Wednesday, June 04, 2008

Hello From Heidi-land!

Greetings from Switzerland! Grüsse!
This will just be text since I haven't any chance to get my digital images made into a CD or DVD as yet. The trip is going well so far. Our first evening was spent in Frankfurt, near the train station...and little did I know, smack in the middle of the red light district! No wonder they only showed the top of the hotel in the website picture! We survived, even though we didn't get much sleep due to all-night patronage at the hovels below...I remember wondering if those people would ever go home...I'm sure some didn't...
However, the very next day, we headed to the train station as quickly as we could and found our train to Basel Switzerland. We had a lovely trip in the first class cabin, complete with newspaper and beverage service. Once in Basel, we hopped on the next train to Luzern...oh wow...I didn't pay close enough attention to the fact that we should have had our Swiss Rail Passes validated before we boarded and the conductor indicated to me that it was going to cost us 75CHF each to have that done by him! I pleaded innocence plus the fact that we had been mis-directed to the wrong track for our train (true) and so we had needed to hurry to catch the correct train...all this time I was praying, too. Thank the Lord, He heard my prayer and the conductor took pity on us and validated the passes out of the graciousness of his heart. I thanked him profusely and we were well on our way!
Now once we arrived in Luzern, we found the next leg of our journey toward Interlaken, but we got off in Brünig Pass and boarded the Post Bus to Reuti. It went up & up & up to 3000 ft. and Hotel Viktoria where we have been for these past 5 days...enjoying the beautiful Swiss Alps all around this little village. I will try to post pictures as soon as I can because you will not believe how beautiful it is! As we sit on our deck, we hear the rushing water cascading down the mountainside all around us, as well as the cowbells echoing up from the fields just below...so idyllic and QUIET!!!!!
Directly across the valley are the Reichenbach Falls where Sherlock Holmes did away with his nemesis Moriarty! I had no idea! There is a Sherlock Holmes Museum down the mountain via cablecar in Meiringen that we hope to visit tomorrow.
Our meals here at Hotel Viktoria have been splendid: each dinner features 4 courses beginning with a salad and then a soup of some kind (cream of vegetable, cream of carrot, and tonight's offering cream of pumpkin...mmmmm) and then comes the entree...chicken kabob with curry sauce & noodles and spinach, or pork cutlets with potato tots and white wine mushroom sauce...and always a dessert...fresh strawberries & cream or a dessert buffet. Another fun fact: Meiringen (just down the hill) is the birthplace of the "meringue" in 1600! So, there are shops down in the village that sell the most incredible meringue cookies!!
Well, I will write more the next time I sit down at the computer! Tschüss!