Luzern: 'round about town

After disembarking from our good Alruna in Basel, we took an enjoyable bus ride through the Swiss countryside to our last stop in Luzern. On the way to the hotel once we entered the city, we made a quick stop at a sightseeing highlight: the Lion Monument/Löwendenkmal:

It honors the Swiss Guards who were killed during the French Revolution (their names are carved into the stone below the lion). To be sure, they were defending the wrong side of history, but they stayed loyal to their posts, and that's what the Swiss find admirable. And it's a lovely monument, with the amazing sculpture you see here set back from a peaceful pool. Here's a closeup of the lion, so you can better appreciate the artistry that gives it such a personality:

The monument is in a part of town that's too far from the other tourist areas to be included in the walking tour we took after dropping off our bags at the hotel. Our Viking guide, excellent as usual, gave us a good overview of the areas around the Reuss River and the lake on this walk. He offered suggestions for activities to pursue on our own, as well as a first-rate dining recommendation (more on this later).

A couple of the sights we visited on the tour were two impressive churches on and near the river. One was prominently featured in one of my previous posts. Right on the river is the marvelously baroque Jesuit Church, with its twin onion domes, right next to the Kapellbrücke. Here's a shot of the interior:

Not far away is the much older, though not as flashy, Franciscan Church. It also has a handsome interior, just not as gaudy as its neighbor:

After our orientation, one of the sights we particularly wanted to take in on our own was an exploration of at least part of the city's medieval wall. Apparently it has nine towers on its entire length; we were only able to see a few of them. (I think the wall isn't continuous anymore, so we only saw one section.) But walking along the wall afforded wonderful views (like the one at the top of this post). Here's the view along the wall:

And here are two of the towers we saw, only one of which I was able to identify from the article I linked above:

Zyt Tower; the clock is big enough to be seen from the lake

The elaborate illustration on this tower was imitated on some of the regular buildings in the old city, too:

Another decorative motif that I noticed all over town (at least the parts of the town we were able to take in during our brief stay) was the blue and white stripes that you can see here. This was a building Henry and I saw on our post-dinner stroll on our first night in town.

Since the Swiss flag is red and white, I puzzled about this color scheme for a while before deciding it must be emblematic of Luzern's canton (what Swiss districts, or counties, are called). And sure enough, Wikipedia verified this for me.

So what about those dining recommendations? We had a pretty fancy Italian dinner that first night at Ristorante Rossini (reservations made by our helpful Viking hotel host). Sorry, no pictures there. But our Viking guide's recommendation of Heine's for a good, reasonably-price lunch was spot on. We ate there on day 1 and were pleasantly surprised at the amount of food we got  for our 20-some-euros. The menu just said soup and salad, but we also got these delicious loaves of bread!

We figured we couldn't go wrong by eating there after our Mt. Pilatus adventure on day 2. This time we were a little more adventurous and I ordered the specialty of the house: Luzerne Chügelipastetli. The menu provided a description of the dish: puff pastry filled with veal and mushrooms, and it tasted as good as it sounded (and as it looks):

Our evening stroll around the lake ended up with another (un-pictured) first-class meal, this one with an even less-touristy feel. I had some of the best Kartoffelsalat I've ever had from a food truck in the park. (That's potato salad, and I am something of a connoisseur.) Yes, the quality of Luzern's food matches the quality of its scenery, which is high praise indeed!

I hope you've enjoyed these posts covering our second Viking adventure. Sitting in 100° San Antonio as I write them, the whole trip seems almost like it was a dream. I will be taking another trip soon to cooler climes and I look forward to telling you about it.

Wordless Wednesday: if you've got to have a fiasco...

 

Out and about in NYC

I shared one of our major Big Apple adventures with you in my last two posts. But—spoiler alert!—there's a lot more to see in this wondrous metropolis. Just the architecture, for one element, presents photo opp after photo opp. Here are just a few samples:

everybody gets a bay window!

starting to crumple? or just avant garde?

So much to note in that last picture: the cool oval building, the busy Manhattan streets, the inviting rooftop on the building down the street...and this was from our hotel window! So neat that we got a room on a high floor. Here's another shot of the oval building, on whose ground floor you'll find a relaxing and entertaining bar where we spent a great evening with family and friends...

A couple of interior shots of buildings in the World Trade Center area, that didn't fit in my earlier posts, are worth an appearance here. First stop is the opulent insides of Brookfield Place, where we mainly just needed to find a restroom, but it was pretty dazzling in addition to providing that amenity...

Another over-the-top building in the area is of course, the Oculus, which I showed you in this post. Here's a more whimsical micro-view of one of its stores...

The other big item on our must-see list (in addition to the 9/11 Memorial) was the High-Line, and I'll tell you about that next time. But on our way there, especially because it was raining and we were hungry, we walked through the Chelsea Market.

We really didn't know what to expect from this space, other than shelter from the rain, and, we hoped, some lunch. Wow! What great "food court" it is! We had some wonderful soup, delicious ice cream, and enjoyed window shopping all along its length. It was too hard inside to get a good picture that really shows what it's like, but there were all kinds of displays like this one, that illustrated the building's interesting history...

Yes! The building was once a Nabisco factory! You can learn more about the site through the link above.

We did eat very well during our stay, as might be expected in such a culinary capital. We decided not to sample these bagels, however, seeing as how being "on line" would have taken up much of our morning...

Another major excursion was to the Frick Collection, a wonderful museum with some amazing paintings. No photography allowed, though, except in their handsome courtyard...

There are certainly more museums that we could have visited, as well as other attractions of all kinds. We did go out to Liberty Island on our last visit, in 2001, but Ellis Island is on my list for next time. Unfortunately, this is as close as we could get in 2019...

This place is definitely worth multiple visits!

Early winter comes to New England

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

I got a big dose of family visiting early this year with a trip to Maine. Playing with granddaughters was the major objective of the trip, but I did get to do a little sight-seeing and and a few touristy things as well.

I was disappointed when I had to leave Colorado in late September, before there was much color on display. So I was pleased to find a little bit of the fall attraction still around in Portland, as you can see above. Pretty much the end of their season, however. And in fact an early dose of winter was upon us soon after my arrival...there was even some snow!

Among our many fun adventures was a hike at a nearby state park that I'll tell you about next time. But closer to home were many other enjoyable outings, like a quick trip up the coast to Brunswick and Bowdoin College. Its campus includes not only a very impressive free art museum and tremendously handsome, ultra-New England-architecture...

...but also a wonderfully expansive (and flat) quad that makes a perfect biking route for 5-year-old riders, as you can see here (click to enlarge).

Also in Brunswick, we visited an artisanal vinegar store—a first for me. Boy were the samples tasty! As all agreed...

Another child-friendly outing that was also great fun for the adults was a visit to Pineland Farms' educational center, where we got to make butter! Another first for Gramma!

Yes! I was very excited to see my perfectly-formed little ball of butter where only heavy cream had existed just moments (well, several minutes) before.

Did you know that all you have to do to make butter is just shake cream for a while? I never knew that's what churning was all about. My understanding is that it's not a chemical but a physical reaction as the fat molecules clump together when agitated. So cool! And tasty, too, since we got to put our product on some toast when we were finished.

We also got to see where the cream came from with a visit to the dairy barn and then had a nice lunch in the Pineland cafe.

More mundane food-related outings were trips to Portland's Whole Foods, but you must know that pushing the giant car-cart around the store is something of an adventure itself...

...but, anything for my granddaughters!

We also went to a real NE craft fair, where I bought a pair of mittens, after discovering that the gloves I brought with me were not up to the task of hand-warming in these early winter conditions. Here's a panoramic shot of the fair...

and here are the mittens:

snuggly warm!
and when it's really cold I do a double-decker with my gloves

One of the more bizarre "entertainments" we had was watching a couple of crazy moms take their monthly dip in the ocean. Yes, my otherwise rational daughter-in-law and friends have made a pact to go into the ocean once a month. (This is the first winter in the pact.) The warmest day of the week they chose was still pretty raw, around 40° and rainy. But they did it anyway! Keeping hats on, though, I noticed.

I was in charge of holding my youngest granddaughter during the quick dip, and, believe me, she was not happy at seeing Mom head out to sea. But she came back quickly enough and maintained that it was easy to get warm again...a visit to a nearby bake shop helped.

Other than the temperature differential with home, the most noticeable thing about winter this far north is the low sun and the early sunset. However, when it comes, it can be rather glorious. More than once while I was there the clouds broke just at the horizon and just at the right time, treating us to a really fabulous sunset...at 4:30, but still fabulous...

More about my latest northern sojourn next time.

Fun at the Fair

How much fun can an almost-four-year-old have at the Cumberland County Fair? 

Possibly not as much as her lucky Gramma, getting to enjoy it all with her!

There was certainly a lot to see and do, from the exciting...

...to the slightly weird...

...to the very sweet...

Adorable Granddaughter at edge of frame, patiently waiting for her treat

The last picture above shows a demonstration of something I'd never seen before, but is so quintessentially New England: they're making maple syrup candy. They just pour the syrup into the bed of ice, then swirl it onto a stick. Pretty yummy! If also sticky and a little drippy as it warms up. There was other good food on offer, too, specifically, Holy Donuts. Still warm!

Of course there were also rides, most of which our little fair-goer wasn't tall enough tfor. But they're fun to look at anyway. (We were there a little early and there wasn't much traffic on the midway.)

swings elaborately, and strangely, decorated with scenes of Venice

I remember the Tilt-a-Whirl from fairs of my childhood! A classic!

You can see a pictorial commentary on the Fried Dough booth in this Wordless Wednesday post. 

The carousel was not only operational but available for little ones, and she really enjoyed it!

Resumption of blogging: an anniversary trip

Yes, I know it's been a long blogging hiatus. But I do have some good excuses, in addition to just being plumb worn out from telling you about our European trip (did I really write 61 blog posts?!?).

For one thing, we were in the high Rockies for a time, where the internet is pretty sparse. Then we had a glorious 3-week-long visit from the Exceptional Granddaughter and her parents. I couldn't miss out on playtime to do any blogging then!

So I do have a backlog of pictures and accompanying tales to tell.

I'm going to start with a weekend trip made possible by our lovely children. They gave us gift certificates for our 40th anniversary (last year) to a B&B in Fredericksburg and that town's wine shuttle. Naturally, for us, the certs were about to expire when we finally found time to use them in January.

lovely winter sky at Becker Vineyards,
one of the many stops on the shuttle route

Our accommodations were at Hoffman Haus, and we hadn't felt so pampered since getting off Tor in Budapest. The room was really nice, and the breakfasts were scrumptious, and even delivered right to our door in ingenious little baskets.

Henry enjoying breakfast on our patio

A good bit of our time in Fredericksburg was spent in the war museum there, and I'll tell you about that next time.

But Saturday afternoon we toured, and tasted at, wineries. This part of Texas is becoming quite a wine destination, with dozens of vineyards and bottlers in the area. Many are not far from F'burg, and these enterprising folks have taken advantage of this density to offer shuttle rides for wine tourists like ourselves.

First we fortified ourselves with a satisfying lunch at Jennie's Burgers. Who could resist an order of their "Tornado Fries"?

Then over a block or two (F'burg is so nice and compact; all of its important landmarks are within walking distance of each other) to catch our wine bus.

I neglected to take a good picture of one of the shuttle vehicles, but here's the one we caught at Becker. It's not good of the bus, but isn't that a gorgeous old tree?

We decided to do tastings at just two of the wineries, since, as much as we like fine wine, we don't have as much capacity for it as we wish.

First up was Torre di Pietra (which means, as my rapidly disappearing facility with Italian tells me, "Stone Tower"). We splurged on a tasting + tour there, since they have their own vines, and we got a personalized stroll around the place with the owner. Here's a look at some of his vines, resting in winter dormancy:

We got a look inside, too, at some of the machinery that makes our wine-drinking possible, like this bottling apparatus, seen from bottle's-eye-level...

After our Torre-tasting, we hopped on the bus and took it to Becker, which is at the end of the line. We opted to skip a tasting and tour there, since we had done that a few years ago with our kids. (Pictures and description of this outing are at the end of this post.)

But we did just buy a glass of Becker cabernet and sat around a while, enjoying the clearing weather (see photo at the top of this post). 

Then it was back on the bus for the ride back into town, after a stop at a different sort of winery, the 4.0 Cellars. They don't have their own vines, but rather bottle and sell wines from several different Texas vineyards. Here's their tasting room:

By the time we'd gotten a good start on their tasting list, we were in pretty good spirits (so to speak), generously helped by our knowledgeable, but rather quirky, sommelier. Yes, he's wearing a kilt, and told us he does all the time. At least that's what I remember him saying!

The best aspect of the wine shuttle tickets are that you don't have to drive back to town after doing all this wine sampling! So we safely made it back to F'burg and were able to look forward to another day of museum-ing on Sunday before heading home.

Henry channeling his inner Nimitz on the museum grounds

We had visited the National Museum of the Pacific War on our previous trip to Fredericksburg, and had always wanted to come back. Next time I'll show you some more of the great exhibits offered by this fine museum.