Vacation to Switzerland and Italy

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After switching to the NATO Infrastructure Committee which met on Tuesdays from the P&P Committee that met on Thursday, my Easter vacations could start on Wednesdays instead of Fridays. We always looked forward to vacations in the Spring as the long cold winter was over and the flowers were blooming and the sheep were lambing...life was once more upon us and we had to get out and enjoy it. This was especially relevant as Linda was now four months pregnant with new life within her. This time we headed south to the Alps and on to Northern Italy, Tuscany and the Ligurian Sea.

26 April 1989 Wednesday. We drove from our home in Overijse, Belgium to one of our favorite places in Switzerland, the small village of Steckelberg, at the end of the Lauterbrunnen Valley south of Interlaken in the Bernese Oberland. The high mountains of the Eiger, Monck, and Jungfrau towered over us.

We arrived in time for supper at the small gasthaus (which years later was the first pit stop on the "Amazing Race"). After we took a walk around the town to check out the dandelions; the cows having already been taken to the high meadows. The girls loved the feathered comforters on their beds, and we all had a good nights rest with the sound of a rushing mountain stream lulling us to sleep.

27 April 1989 Thursday. After breakfast we drove the couple miles to Lauterbrunnen where we caught the cog railway to Wengen, and from there to the high meadows of Kleine Scheidegg at the foot of the Eiger (see "The Eiger Sanction" with Clint Eastwood for the setting). This was one of Linda and my favorite hikes, which we did regularly while living in Germany and last did when Sue and family visited in May 1985, when we learned that Linda was pregnant for the first time with Tamara.

Tamara was now 3 1/4 years old and Rosanna was 1 1/2 years old, just walking for about 7 months, so this was going to be a challenge...hiking five miles down to Wengen. It helped to stop along the way to pick flowers, but we both had to carry a girl for the last couple of miles. We took our time.

After returning to Lauterbrunnen we drove around to Grindelwald and window shopped. Then back to our inn for supper and an evening of playing and reading before bed.

28 April 1989 Friday. Today was another day of hiking the Swiss Alps; this time to Gimmelwald on the other side of the valley from Wengen. We took the gondola ride from Steckelberg to Gimmelwald, to start our hike through the village and down the trail that led back to Steckelberg. The kids played at a playground upon our return.

By now you recognize that we found it easier to ride up the mountains and hike down. I always dreamed for doing this all the way from Lake Lucerne to Lake Geneva, going up from one valley and hiking down to the next. I started this once but found the path down blocked by fallen trees and turned around; something for the bucket list.

29 April 1989 Saturday. Linda's birthday. We checked out and drove to Kandersteig, the next valley over. There we drove onto a car train for the ride through a tunnel to Brig, and then through another tunnel to Domodossola, Italy. We continued south along the western shore of Lake Maggiore and down to Genoa, where we then headed east along the Ligurian Sea (part of the Mediterranean Sea) to the U.S. Army base at Camp Darby. This is where Linda and I had first met Mike and Betty in July 1978. Now he was my office mate at NATO.

We had rented a cabin at Camp Darby for the week. The cabin was nice; perfect for a family with kids. And being a military base, we had access to the PX and commissary, and all the other support facilities such as a base theater. Furthermore, since all Italian gas stations were on strike, we were able to fill up our nearly empty gas tank. Camp Darby is also close to the beaches of the Ligurian Sea and to Pisa, Florence, and the hilltop towns of Tuscany; a great hub for exploring the region. We celebrated Linda's birthday at the Club.

30 April - 4 May 1989 Sunday through Thursday. The next five days were spent at the beach or visiting Pisa and its leaning tower, San Gimignano with its thirteen towers, and Volterra with its Roman amphitheater cut into a hillside. Tuscany has got to be another of our favorite destinations, and the countryside was particularly verdant in the Spring.

5 May 1989 Friday. We drove to one of our other most favorite villages in Europe...Sirmione on the southern shore of Lake Garda. Our last time here was with my parents in May 1987, so we had some bitter sweet memories...sweet that we had been able to have such a wonderful vacation with my parents, but bitter since that was the last one we had with my Dad.

After checking into our hotel on the lake, we walked around the town and to the Roman palace at the end of the peninsula. The girls played at the playground outside the city walls. We had supper at a trattoria as soon as they opened, which was 6 pm.

The waiters served us immediately as they wanted us out of there before the adults arrived...this was not going to be a four hour four course dinner! They brought bread sticks and bread while we waited for the pasta. The girls loved the bread sticks which they promptly put into their noses and ears. Tamara put her sticks into a roll to make it look like a porcupine. Upon his return with the spaghetti, and seeing this use of bread sticks, the waiter was horrified. Get over it! Anyway, we did him a favor and finished before any other guests showed up.

6 May 1989 Saturday. We drove north over the Brenner Pass to Innsbruck, Austria, for a lunch stop and then on to Germany, passing through Garmisch and Oberammergau, and spent the night at the BOQ at Patch Barracks, Stuttgart, where Linda and I lived and worked from 1980 to 1984.

7 May 1989 Sunday. We drove to Ramstein and Glan Munchweiler, where we had lived from 1977 to 1980, and stopped for lunch at the Club and for groceries at the commissary. From there we headed northwest through Luxembourg to home!

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Photos

Hiking in the Lauterbrunnen Valley
Tamara, Linda and Rosanna