Merry Swissmas 2011

VIDEOS OF OUR TRIP

2012-01-13T11:35:00.002-04:00

VIDEOS OF OUR TRIP

TO EUROPE 2011

Let it Snow Machine in Lucern, Switzerland
http://youtu.be/5tV-1hCm1tg

A Mountain Drive on Christmas Day - Near Berneck, Switzerland
http://youtu.be/QmmXCD3FaCs

The Cows on the Mountain Road – Near Berneck, Switzerland
http://youtu.be/FFJeo5vu7ks

The Sturgeon Fish at Rhein Falls – Switzerland
http://youtu.be/nPxDterUwqE

The Rhein Falls – Switzerland
http://youtu.be/-b6ZzyWuZLg

The Rolling Ball Statue – Appenzell, Switzerland
http://youtu.be/LxzjYbgUWEg

The Hall of Mirrors in Lucerne, Switzerland (Clip 1 of 2)
http://youtu.be/yjMC3BPIKu8

The Hall of Mirrors in Lucerne, Switzerland (Clip 2 of 2)
http://youtu.be/4M__VTb0yLU

The Italian Turn-Organ Player – Streets of St. Gallan, Switzerland
http://youtu.be/TF2UGGG7bqk

Quick Clip of Venice, Italy
http://youtu.be/o2YBQE03I8M

Ferry Ride through Venice, Italy
http://youtu.be/kmevbvOuCh4

Piazza San Marco – Venice, Italy
http://youtu.be/LiQ2Wy7O8q4

Flight tracking glitch fixed

2012-01-08T14:25:00.001-04:00

Phew...

Swiss Air flight 86

2012-01-08T14:06:00.002-04:00

Zurich to Montreal - shown turning back mid-Atlantic. ...

UPDATE: This was a glitch by the flight tracking website.

My favs from the top of Austria

2012-01-05T20:23:00.000-04:00

Back to Switzerland tomorrow. More Skiing and sledding in the Alps on Saturday.

2012-01-05T19:37:00.002-04:00

Here are some pictures from our trip last week in the Austrian Alps.
Amazing day. NO wind at all.

Italia is wonderful and the people are the best.
We will be back.

More Venice Pics from Yesterday

2012-01-05T17:54:00.000-04:00

Lots of traveling on foot yesterday (Wednesday) with the family throughout Venice. Here are some of our pics from our travels.

Lianne and Mike's day in Venice

2012-01-05T17:22:00.000-04:00

Thanks to wonderful Aunt Gen who took Morgan, Meadow and Olive for the day.
Lianne and I walked all over Venice. We bought lots of goodies and had an awesome day. Here are some of our pictures.

Yestrdays pictures in Venice.

2012-01-05T07:13:00.000-04:00

Germany

2012-01-05T06:41:00.001-04:00

I like Germany. Morgan took these on our trip to Munich.

Euros, etc

2012-01-04T17:54:00.001-04:00

$240 E and $210 E + a $5 anonymous charge.
Yeeee Haaaaa.
Take it all.

Welcome to Venice!

2012-01-04T14:13:00.001-04:00

Gen and Mike are making pasta with giant meatballs, bolenaise, salad with Gen's homemade vinigrette and lots of glasses of wine after a loooong day walking around Venice. Venice is amazing! Beyond words but Italy is OFFICIALLY my favourite country in the world! Pizza margarita (just sauce and cheese with ciabatta type dough) for 2-Euros and streets that look like alleyways from 500 years ago. Wow! Pics to come when we're not so tired.... (Lianne)

Staying here, wow, so amazing.

2012-01-04T06:24:00.001-04:00

Watching everything happening from a boat is crazy. Picking up garbage, etc. Saw another boat unloading clean linens and towels and loading up with the dirty ones at the hotel a few doors down. This is another world.

Venezia, Italia

2012-01-03T18:10:00.001-04:00

Italia. Wow, Venice is Awesome!!!

2012-01-03T16:57:00.001-04:00

And our apartment is a beautiful condo that's 4 years old. A bidet and all. Just had pizza from around the corner and managed to get to the market before the wonderful lady kicked us out as she was closing. We got our 5 bottles of vino before she shut the door behind us.
This place is so cool.

Tomorrow's road trip will be a much longer ride - Venice, Italy

2012-01-02T18:09:00.002-04:00

We will be spending the next three days in Italy. Pictures coming soon.

Today, Morgan and I drove to Munich and back

2012-01-02T18:07:00.002-04:00

I feel like I have jet-lag from such a quick trip on the Autobahn.
Traveling between 160 and 200 on average makes for a pretty quick round trip.

Visit to the Rhein Falls in Switzerland

2011-12-31T14:06:00.000-04:00

Our visit to the Rhein Falls was a beautiful day trip and took us about 1.5 hours from "home" in Berneck. We walked down a hill, across a train bridge (where the train drives right next to you although it never did when we happened to be walking there) and on a walking trail all around the entire falls. It made for some interesting traveling when Gen & Mike had to carry the stroller up & down some stairs but we made it just fine and Olive slept for much of the walk.

After walking around the falls we came to a wooden bridge and saw one of the most awesome sights. The water under the bridge was literally filled with sturgeon fish! They were each about 1 foot long and as you can see the water was bubbling with the fish, especially when some tourists threw bread to them they were jumping out of the water and trying to race the ducks and swans to the food first. It was amazing!

Merry Christmas Dec 24th & 25th

2011-12-31T12:22:00.000-04:00

Lots of fun opening "family gifts" on Dec 24th (Gen's tradition) and "Santa gifts" on Dec 25th (Our tradition). The kids had a great time and received everything from chocolate swiss army knives to every flavour of gummies and candies...all without artificial colours and flavours. Yay! We pigged out on Christmas Eve with wine and chocolates and Xmas Day we ate a traditional Quebec holiday meal called Cipate (pr: See part) that had 4 meats and 4 root veggies in a pastry (like a stew.) Turkey supper on Dec 26th to give a little taste of home.

Todays trip to Germany where we went to Schloss Neuschwanstein in Bavaria, Germany

2011-12-30T18:57:00.001-04:00

Lot's of snow during our day trip today (Friday, Dec 30th) but it was awesome. We really enjoyed our trip to Germany and loved all the scenery, I would have been happier with less snow as it makes for reduced speeds on the autobahn.
Here are some pictures of today's trip.

Today's driving route from Berneck to St Gallen

2011-12-25T13:09:00.001-04:00

Merry Christmas, Beautiful day here for a drive through the Mountains - Continued

2011-12-25T12:45:00.001-04:00

Lianne and I went for a drive through the mountains today and it was beautiful. All sun and no clouds. We drove from Berneck to Heiden and through to Saint Gallen. And then, drove back. Here are a few pictures from the drive, more to follow later.

Merry Christmas, Beautiful day here for a drive through the Mountains

2011-12-25T12:45:00.000-04:00

Town of Sanke Gallan (Saint Gallan)

2011-12-24T13:14:00.000-04:00

Last night we went into the town of St. Gallan to see some really cools stuff but my camera was out of batteries by then...grr! However, Morgan`s Ipod Touch still had battery life so I have some pictures that he took...they are very low quality but all that we have so hopefully you can make stuff out. There was a part of old Sanke Gallan (Saint Gallan) that we visited where no cars, bikes, etc. were allowed to go and we walked around looking at things.

Mike tried a hot wine drink called Gluehwein that he enjoyed and we visited a gorgeous Catholic church called Sanke Gallan Kathedrale. We lit a candle for a loved one, signed the guest book and basically walked around in general awe at the beauty. These pictures especially don`t do it justice but it was hang-your-mouth-open beautiful!

We also visited a part of the city where the entire ground was covered in red rubber including some vehicles, benches, the ground, the plant pots, etc. and there were floating giant lamps in the air that looks liked alien eggs. Creepy and nice all in one shot!

Peter & Paul Wild Park

2011-12-24T13:10:00.001-04:00

Yesterday we went for a visit to a wildlife park...they called it a `Wild Park`...to see some local animals; which ended up being a couple of quiet billy goats, a few tiny deer, some reindeer (no antlers) and the piece de resistance...wild cats. FYI - Wild cats are normal house cats that live in the wild, have thick fur coats, tails that look like raccoons and that`s about it....a house cat that lives in the woods. So odd! It was a nice walk though through the woods, some beautiful pictures of the farm fields afterwards and a nice thing to keep us busy for a bit.

Faegnaescht Indoor Play Place

2011-12-24T12:24:00.001-04:00

Gen and I took Morgan, Meadow and Olive to an indoor playground type thing called Faegnaescht the other day and they had a blast! There was a rock wall, trampolines, giant play structure with ball pits, giant slides and indoor bouncy castle type things too. On another floor was a soccer room, huge play area and also a room with balls and ball shooters with foam wall blocks too where you could have battles. Morgan and Olive were on a team in that room and Olive kept going across to knock over their opponent`s wall and no one would shoot her because she was little. Morgan thought it was hilarious...a secret 2-yr old weapon. As you can see from the HORRIBLE photos I took (my camera was wonky) there are tons of ride-on toys everywhere and any kid, any size, could just ride them all. We also received a token for the electric go-carts when we went in so the kids could just ride them at random whenever they wanted. It cost $14 Euros per child but we stayed for almost 4 hours and they played until they were red in the face. Check out the photos (Fotos) from the company website and you can see where Gen and I sat to drink cappacino while the kids played. This would be a fabulous company for back in NS!!! ( http://www.faegnaescht.ch/ )