Overview Pat Two May 11 to 16

Sunday we visited the Hof Branch, not as missionaries but as friends.  Anna Weiss stopped by with her mother to say goodbye.  She is the young lady who did my nails while I was there.  I had her do some of her 'art' on them before I came home.

Early Monday morning we were on our way to Nurnberg.  We had lunch with Carolin Rupp, another young friend from Hof, then toured the Nurnberg castle and learned about the Holy Roman empire.

It was a very rainy rainy day.  We left in the afternoon to drive south to Fussen to stay overnight in a little pension.  Unfortunately it was in farm country and it really kicked Lindsey's allergies.  The next day we headed for the beautiful fairy tale castle of Neuschwanstein.  We took a horse carriage ride up the steep hill to the castle which saved our poor feet but about killed Lindsey.  I didn't know she was THAT allergic to horses.

After the tour we hiked around the castle to a bridge overlooking the waterfall.  Dave is in the blue raincoat assisting an elderly lady who was struggling up the hill.

 Later that day we drove into Switzerland and  stayed overnight in Appenzell.  That is a charming town I had not remembered visiting.  There were many humorous things there and, of course, we had to have a Cheese fondue in Switzerland.  We watched a metal picnic table on the banks of the river erupt into a fountain and wondered how many people were caught unawares.

The next day, Wednesday, we walked around the town enjoying the sunshine with fresh snow on the Alps in the background. We had been stopped on the freeway by a couple traffic accidents due to weather..

We stopped in Luzern and walked around town and saw an unusual museum housing a great variety of things on display in their storage area.
These included an alp horn and a guillotine among others unusual items.

We even saw swans on the river.  That should have been in Neuschwanstein, right?

After attending a session Thursday morning we took the advice of a young man who took this picture and drove further south, stopping in Murten for lunch, to a town called Broc in the mountains and toured  'Maison Cailler' where milk chocolate was invented.  After the tour you can eat all the chocolate you want....but after only 6 or 7 you can't eat any more because it is so rich!

It was a very well presented tour and worth the drive even if our Navi took us on a narrow one lane road and ignored the main road.

Sated with chocolate we began the 5 hour drive back to Frankfurt to prepare for our flight home the next morning.