Parents visit to Switzerland and Mallorca, Spain

It's been a month since I blogged last-August was a busy month! For 2 weeks my parents visited and we showed them around where we live. 

 

 We enjoyed a visit to Gruyere, home of the cheese as well as the Caillier (Nestle) chocolate factory. Naturally there was fondue and chocolate enjoyed by all! Gruyere is a medieval walled city on a hill with a chateau at the top, and the hike helped us work off all that cheese!

 We took the "wine train" through the vineyards of Lavaux, which is a UNESCO protected region. The land is very steep and built on terraces that go all the way from Lake Geneva up to almost the top of the mountain. Switzerland produces a lot of wine, particularly white wines, but only exports 1% of it. The rest is drunk here-the Swiss are very loyal to their own products!

 We all went to Zermatt for the weekend, home of the Matterhorn. It was such a beautiful typical Swiss village. The Matterhorn really was spectacular particularly because it was one of the few mountains still covered in snow. We took a train ride up to a vantage point and got some really spectacular shots. The Alps are definitely the most beautiful mountains we have ever seen.

We had to do the tourist shot with the St. Bernards :) Huge and gentle dogs!

 

 Mom and Dad..

 In the old town of Zermatt. There are at least a 100 hotels/condos here as well as a wealth of great restaurants. Looking forward to returning for skiing sometime.

 After returning we took the boat across Lake Geneva to Evian, France. I enjoyed some good cheaper shopping(never thought I'd say that about a European country, but Switzerland shopping is $$$ and limited!), and we also saw the original Evian pump room.

There were odd driftwood scultpures all over town as well-I think this one is supposed to be a cat..

 

We all really enjoyed Mom and Dad's visit and were very sorry to see them go!

 

 

 We went to Mallorca, Spain the last week of August for a beach vacation. It was our first time to try an all-inclusive type of place. We have determined it's not really for us-too much temptation to eat/drink too much, but it still was a very relaxing trip. Our hotel catered mostly to Brits and Scandinavians, the latter which are particularly casual about their beachwear! I haven't included any photos  :)

 

 Very important in a beach vacation-the kids club!! Fortunately kids really enjoyed it and it was nice to get a couple hours break every day.

 Travis is a fish and loved playing in the waves and the waterslides! 

 

 My favorite part of a beach vacation, relaxing on a lounger with my beloved Kindle..

Ryan and I enjoying some tapas..

Brother and sister...enjoying some bonding time..

 

Hope everyone is off to a terrific beginning of the school year! 

 

 

First big trip-Copenhagen and Stockholm

We finally got to go on our first trip out of the country since we moved here in May! As Ryan has been consumed with learning his new job/ business travel and Travis was in school until the end of June, we had to wait until recently to leave the country. We went to visit our friends/neighbors the Moores who moved to Copenhagen in February. Their children Raegan and Wyatt are the same ages as our children and are their best buddies, and there was much excitement prior to the trip about seeing each other!  It was amazing to see how quickly they picked up where they had left off! "Ravis" (Raegan and Travis) were essentially joined at the hip for 3 days and Wyatt and Savannah  had so much fun playing together! Ron and Stacey were gracious hosts who made us feel right at home.
 
Copenhagen is a lovely and stately city. As it is surrounded by water viewing it by boat is a relaxing way to see much of the town. The picture on the right below is the Little Mermaid statue to commemorate Hans Christian Andersen who wrote the story.

Rosenborg Slot(castle) is a lovely baroque castle amazing detailed furnishings as well as the crown jewels, and surrounded by beautiful gardens. We were looking at the throne room below when Travis said "This is boring, there is nothing to see here.."  Sigh..


As we are quickly learning, traveling in Europe requires a balance of what we want to do with what the kids want to do, so we went to a couple fun amusement parks-Tivoli Gardens and Bakken.  We also spent time relaxing at the beach. At home, the kids spent most of their time in the trampoline!
 


Dads and daughters. :)


Seeing a city while staying with friends is definitely the best way to learn about a place. We had so much fun visiting and sharing our experiences as foreigners in our respective countries! Eventually it was time to leave so we headed to the train station to head to Stockholm. Unfortunately in the Copenhagen train station I left my backpack in the bathroom-STILL have not recovered it. Definitely a lesson learned there about keeping an eye on my possessions while traveling. :(



In Stockholm we stayed on Djurgarden island. Stockholm is made up of about a dozen islands and this particular island is known as the island of parks. Stockholm itself is sometimes called the "Venice of the North." While I don't think it's as beautiful as Venice it definitely was a picturesque city.
 
Many exhibits are about boats due to the long history of sailing in Stockholm, so we got to go on and look around old boats, and many restaurants and bars are on boats.



A highlight for me was the recently opened Abba Museum! They have many interactive exhibits and we have a cute video of Savannah singing on stage to Mamma Mia! So interesting to learn the background of their songs-definitely a treat!


Naturally there were more parks-Tivoli Gronalund which is more rollercoasters and Skansen which is a sort of open-air museum and zoo. Why does Ryan get all the fun rides??


Now that we are back home I've been trying to keep the kids busy all day with Travis not being in school. The Europeans all take off for long vacations in July and August so his few new friends are all away on exotic trips. The Europeans definitely use everyone of those vacation days and holidays-they certainly work to live and not the other way around! My parents arrive tomorrow for a couple weeks so it will be fun to show them around our new home, and we have a weekend trip planned with them to Zermatt, Switzerland (where the Matterhorn is for those of you who have been to Disneyland!)
Take care and stay cool! We expect to hit 90 later this week-and we don't have air conditioning!

Festivals, festivals, festivals!

The Swiss LOVE their festivals! To celebrate Travis's finishing the school year we went for an overnight in Lucerne, Switzerland. It is in the German-speaking part of Switzerland and it's distinctive feature is the covered wooden bridge that goes across the river through town. We were there during "Lucernefest" which is their summer festival.

 

The streets were closed to cars and packed with pedestrians getting drunker by the minute-not the typical place you might want to be with kids, but they hung in there great! We also realized it would have been a good time to have a double stroller, but since we don't have one, Savannah sitting on Travis's lap worked almost as well!  Plus it enabled her to quickly jump down and dance to the music which she did frequently!

The festivities went late into the night, and the kids got to see fireworks close up for the first time. We decided they would count as our 4th of July fireworks and they were some of the best fireworks we have ever seen! 

 

During our visit we also went to the Swiss Transportation Museum which is huge and was a great hit with the kids-I highly recommend it! This is us inside a space shuttle and Travis driving a security van. :)

 

 We also did some other site-seeing around the city which included getting bratwurst of course, and visiting a glacier museum and a natural history museum. It was a great trip!





















 

Back in Vevey they were also celebrating the end of the school year with a "Fete-Ecole" which for some reason was kicked off by a cannon going off repeatedly for 30 minutes at 6:00 am 300 feet from our house! But more fun was the carnival rides that they had in the square, it reminded us of the end scene of Grease!






Another big festival going on right now is the Montreux Jazz Festival. It brings all kinds of big names-the headliner is Prince. The festival brings folks from all over-it was the most English we had heard in one place since we have been here! We enjoyed a very relaxed vibe listening to music outside while the kids played on a playground.
 
Though it clearly was too much for Savannah eventually!


Finally, not related to festivals, but Ryan ran in Les Rochers De Naye this past weekend that was a 10k that went straight up a mountain! He got some great shots and he finished the race-major achievement!

 

I did it!
 

We are looking forward to our trip to Stockholm and Copenhagen to visit our friends the Moores.   

I am missing my niece Aubrey who just turned 2 recently- can't believe how big you are! Je t'aime!

  
More photos at http://www.flickr.com/photos/ryanshopp