Binder Family Travel Adventures

Today was a rainy day again…we spent the day touring the Residence. The Munich Residence was the residence and seat of government of the Bavarian dukes, electors, and kings from 1508 to 1918. Over the centuries, the princes transformed a castle in the northeast corner of the city fortifications into a magnificent royal residence and expanded courtyards and gardens into the city. It was neat to see but pales in comparison to Versailles.

After severe destruction during the Second World War, the residence was rebuilt from 1945 onwards, so much of the artwork and furniture are not original.

It is a huge complex, since they just kept adding on and adding on, so we spent all morning there. Maybe too much time there…

For the afternoon we went to a museum that explored the timeline of the rise of Hitler all the way through the war. It did a good job of explaining how it was allowed to happen and paid tribute to the victims. It was a learning experience and a heavy visit.

In between the two, we ate at a Bavarian restaurant. The family is not a fan of German food, so we ate dinner at McDonald’s. If they had Culver’s here, we would have eaten that.

Like many nights, we finished off with ice cream and, for Munich, we watched The Simpsons in German (we are really enjoying the local Munich scene).

Today we spent most of the day training from Interlaken to Munich – for six hours to be exact. The first train was nice and empty, but the second train was jam packed.

We got in, dropped our stuff at our hotel and went out to explore the old town. It was raining when we got here…. The rain has followed us.

We stopped and looked in St. Michael’s Church. Interesting fact, most of the city’s buildings were destroyed in WWII and have been rebuilt. The old town was incredibly crowded.

Then we finished our evening eating at the Hofbräuhaus.

It was loud, crowded and overpriced, but now we can say we had a beer there (only a 0.5 liter).

Munich is nice enough but not as nice as some the other cities we have seen. The crowds and rain probably do not help with our assessment.

Today is our last day in Switzerland and, most importantly, our last night in a glorified hostel room with paper thin walls, horrible beds, and tiny tub. We took it easy and got up around eight. We trained up to Grindelwald, walked around the town and then took a walk through a mountain cave next to a glacier river.

This afternoon we took a boat tour all around one of the lakes. Luckily, the boat takes right off by our hotel and docks overnight outside our window.

Perfect way to wrap up Switzerland.

We finished the evening by sitting by the waterway right by our hotel.

Switzerland was very scenic but nearly killed us. David woke up with a sore throat. David Sr has been sick since Lucerne, and Matthew somehow was sick for only two days (I wish I had their immune system). Finally, I am sore from the ill-advised (but seemed smart at the time) hike yesterday. Lastly, waiting in lines and being crammed into small spaces in buses, boats, trains, cable cars, and cogwheel trains does not bode well for this family. We are ready to leave Switzerland and its mountains and chocolate behind.

Today we got up early to try and beat some of the crowds, and went all the way up to Schilthorn.

Some fun facts, it was in the mid 30’s there, still very much snow all over and a James Bond film was shot here (not a good one). We stayed up there a few hours and enjoyed watching people see all the clouds and just leave.

We had lunch at the top in a rotating restaurant which was fun. It was later in the morning, so you could not really see much.

After lunch it was time to take the multiple cable cars and buses and trains…back to town.

Still some pretty views on the way down.

We were going to have a chill evening, walked around a little. Watched some paragliders fly down and do their landing.

Then we decided, the line isn’t “too long”, let’s ride up to the top of Harder Klum and see the view from there. It is a small mountain perched above our town and gives a view of both lakes we are in between.

After looking around up there, the line for the cable car was like 2 hours long (maybe an exaggeration, but it was long), and we had our fill of being shuttled in and out of those things all day like cattle. So we opted for the 4km vertical hike down the mountain instead that descended 800 meters. Wasn’t so bad except the path was very much a wooded hike and not a paved path, and very steep, so hard on the knees and ankles, but we made it down in about an hour and a half AND with no injuries, still better than feeling like a herd of cattle. A celebration was in order.

Today was a beautiful day (we actually saw sunshine), and we took full advantage!

We explored Lauterbrunner Valley, which usually has a few waterfalls, but because of all the recent rain. There were waterfalls everywhere. At one point we could see 16 waterfalls.

After two hours of walking, we caught a cable car up the mountains to Gimmelwald, a really cute little town. We ate some pizza outdoors and watched waterfalls as we did it. We liked this town the most, because it was small and did not have the crowds you would find in other towns.

After that we continued up even higher, taking another cable car to Murren. By then we were up in the clouds.

We could have gone a little higher, but the next one up was literally snowing, so we walked down to Gimmelwald and caught a cable car down to the valley. The train ride back was jam packed, and we had to stand like cattle back to Interlaken. We wandered around by our hotel, which sits directly next to the river.

We finished the evening off with some laundry.

Just a side note, we are at our half way point of the trip! 12 days and 5 more cities to see!

At the halfway point, we have these observations: Belgian chocolate is better. If we had to go back to any city, we would pick Bruges. Lastly, if we came back to Switzerland, we would stay up in the mountains (and avoid crowded trains and buses).

Well, Switzerland is the place where basically ALL of our activities are outdoors…you know mountains and such.

And it has been raining for 3 days…puts a bit of a damper on what we can do. But we are making the best of it and doing what we can…without too much complaining…

We could not do anything in Lucerne today, because it did not stop raining the entire morning. We took an earlier train instead.

We travelled from Lucerne to Interlaken today. The train ride is supposed to be one of the best train rides…but we could not see much through the clouds. We did see some waterfalls, which was neat. We got to the hotel, and the accommodations are not as nice as our other hotels, which seems to match how Switzerland is going.

We tried to eat lunch at the nearest restaurant, but there was a line out the door and you guessed it…it was raining. So we opted for a brat from the local grocery store restaurant.

Since it was pretty rainy and cloudy, we opted to not go up any mountains and do any hikes, instead we attempted to go explore Beatus Caves. It was a half hour bus out of the town.

Turns out the cave is closed because it is flooded!!! The caves were free because you could only walk 50 feet in until we are stopped by the flooding. So, we instead enjoyed the waterfall and the view.

It may have been closed, but the hike up and down were pretty and the rain mostly stopped by the time we were coming down, got wet from the waterfall though. The waterfall was roaring, which was amazing too. Tomorrow’s forecast looks pretty clear, so wish us luck! Because this is not the high point of the trip…

Here’s the mountain we were hoping to climb today…it was cloud covered, it continued to rain on and off today.

Instead we went to Fort Fűrigen. It is a fort built into the mountain that was built in 1941 by the Swiss, to protect themselves from the Axis Powers.

After the fort, we relaxed and lounged on our patio for a while, the weather started to clear up and the mountain cleared. We thought about trying to make a run up there, but we only had 2 hours until the last transport down the mountain, so we would have barely any time up there. And it was a good call, it was raining again 30 minutes later.

We grabbed some umbrellas and took another lap around the town and over the old bridge.

Also, David Sr and Matthew are not feeling great today (sore throats), and little David’s stomach is bothering him…so a slower day is good for the family!

Today we left France and moved on to Switzerland. The day got off to a bumpy start. We called an Uber, but it would take twenty minutes to arrive because of an open market in the entire old town. So, we had to walk a mile to the train station with our luggage. When we get all settled on our train…then wait..and wait…and an announcement comes over the speaker that we must evacuate the train and catch the next train in an hour. The train had a suspicious package on it that the police must investigate (a left piece of luggage- that they do not take lightly), so we had to wait an hour for the next train.

We passed by Saint Louis – the second one of the trip!! The original (but not the better one)!! We had to run to our connecting train again…and made it just in time. We are getting better at running in train stations.

We still made it to Lucerne by lunchtime, dropped off our luggage and began exploring. Took a little time for us to figure out the bus schedule – we are not used to public transportation! It is an absolutely beautiful city (even with the rain). It’s been raining basically all day.

There were two of these bridges, one was an original, the other burned down and was rebuilt in 1992.

The old wine market…that is now retail shops.

This is the old court house where they would hang people outside of it.

We climbed the city wall, we were ready to defend!

We stopped in an old church. The kids are trying to win favor and praying for more dessert (ice cream, truffle and caramel today alone).

That castle on the hill was a place Queen Victoria stayed for a month, and led to Lucerne gaining popularity.

The kids wanted to see if McD’s is the same here…after asking in a few countries, we relented…

We booked a penthouse suite here, for a good view of the mountains and lake….hopefully the weather clears up so we can enjoy that…. Most expensive McDonald’s we ever bought.

We finally gave up and went swimming in the indoor pool. There was another family there. We asked them where they are from and they are from…Appleton, Wisconsin!

Now time to rest, tomorrow we tackle mountains and forts (weather permitting) 🤞

Today we took a train ride over to Colmar (not Cologne despite how many times Matthew said that today) to take in the sites, it did not disappoint. It was a small town and far too crowded by the afternoon, but was very cute and worth the stop.

Since we were in little Venice, we had to take a boat ride.

We had lunch, and bought cookies and caramels. As it turns out, the macaroons in France are way better than what you get in the US.

We also took a little train tour around Colmar, but the city is so small we saw all the sites anyway. But it was nice to sit down for a little bit.

After a full day of exploring Colmar, we trained back to Strasbourg, walked around some more, took some pictures from the top of the covered bridge.

We saw a tour boat fitting through the lock- it’s a tight squeeze!!

Then for dinner, we ate local food. We tried (some of us for the first time) frog legs and also had escargot.

And one last lap past the cathedral before going back to the room to rest for the night.

We started in The Netherlands then continued to Belgium, Germany and now we have made it to France!

Welcome to Strasbourg!

But first, getting there. We are now one for two running to a train. Our train from Essen was running late and we were going to miss our connecting train. As we got off the train, we saw there was still at the platform. We ran over there and apparently that train was also running late. The doors closed right after Heather got in, so it was a win.

We went and explored the Cathedral Notre Dame…I know what you are thinking…it’s not that one…but it is very detailed and beautiful.

Next we went to the Rohan Palace, Napoleon had a room here, but never actually stayed here. Louis XV and Marie Antoinette spent the night here.

We walked around and enjoyed the town.

We ate a mediocre dinner but had some pretty good gelato. The crowds were a bit much in the middle of the day, but we enjoyed walking around in the evening when crowds died down. We finished by sitting outside the cathedral enjoying the details of the building.