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| Hochgrat Mountain |
One benefit of extending our secondment was more school breaks that needed filling with trips. One benefit of having friends where we've travelled has been invitations to return. Our friends in Germany, who we visited in 2014, suggested we come see them again for longer than a weekend. They even found an apartment in Bavaria that could put up our two families during the week after Easter when both sets of children had time off school.
Our trip from Melbourne to Bavaria via airports in Manchester and Stuttgart was mostly uneventful. Our blood pressure was elevated for a while when we got to the Ryanair desk in Manchester, saw a long line of people, and four attendants at the counters who were not checking anyone in. We did some quick math in our heads and figured out that the snail's pace of movement for the checkin line wasn't going to give us time to get through security and to the airplane. Fortunately the line started moving after about 15 minutes. It turns out that the conveyor belt either wasn't working or someone had forgotten to turn it on. Once it got working, the movement of passengers through the 4 attendants at the ticket counters was pretty smooth. Much to my surprise (after a recent harrowing experience through understaffed security in Birmingham when I had to fly to Paris on business), we made it through security quickly and without hassle.
Well, almost. We had a small adventure with security. We had a Kindle and SatNav buried in roller suitcases that were tightly packed with coats we didn't want to carry. We forgot to take them out of the suitcases when we went through security (either we forgot or we thought they weren't serious about simple electronics like that). The suitcase got flagged. "Do you have a SatNav in here?" "Yes, I'm sorry, we forgot to take it out." "Would you mind opening the suitcase and removing it?" "Sure. The suitcase is full of coats. It might explode when I open it." [Dry amused English look] "That's the wrong word to use." Fortunately the woman at security had a good sense of humour, and let us through. After removing the SatNav from the suitcase, running both through the scanner, and then also flagging the travel mug that had a couple dregs of coffee left in it. Security complete, the girls and I found the airplane gate, Kristine grabbed lunch at WH Smith, and we boarded the plane without further excitement.
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| Warm English spring day meant coats in carry-on luggage, except mine because of its size, which Charis borrowed as we stood on the breezy runway |
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| Elise is old enough to start getting embarrassed about having her picture taken, and young enough that she'll forgive me for posting this one |
The flight to Stuttgart was 90 minutes long. No problem for the older girls, and just short enough that Clare played with her dolls and ponies mostly on her own. We found our car and ambled down the autobahn at a slow 120 km/h (I say slow because the cars that passed us were clearly going considerably faster). The thing is that we were having an awful lot of fun with the wide roads. That and seeing places with allocated parking just to pull over and enjoy the view. Such a strange thing - free space along a major road.
Despite consistent directions from our friends and the GPS, we made it almost to our destination and then decided one of the turns wasn't correct. This added about 20 minutes to the trip as we did a little unplanned exploring. Fortunately the GPS recovered and got us pointed in the right direction along a different road. It was now after dark. Unlike our recent trip to the Lake District, the narrow roads had no stone walls on either side. The passengers didn't really care, but the driver felt much less nervous about finishing the trip in the dark. Sure enough once we got back on track, the directions got us where we were supposed to be, and our friends were waiting with a nice dinner of bread, cheese, and German sausage.
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| The route we were supposed to take |
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| The route we actually took |
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| Bread in the foreground; proper Bavarian bratwurst in the background |
The region of Bavaria we stayed in is called Allgäu. According to Wikipedia, it's a popular tourist destination and well known for its diary products. I guessed the former over the course of the week. We took full advantage of the latter.
We stayed just outside a little village called Stiefenhofen, in southwest Allgäu. The view of the Alps as we drove south on the Autobahn was uplifting. Having a view of the Alps every day from the apartment was good for the soul. The apartment was on the third floor of a large building. The owners live on the second floor. The first floor is a combination of vacant apartment, small salon, garage, and stalls for horses.
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| Well-behaved he may have been, but he was also a big dog. I did not mess with him in this pose. |
Elise, Charis, and I joined our friends for the Easter Sunday service at the local Catholic church. My mainstay for cross-cultural services, whether in English or not, is the bulletin. This gives me a chance to figure out how much of the service I can recognise. Alas, there was no bulletin. It was a bit of a novel experience - a responsive liturgy that most of the participants knew by heart. The choir and brass that accompanied the service did songs in a mixture of German and Latin. Elise and I recognised some of the Latin texts, although the tunes were different. I'm pretty sure one of the Hallelujah settings was familiar from my Lutheran days in Connecticut. The brass would have been even better if the skilled trumpet players had a couple trombonists rounding out their ensemble.
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| Stiefenhofen from near our flat |
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| Mural at the front of the church |
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| Interestingly, the saints on the walls all had farm tools in their hands |
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| Easter egg hunt |
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| Herr Muller baked an Easter lamb for kids. None of them wanted to eat it. |
Our Monday hike was a short distance from Stiefenhofen. The landmark on maps is the Eistobel Gorge. We saw photos at the start of the hike showing icicles that Google later told me the gorge is well known for in the winter. Thankfully we did not see any icicles. Our hike was a 4.5 km loop. The first hour was in the gorge right and along the Obere Argen river. The river had several beautiful waterfalls, which the adults appreciated. The trail had many places to throw rocks and sticks into the water, which the kids appreciated. The last hour climbed a ridge out of the gorge, and then went back to the starting point via some wider roads. This was good because it didn't require as much care for muddy steps to avoid. It was not good because it was much less interesting. We had several flagging children from both families by the time we were done.
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| Photo of cool structure - nod to my often dormant engineering genes |
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| Just who is that guy looking over my shoulder? |
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| Pretty waterfall or place to throw rocks, depending on your view |
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| Less of a waterfall here, so it's really all about throwing rocks |
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| Notice the blue sign mid-way up the photo on the right - that's the high water mark for this point of the gorge. |
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| Selfie by the high water mark; worried look because the mark is almost over my head |
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| No throwing rocks here - just a pretty waterfall |
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| Clare's smile reflects ongoing consumption of imaginary super-strength bars |
On Wednesday we drove about 30 minutes south over the Austrian border to a little ski resort, Hochhadrich. Crossing the border turned out to be a bit anticlimactic. There was no border checkpoint to stamp our passports, and there was no place to park the car for a photo next to the "Welcome to Austria" sign. No place to park meant that when I channelled my father under similar circumstances by suggesting we park a couple hundred metres away and walk back to the sign, Kristine channelled my father's children under similar circumstances and answered with a firm "No." The difference between this trip and similar circumstances from my childhood being that my father's idea did not get acted to completion. The experience did generate some discussion in the car. "Why are we taking our passports when we aren't going on an airplane?" "Because we're going into another country." "How can we go to another country if we don't use an airplane?" "Some countries are on the same land, so there is a border between them. Like when we cross from England into Scotland or Wales." "But nobody checks our passports in Scotland or Wales." [insert silent parental comment that it was a bad analogy because some people probably wish there WAS a passport check]. "If we crossed from Northern Ireland to Ireland, there would be a passport check. And you don't remember, but when we saw Niagara Falls from Canada they asked for passports." "You know, if the countries had to follow Charis's rules, and Charis decided that she didn't like checking passports when you drive across a border, then we wouldn't need passports with us. But Charis isn't old enough to make rules for several countries, so Mommy and Daddy would have to be in charge until she was older."
The sledding at Hochhaderich didn't have as much humorous discussion, but it generated quite a bit more laughter. The girls loved it. Almost all of it. Clare and Charis weren't excited about climbing up the hill, although they had lots of squeals of laughter coming down. Clare swindled herself into sitting on the sled while one of her parents pulled her up the hill several times (the swindled parents did make her walk for the last third or so). The weather worked out really well. It was cool enough that the snow was packed firm for the sleds, but warm enough that the girls warmed up with all the climbing. We spent a solid two hours on the slope, with several tumbles off sleds that resulted in snow in shoes or trousers, but no howling daughters from the cold. We did have one howling daughter when a ride involving mother and daughter on the same sled looked like it was heading toward a pile of snow that refused to move. Mother tried to steer sled, resulting in sled tipping over with mother landing on top of daughter. In Clare's words, "It was a scary fall. Mommy plompfed on top of me and pushed my face into the snow." To Clare's credit, she calmed down after being comforted with some biscuits (cookies, if one were speaking American), and did one more solo sled run afterwards. To Kristine's credit, she recovered from the trauma of falling off the sled on top of her 5 year old.
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| Cheerful sled run before the plompfing adventure |
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| Despite a clear mismatch in size, I was not the parent who crashed while riding with my daughter |
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| Clare liked sledding so much she decided to do both up and down the hill |
On Thursday we took a cable car most of the way up Hochgrat mountain, which is the highest in this area of the Alps. It was an interesting contrast in temperatures. When we boarded the cable car, we were all lightly clad because the Sahara wind (a 5 yr event) brought warm temperatures in the upper teens Celcius. When we got off the cable car we realised that warm base doesn't mean much to the snowy peaks. On went the coats and hats. We hung around at the cable car station for a little while as we worked through a cross-cultural difference in handling restaurants who say you're not allowed to use their outdoor tables if you didn't buy food. American view (ours) - pull out the food we packed, pass it around, and we'll eat lunch standing up so we can get on our way. German view (our friends) - lunch is to be eaten sitting down with tables to spread things out so that everyone enjoys it more fully; therefore we'll pull out only some of the food in the rucksacks. We resolved the difference by eating more than our friends would have liked, and not as much as we would have liked, but agreeing that it was enough to give the kids fuel for climbing to the summit.
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| At the base of the mountain - note the warm weather attire |
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| In the cable car |
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| In the summer that would be the top of a picnic table that Clare is sitting on |
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| Charis (not scary) hero shot |
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| Shawn hero shot |
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Shawn goofy grin - has to do with the good-looking woman beside me
Not everyone made it the whole way. Clare was cheerful as she walked up the path that was at times dry, at times muddy, and at times slippery snow. She was also completely oblivious to the idea that she was on a mountain peak with decent winds and she should pay attention to where she was going. In her defence, she was walking the way she would on any number of the other walks we've done, none of which involved being on a mountain peak with decent winds and needing to pay close attention to where she put her feet. At a half-way stopping point, Kristine saw my rapidly diminishing sanity and graciously offered to turn around with Clare. They made their way very slowly back down to the cable car station (one kind couple also on their way down stopped and offered to help). Clare was very cheerful, and Kristine did a much better job than I had of actively coaching her through where to put her feet. The rest of us made our way to the summit, fortified ourselves with gingerbread cookies, and then returned to the station.
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| On our way to the summit |
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| The whole "be careful; you're on a windy mountain in tennis shoes walking through snow" didn't phase Clare at all |
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| Neither did being told to turn around before reaching the summit |
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| Photo taken by the kind folks who saw how slowly they were making their way down and asked if Kristine wanted help |
The view from the summit was a fun combination of winter (snow covering the slopes down one side and all the peaks to the south) and spring (lots of grass on the slopes down the other side and valleys full of green to the north). I enjoyed this view with part of my mind while the other part tried not to wonder how my gimpy ankle would handle the descent. The descent was made with squeals from both adults and children, but no excitement. Charis and I both slipped a couple times, though neither of us slid more than a couple feet. I did look longingly at a couple folks climbing up in snowshoes as we made our descent. The cable car ride back down the mountain gave us a chance to marvel at the skill of skiers we saw going down, and also feel sorry for the folks who were going down on foot (they all had proper winter hiking gear, which we did not). We either had another snack or finished the second half of lunch, depending on your view, before making our way back to the apartment.
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| Spring view from the summit (looking north into Germany) |
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| Elise's panoramic shot |
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| Starting our descent - Austria is on the left, Switzerland is over the lake in the upper right, and Germany is to the right |
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| I distracted myself by taking photos of the slippery descent areas I was trying not to be worried about |
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| Well-earned playground rest while adults were in the grocery store |
Our last day's excursion was to the island town of Lindau, in the Bodensee Lake. The Bodensee borders Germany, Austria, and Switzerland. Its waters are fed by the Alpine rivers, and it provides the majority of fresh water for Germany. As we reflected with the girls at bedtime, we realised the day was an experience of collectively making the most of option C when options A and B both didn't turn out as expected. That would have been noteworthy on its own. Considering this happened at the end of the holiday on a day that began with everyone clearly tired and running low on coping reserves, it was even more so. As we wind up our time in the UK, I find myself pondering events of current holidays that we wouldn't have been able to handle 2 1/2 years ago when we first came across the pond. This is one of them.
Like the other days this week, the collective plan was to be on the road by 10 am. Like the others days this week, the collective reality was being on the road a little after 11. We pulled into Lindau shortly after 12, and had a proper lunch in the parking lot. Proper in two senses: we ate everything instead of calling it a snack, and we took our time eating. Proper lunch completed, we walked into the town to investigate plan A - taking a boat ride across the Bodensee to the Austrian town of Bregenz. Unfortunately, we found out that the boat left at 1 pm or 4 pm. It was 12:55 when we got to the ticket counter. It was 1:00 as the fellow finished printing our tickets, right as the boat pulled away from the pier. Had we been a little more savvy, maybe we should have sent an adult to ask the crew to wait while a party of 9 finished buying tickets. But that would have required an adult who could speak German. And both adults who could speak German were talking to the ticket fellow to try and get our two families a good deal since we were a decent sized party. The fellow was kind enough to refund the tickets, but it was still disappointing for almost everyone. Clare and Charis were sceptical about a boat ride despite my reassurances that it would be smooth instead of choppy like the one to the Arran Islands last May.
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| They were very excited to walk over the train station |
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| The lighthouse guided ship into the harbor. The lion symbolized to ships that they were entering Bavaria |
We went from the pier to the lighthouse for the harbour, which is guarded by a large lion statue that lets incoming ships know they are entering Bavaria. The lighthouse had 139 steps and 4 levels. This was enough to make the climb consume a couple of minutes, but not enough to tire out small legs. The inside walls of the lighthouse had elaborate calligraphy and drawings showing different major events in its history. The inside walls also had rough hand-written graffiti, most of which involved people declaring their love for each other on such and such a date when they were in the lighthouse. We told the girls that if they looked across the Bodensee from the top of the lighthouse, they should be able to see Austria and Switzerland. They could see Austria. Where Switzerland was supposed to be, all they could see was mist. Charis found a pair of binoculars mounted on the railing that were supposed to let you see farther across the lake, if you just paid 50 cents. 1 Euro later, all they let you see was black where the lenses clearly didn't realise that money had been paid. We settled for the idea of seeing Switzerland, which none of the girls found particularly compelling.
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| Look carefully through the mist and you might see Switzerland (or not) |
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| Interestingly, the top of the lighthouse had lots of these decorated locks from people declaring their love for each other |
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| Painting on the lighthouse wall telling about an event in the harbor's history |
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| The Bavarian lion who guards the harbor |
Lighthouse climb complete, we made our way through the stone streets of Lindau proper so that fathers and children could be dropped off at a museum while mothers investigated local second-hand shops. Plan B while the mothers shopped was supposed to involve fathers splitting children across a Picasso exhibit and the Spieluhren ind Musikinstrumente (museum for mechanical musical instruments). The museum was our kind hosts trying to honour my musical instrument obsession, and also the adults collectively figuring that unique mechanical stuff with a musical theme would keep kids occupied and happy. It turns out that the museum has small print which the guidebooks, even the German guidebooks, don't give you. The large print says the museum is open from April through October. The small print says that you can only see the musical part of the museum on weekends when there is someone to give you a guided tour. Since we were there on a Friday, we were not allowed in.
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| Walking through Lindau to the museum |
Enter Plan C - since mothers are already out shopping, both fathers will take all five children into the Picasso exhibit. I had a bit of a tick in my eye as we walked into the exhibit, despite knowing that our friends who are teachers at The Oaks Academy and artists at Redeemer would consider this the single best part of our holiday. In my defence, showing a couple of Picasso paintings to five squirly kids is one thing. Asking them to spend a little over an hour just looking at paintings is not for the faint of heart. Fortunately, the kids proved me wrong. The older three were fine wandering around. Charis and Clare wandered for a bit. Then we looked at each painting or sculpture (in a fit of either desperation or brilliance, there was a sculpture with two faces and I asked them to find both - which they interpreted as a game or treasure hunt). One of the paintings was called "Woman at the Theatre." We got into a discussion about what you would go to see at the theatre. Since Clare was involved, that naturally led to seeing Frozen at the Theatre. That got the girls talking about how you would stage Frozen with real people and props instead of as a cartoon. That led to several minutes of earnest discussion as they wondered how to swap Elsa's gown as she sings "Let it go." Who knew that famous art could inspire such discussions?
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| Lindau Government building - on the way back to the car |
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| Of course they had to chase the pigeons |
This was our first experience going on vacation with another family with children (instead of grandparents who are tickled pink to let our girls' schedules run the show). Balancing two families, sharing space, and working with a language difference all look intimidating when I type it out. In actual fact the week went very well. We parted with a fair bit of melancholy since we don't know when or if our paths will cross again, but we parted with gratitude for the time we spent together.
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| Gloomy Bonifaz contemplating the imminent departure of his fan club |
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| Farewell photo before going our separate ways |
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| Flight attendant Charis explains the safety features of this Boeing 737 aircraft to her eagerly listening sister |
What a beautiful trip. We saved several of the photos.
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