Mom, Dad, and Max arrived in Zürich on Labor Day and we spent part of the day exploring the old part of the city. Without fail, we headed for some of the local Churches. In the words of Max, “Well, that didn’t take long.” When in Europe with our parents (specifically the male one), there are a lot of church visits, and understandably so. Churches are the custodians of huge amounts of history and some pretty impressive art. So, we visited the Grossmünster and then the Fraumünster. The later of which had some very impressive Chagall stained class windows.
Mom, Dad, and Max headed out to Grindelwald on Tuesday and had a spectacular time (no surprise). They got further up First than we did (though they did take the tram to the top), and they went all the way up to the Jungfraujoch (the highest train station in Europe and the home of some truely spectacular views. If I can get them to share some pictures of their trip, I will post them.
The family returned to Zürich on Friday evening, so we celebrated out reunion with a great meal at a French restaurant in the old city. We all agreed that it was one of the best meals that we could remember having! Saturday we got a typically Frank start and took one of the ferries down the lake to Rapperswil. I had been there on my own a few weeks before, but it was great to share it with everyone. The weather was a bit damp the second time around, but I think that we all enjoyed it. The Swiss build some pretty impressive playgrounds and slides. Dad proved that he was indeed the youngest at heart of all of us and rode the slide down the hill. It turns out that the people we had watched go down before must have had a significantly higher coefficient of friction than Dad, because he got more than he bargained for and was expelled from the exit of the slide with quite a bit of leftover momentum, which was then promptly absorbed by the ground and is left buttock. Fortunately, his bones are as strong as his spirit 🙂 It was nothing that a good dinner of Fondue and Raclette couldn’t fix.
Max headed back to the States on Sunday morning, and the rest of us headed for the Zürich Art Museum. Those of you who know Christine and I, know that this is perhaps not our favorite activity, but we were pretty impressed with the collection, and I personally found some works that I would, in fact, like to have in my home… don’t worry, I am not thinking of becoming an art thief. After a quick lunch at the museum we walked down the eastern shore of Lake Zürich to a large park with a very interesting mechanical sculpture that has a few “performances” a day. We were able to catch the last one before heading to dinner. It was pretty cool! Dinner was amazing Italian food with homemade pasta cooked just right. Are you seeing a trend here? We Franks love good food 🙂
Mom and Dad headed to Austria this morning, but we look forward to seeing them in Vienna next weekend!