Murten

Step one was to stick with the nearby, as our visitors were jet lagged and such. The first leg of the tour was a trip to Murten, then up to Neuchatel and later Drinks in Biel. Im still waiting on those clowns to send me some of their pics, since I didnt take my camera out much in the beginning. here are some overhead views of Murten, as we walked along the defensive walls of the city.

Chocolate Factory and Bern

We visited the Cailler Chocolate factory. I vowed to try all the samples no matter how sick I got. I felt... well... triumphant.




Cheers to Bern!!!

Some of the crew taking some pics in front of the Zytglogge:



Friends Stefan and Chirstoph came over one evening for dinner and drinks. Of course we got Aaron and Christian to play for them. Judging by the bottles on the table, it must have been after dinner when this was taken:


At some point, waiting for the train, we somehow found ourselves hanging out with these cows. Thats Matthew playing on the slide. “Its really sticky in there” he says.

Train!!

For part of the trip we arranged day-passes for everyone for the train. On other days we rented a VW minvanish SUVish thing. Having a vehicle is cheaper for a large group and you have more freedom, but the train is so much more fun! You can see plenty of stuff like this vineyard:


And of course its great to kick back with old friends. Shelly opens a canteen filled with Kirsch:

Our friend Christian:

The brothers Aaron and Matt:

Thats Erika second from the left

“Holy Crap!”:





“Hmmmmm”:



“ZZZZzzzzzzzzzz”:

Busy Month!

So the blog is to be soon updated with a wealth of pics from our little vacation. I’ve pretty much sorted through the hundreds of pictures takes so I can bring you the ‘greatest hits collection’. As you may have heard, some friends visited us from back home, so it was a fast paced 2 weeks of awesome Swiss touring. Then as they left, we had a visit from my cousin Kristen! That’s here in front of the Zytglogge in Bern. She was in Geneva on business, and despite our busy schedules, we were able to meet up for a cheese fondue and a tour of Bern. Awesome!

Then, Shelly and I went to a wedding, congratulations to our Swiss friends Regula and Thomas! The next morning Shelly and I packed our bags and headed to Munich for Oktoberfest! From there we did a breif tour of Austria before returning home. So... thats why the blog hasn’t been touched. But, as you can imagine there’s a bunch coming!

Appenzell

For a change of scenery Appenzell was the place to go. We had day passes for the rail system, so we had to take advantage of this and go somewhere new. Seemingly one of the more traditional regions of Switzerland, Appenzell was picture perfect with cows and various livestock and the mountainous terrain. We took the cable lift up the Ebenalp to catch the view, sadly we were delivered directly into blanket of fog but we had an exciting time regardless, trekking the mountain side.



A small cabin built directly into the mountain side!



Next two pictures: Wildkirchli, small church for crazy mountain recluses.







A small inn what we should probably think about staying at the next time:



Back on the ground level I had to rinse off Roo in the river because she was covered in sheep poo. Afterwards we took the train back to Appenzell.




Some street views of Appenzell!



Of course we had to take a break and drink some Appenzell bier.






Rick Steves said we should check out the Barefoot path. It took us through the green farmland, barefoot of course!





The idea was therapy through exposing your feet to different textures. We walked through grass, woodchips, pinecones, really sharp rocks, pavement, and mud.



And after this Roo was once again dirty and fortunately there was a foot washing station at the end. It was covered in these really big slugs that are common everywhere in Switzerland. nasty.





Waiting for the train back home!!

Appenzell videos.

Montreax

We went to Montreax while the jazz festival was going on. I attended a John Scofield workshop that I was really excited about but turned out to be kind of a bummer. Not much else to say than that. I didn't bother going to any of the main shows, since tickets were through the roof expensive and anybody I would have like to seen was paired with someone I wouldn't. Shelly and I had a fun day just hanging out in the nice weather by the lake, and chowing down on some festival food. I took some cool pics of the lake:

Gurten Brewery- Wabräu

Gurten is basically on the outside of the city of Bern, and there is a big old brewery that has been bought out and closed, and the Gurten beer is now brewed elsewhere.





But.. some cool guys bought parts or maybe all of the old brewery for their own little club where they do their own micro-brewing. On the first Friday of the month you can go there for a little party at which they tap their 'Wabräu' kegs to the public!

Going up and back and around the brewerie to a little house built into the side of a hill: