welcome. We unpacked the car, settled in and had a great afternoon ........ taking a walk in the Gossau area and chatting and getting to know our hosts. Gail and I immediately knew that we were going to have an exciting and fun few days with our new friends. Seraina's mom, Eliane prepared a very tasty traditional Swiss dinner, Raclette. We all thoroughly enjoyed the dinner as we talked, had some wine and all enjoyed each other's company. Another great day on our trip.

Monday July 16 - Freiburg, Germany & Black Forest area

This morning we headed out early for what was to be a busy day. By 9:45 AM we had already eaten breakfast and were at a small local winery west of Freiburg, and about 5 miles east of the French border. The winery was not giving tours, but we had a little taste, bought a bottle and were on our way.....not too sure yet where we were headed. We looked at the map and quickly decided to take a short detour to France, drive up the French side of the Rhine River to Strasbourg and then cross the Rhine back into Germany. So, here we were driving through some very small but pretty French towns and villages. The style and architecture of the homes was very similar to what we had seen across the river in Germany. On our drive to Strasbourg, we stopped in a supermarket picked up a French baguette and some cheese and had lunch along the way. Once we arrived in the Strasbourg area, it was so congested with automobiles, we just decided to cross back into Germany and continue our day by driving south through the Black Forest again, and on to the city of Freiburg. We arrived in Freiburg late in the afternoon, to be greeted by record heat and humidity. We took a brief walk through the Alstadt (old city), took some photos, browsed in a few stores and headed back to Glottertal for a relaxing dinner. We sat at an outside table at a restaurant across from a grape vineyard. The food was excellent, but I must say that the scenery was even better......... sitting outside, eating an excellent dinner, drinking local beer and wine in the Black Forest of Germany, during sunset........what more can I say?

Rothenberg to Freiburg - Sunday July 15

Today was probably the longest day in terms of time and total miles to be driven. We had an extremely long ride from Rothenberg all the way through south central Germany, through the Black Forest with our final destination, Glottertal, a small town in the Black Forest, outside the city of Freiburg in southwest Germany. Our journey today began by taking the “Romantic Road” which passed along other small medieval walled towns. Our first stop along the way was the medieval city of Dinklesbuhl. Our timing could not have been better since once a year in mid July, Dinklesbuhl holds a special children's festival, parade and re-creation of events from hundreds of years ago, known as the "Kinderzeche". The costumes, sights, parade, etc. were a special unplanned treat for us. After enjoying all of the festivities, from Dinkelsbuhl, we now headed south to the next medieval city along the “Romantiche Strasse”, Nordlingen. We walked around Nordlingen, enjoyed the 16th and 17 th century structures, had a bratwurst and beer and to on the road again for the long journey that lies ahead. We now jumped on the autobahn for a bit, to cut some time off our day. I tried to drive at a steady 90 mph, but the Mercedes, BMWs, Audis and occasional Ferraris, just flew by and made "chop liver" from me and my Passat. We finally had a chance to get off of the autobahn and back onto the smaller roads, which took us through the rolling hills and valleys of the Black Forest. I can't even attempt to describe the beauty of the villages, homes, hills, valleys, etc. that we viewed along our drive south toward Freiburg. The journey took a lot longer than expected, because I was constantly stopping and getting out of the car to take photographs. We finally arrived in Glottertal about 7:30 PM. We were beat.......we had a very nice leisurely dinner at our hotel and off to bed we went. An absolutely outstanding day........sites and experiences that will live in our minds forever. The only thing I can say is "Wow".