April 7 - 11 Switzerland (Please note --- not in Provence)

Christine's parents, Heidi and Nino, have come to stay with us.  We managed to invite ourselves to visit the relatives in Switzerland for Easter.  We drove to Switzerland (6 hours) and made it to Interlaken without difficulty.  Hard to tell from the picutre below, but it is snowing outside.

Some shots of the neighbourhood.

The clock tower on the church.

It was Easter, and I guess even the Easter Bunny needs to go .... somewhere.

Very Very Swiss.

More of the neighbourhood.

This shot is basically taken from Thomas' front yard.  You can tell those are Swiss cows, a) Mountains in the background, b) Cows in the front yard.

This is the view from Thomas and Chrugi's  livingroom.  Those cloud covered bumps in the background are (L to R) the Eiger (of North Face fame) the Monch, and the Jungfrau.   Each of those mountains are 4000m peaks.  For a sense of scale, it is 5.5km from the Eiger on the L to the Jungfrau on the right.  The translations of the names are Eiger (Orge), Monch (Monk), Jungfrau (Maiden / virgin).  A joke told to us at Easter was "So why is the Jungfrau a virgin", A "You would be to if you spent that long living next to a monk"

More beautiful Swiss architecture and landscapes.  We visited what is essentially an outdoor museum, or pioneer village called Ballenberg where they have gathered up buildings that represent the characteristic architectures of the different regions in Switzerland and put them together in one place.  Add in a village forge, barns, etc and you get quite an interesting visit.

BIG cows.

This is a barn.  The roof was recently re-shingled.  The shingles are hand-split on site (spruce) ... thats alot of shingles.

Back in Interlaken, this is the Victoria Hotel

We took a train / cable car ride up into the moutains (where the skiiing is) and got a better look at our friends the Eiger, Monch and Jungfrau.

My Jungfraus

See you next time, Switzerland, Eiger, Monch, and Jungfrau!