The Bells of Europe

Flying by the seat of our pants Sparky and I returned from 9 days of traveling in Europe in September. Not long enough; too long!


We flew into Geneva Wednesday morning, where Sparky's girl friend, Gishlaine picked us up and took us to her home 10 minutes away and across the border into France. After a quick (not long enough nap) Gishlaine and her husband Jim drove us 45 minutes down to Annecy, a quiet little city with an old-town section that could give Venice, Italy a run for its money with all the canals and waterways.

The next morning Gishlaine drove us back to the Geneva airport where we picked up a VW Fox, setup the TomTom GPS on the windshield, said goodbye and headed off to see my ancestor's homeland.

We drove around lake Geneva and up the Autobahn, turned off and drove the back roads of Switzerland. Up and over Juanpasse we drove, exclaiming how beautiful the sights were. I think almost every other sentence out of our mouths was, "Oh, Wow!"

As we reached the high mountain pass, suddenly there in front of us were cows with bells around their necks, a tradition of Switzerland and a highlight for Sparky. We stopped the car and made this video.

We drove on to Zweissimen where my paternal grandmother was born, found the local church cemetary and were pleasantly surprized at how many Zumbrunnen headstones we found. Every grouping had one. (Zumbrunnen is our original family name, prior to Uncle Rudy changing it to Zumbrennen during WWII.)

Next we drove 4 miles to Reidenbach where my paternal grandfather was born. Again, another cemetary and more Zumbrunnen headstones. Someday we will have to come back and try to located some relatives. What beautiful country!

As the day wained, it was time to find a room to sleep. We found a "Zimmer" (B&B) just outside Interlacken in Niederried and on the shore of Lake Brienzer. The proprietor was an old woman who gave us the room up the steap wooden stairs on the second floor. We had two bedrooms, kitchen/dining, living room and bathroom all to our selves. That night we could hear cow bells ringing from the mountainside behind us. Sparky's eyes twinkled everytime she heard them.

In the morning we were, again, astounded by the beauty of this country. Lake Brienzer in front of us and the Swiss alps on the other side shooting straight up out of the water. Cow bells ringing in the back of us, what more could you want.

We drove on to Luzern, saw the sights, and then to Zurich where I had pre-arranged one of the few hotels for the trip. It was a Marriott Courtyard and the king bed was a far cry from the twin beds we had slept in the night before. That evening we took the tram downtown, saw the sights, had dinner and returned to the hotel and died.

In the morning I got up, dressed and walked across the street to the COOP market and found some fruit and pastries for breakfast.

(Why is it that Sparky and I can't get up and out of a room before 10 a.m.? We would never make it on a AARP tour, having to have your luggage outside the room by 6:30 a.m.)

Then it was in the car and driving northeast to Vaduz, the capital of Liechtenstein. We walked around the town center, paid €3 to have our passports stamped with the official Liechtenstein stamp as proof we were there, bought an ice cream cone and drove on up the road and into Germany.

Passing through Austria, we arrived in Fussen midafternoon just in time to retreive our reserved tickets, and the small bus up the mountain for our 3 p.m. tour of Neuschwanstein castle, another long-time goal of Sparky. (She was disappointed when Greg and I went there 4 years ago.)

That night we found Suzzane's Zimmer in Fussen to spend the night. We got the last of 6 rooms she had available, which was in the attic. The ceiling at the peak was probably six-feet high. I had to duck to pass through the bedroom door, and we had to lower the floor over the stairway so we could walk from the bathroom into the bedroom. The shower area is encircled with a shower curtain. The whole floor is tiled. It's definitely not the Marriott, but a room to remember.

The next day brought Sunday and we drove along the "Romantic Highway" to Oberammergau, site of the Passion Play put on every 10 years. We stumbled onto a local dairy fair around noon and I got my Bratwurst. Sparky had an authentic German noodle dish with carmelized onions, noodles and Gruyere cheese. It was great! Two bottles of "apple juice with water" to wash it down and we were set. Townspeople in traditional costumes walking by, while the Oompa band played. Everyone was having fun.

On up the romantic highway we drove stopping to see churches, towns and the countryside. The weather is beautiful. A couple days with a little bit of rain in the early morning, some mist for scenic shots but today is wonderful; blue sky is abondant.

I'm surprised at the number of farm houses and barns here in the countryside covered with solar panels. They say Germany's power is from 30% renewable resources and I can understand that.

The next major goal of the trip is Rothenburg ob der Tauber (Rothenburg on the Tauber River). This mideaval, walled town hasn't been counquered since the mid 1600's, and then it was the powder keg room keepers fault.

We had called a Zimmer while driving on the road, and the housekeeper said she had rooms available.

We took the large room in the back overlooking the garden and gold-fish pond. With our luggage stowed again, we headed out walking the town seeing the sights as outlined by our third traveling companion, Rick Steves. St. Jakob's church, covenant garden, castle gardens were just some of the many sight we did. That night we did the "Night Watchman" tour and followed him around the town hearing some of the colorful stories about this picturesque place. Although no visitor cars are allowed within the walls, I was greatful having our room in the back of the Zimmer since once in a while you could hear a car rumbling down the cobblestone street out front. Another curious thing was that the innkeeper didn't want to be paid the €72 until the next day. We did, after breakfast.

We are almost at the end of the trip, but still more places to see and things to do. Once again we packed and rattled our luggage along the cobblestone roads to our car parked outside the city walls in Lot #4. But before we could escape Rothenburg, a kindly old man stopped me taking photos and pointed out a better shot to take. It took a minute to understand his broken English with our limited German, but it was a good shot. One of dozens in the this town.
Next stop was the Rhine River Valley. We found another Zimmer in Bacharach and borrowed the Innkeepers two bikes and rode down along the Rhine 8 miles to St. Goar. Lots of people riding bikes; mostly our age. All most all the roads we have driven on in Germany have an accompaning bike path, country roads or autobahn, you name it. It would be fun to have them in the States. It would also probably encourage people to exercise more.

In St. Goar we rode around town on our bikes. We rode along the back streets checking out the way people live; ate more pastries and waited for the ferry to take us back up river to our home for the night in Bacharach.

In the morning, Wednesday, we drove down the river again past St. Goar to K0blenz, turned left and drove up the Mosel River valley. In Moselkern, the lack of sleep over took me. So we parked the car in the town park and I layed down under an apple tree and took a 45 minute nap while Sparky explored the town and riverfront, complete with its bike path and barges on the way to ports within Germany. I was lucky to not be Galieao; apples were dropping off the park's trees as I slept.

(You can take a boat, and they have them commercially available, from Amsterdam, to Frankfut, and on to Basel, Switzerland. All on the same boat; just cruising the river.)

With a little shut eye behind me, we drove through Moselkern, up the canyon, parked the car and hike 45 minutes to Burg Eltz, one of the premier castles of Europe. Now owned by four families, it has never sacked in its 600 year history. The owners now live in Frankfurt and also have large land holdings in Alaska, the tour guide said.

That night we slept in Beutig, a town on the Mosel and in the Weingut Zimmer. We ate dinner with two other couples at the same table and under the grape vines. Since we weren't in a touristy town, hardly anyone spoke English. One woman at our table and the young waiter a little. It was an experience ordering dinner, and they all laughed when we said, "No alcohol." They didn't have Sprite or Fanta, so we ended up with warm grape juice from a wine bottle, the house specialty, but with "no alcohol."

That night we again were in the attic room, up two flights of stairs. Our bathroom was up an additional 6 steps within the room and the window/skylight revealed the church steeple one half block away. Unfortunately, and contrary to most places, the bells tolled all night on the hour and half hour, and our beds were lumpy. Probably the worst night of all, but we were greatful to have the room as it was probably one of the last in town.

The next morning we again loaded our bags and rolled them down the cobblesone street to our car parked in the town square next to the river.

With the Mosel River on our right we drove 2 miles up the Beilstein, a town recommended by Rick Steves. It was now becoming common-place to have beautiful, idealic towns with photo ops everywhere. I've never seen so much beautiful country as we have seen on this trip.

After shooting a bunch of pictures of this little riverside town, a bus load of tourists arrived and suddenly the streets were filled with them. (Damn Tourists!) The oppurtunity was gone. We had had about 45 minutes relatively alone and then they were here.

We loaded the car on a small ferry; paid €3 and took it 136 meters across the Mosel and drove back down the river and on to Cologne, where we saw the Cologne Cathedral. This cathedral's claim to fame is having the skulls of the 3 magi with crowns of gold. We saw the miniture gold cathedral that supposedly holds the skulls, but who knows . . . We came out of the cathedral and were deciding what to do next when the bells started ringing. Oh, my gosh! They rang and rang and rang in the middle of the afternoon. Here's how they sounded.

Next we walked down a pedistrian-only street, stopping to get some more pastries (the food of the traveler in Europe) and hot chocolate, since it was a little nippy. I asked a young business man if he spoke English and then how to say "hot chocolate" in German. I find most people are generally helpful if you ask.

We had parked the car under the cathedral, literally, and after retrieving it, we drove to Dussledorf for our last night in Europe. With our trusty TomTom GPS leading the way, we drove right to the Hilton. They surprised us with an upgrade to the Executive level. That was very surprising since I had booked the room using my Hilton Honors points. That night dinner was in the Executive Lounge.

Early the next morning, we took a taxi to the airport. (I had turned in the car the day before.) Traveling light with only two carry-on bags each, we passed through Security, bought some chocolates for the kids with our left over coinage of €12.40, boarded the plane and flew home -- the worst part of the trip.

We decided this was my tenth time to Europe and Sparky's seventh. In all, we drove 1600 Kilometers this trip, traveled through 5 countries and slept in a different room each night, only 3 of which we had pre-arranged prior to our departure. Quite an adventure, and it was fun all the way! I never get enough of Europe.

Ireland's looking interesting! Never been there!