Mmmmm ... cake

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Geo: 46.5588, 7.8929

One of these nights I will sleep all the way through till morning. Still, I'm improving: I managed to stay asleep until 3:00 instead of 2:00. Fortunately, I also was able to get back to sleep fairly quickly. Yesterday's spa experience must have helped.

Before breakfast, I went down to the street to take a picture of the hotel, but there was a big green delivery truck in front. Teeny-tiny cobblestoned lane, great big truck. It's amazing how large vehicles actually fit down such old streets.

Breakfast was quite the spread, with the usual muesli, yogurt, cold cuts and cheese, fruit, eggs two ways, bacon, sausage, rolls, croissants (and Nutella!), and also beans in tomato sauce, porridge, and a couple of other things that remained a mystery.

And then we had to leave the nicest hotel I've ever stayed at in Europe and get back on the bus. I could easily have spent another day in Baden-Baden. We drove through the Black Forest to the open-air museum at Gutach. We were given a tour by Steffen Unpronounceablesurname of the farmhouse that is the "star" of the museum and the mill. The farmhouse, or Vogtsbauernhof, was built in the early 17th century and housed the farmer and his family, farmhands (the important ones, anyway), and the livestock. Around the back of the house, there was a sort of driveway that led up to the top floor. The floor space is sufficient that the farmer could drive his wagon full of hay all the way in and even turn around; the hay loft was directly below. Way up at the top of the very high, steeply pitched ceiling was nailed the skull of an ox. There was a superstition that the head of an ox would keep the house strong and sturdy, so the ox that helped build the farmhouse would be slaughtered and its skull nailed up. Because this farmhouse had an ox skull, the farmer must have been very wealthy indeed: a valuable farm animal wouldn't have been killed unless it could truly have been spared. In the dining room, there was also a teensy door that opened to reveal a horseshoe inside the wall. This was meant to ward off the Devil.

Steffen operated the mill for us so we could see how it worked. It was very noisy but pretty nifty. The end product was spewed from the “bran puker” (real name!) and into a bin.

That was it for the tour part, but we were able to have a little free time before lunch. John and I tried some freshly pressed apple juice from apples on the farm. It was very tart and very good.

We all had lunch (on our own) at the museum. There were several stands, and John and I each got riesenbratwurst and some fries along with radlers. John decided he does not like radler. And then Daniela produced an enormous Black Forest cake. It was delicious! I've never much cared for BF cake but, boy!, was this good. And then she gave us tots of cherry schnapps. Just sniffing the glass was enough to make me dizzy.

Back on the bus. Eventually, we crossed over the Rhine into France and about 30 minutes later we drove into Switzerland. Unfortunately, the warmth of the sun shining in, and the movement of the bus, and the fact that I was so tired made me doze off a bit. John dozed too. In fact, quite a few people dozed. It was definitely a long day on the bus. We did stop at an Autogrill, one of Europe's amazing rest stops. We paid one euro to use the toilets and received a one euro voucher in return. John and I used our vouchers to get a Solero, a Cornetto, and two Kinder eggs (Hi, Yvonne!) at the shop. There was also a bin of free Toblerone samples on the ground floor. I love European rest stops.

We drove into the Lauterbrunnen Valley around 5:15. Since it's a spot I never thought I would ever see again, I was really excited to be back. Lauterbrunnen itself looked very familiar and is actually a bit bigger than I remembered. We drove up to the Schilthornbahn near Stechelberg to catch the cable car up to Gimmelwald and then to Muerren, our home for the next couple of days. We are staying at the Hotel Jungfrau, right at the base of the Allmendhubelbahn. The town is over a mile high, and we may see BASE jumpers and paragliders while we're here because it's a very popular jumping-off point.

Our room has a view of the Allmendhubelbahn, which I hope to take tomorrow or the next day. We had dinner as a group in the hotel. We started with fondue (yum!) and then had a variety of salads (couscous, kidney beans in sauce, etc.). The main course was a hunter's stew with mashed potatoes with a cheesy crust, and we finished off with chocolate mousse. All very good.

After dinner, an accordionist played polkas (Gil and Elsie danced to one of them) and other songs, and an alphorn player played for us too. Some of our group were able to try the alphorn, and they mostly did pretty well. It clearly takes a lot of breath though, as each person would blow for a few seconds and then start giggling. I remember that feeling from vocal lessons: you end up getting light-headed from the lack of oxygen. The alphorn player also played … well, I don't know what it's called, but it consists of a ceramic bowl and a five franc coin. The coin is spun in the bowl and the guy keeps it moving by gently moving the bowl. It makes a noise somewhere between a fire alarm and jingle bells. And then the accordionist joined in and they both sort of yodeled. It was quite an evening.

And now it's 11:40 p.m. I really hope I don't wake up super early again! Gute Nacht.

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Comments

[Yvonne]

So glad to see you still need Kinder Eggs (just like I do). You sound like you are having a great time.

[Mom]

I was so happy to read your travel report this morning! I've taken to eating Muesli and tried a few different brands so know it varies. Did you like it? I looked up radler, too, and I drank the beer/lemonade combo in England a couple of
times since I'm not a fan of beer. Liked that, though!

[Sandy]

I LOVED Murren when I was there -- absolutely beautiful. I'm glad you two experienced this together!