One Year and 18 Weeks - A visitor and Roman ruins in Switzerland

K and Charlotte at Nestlé

The weekend after our trip to Aosta, we got to play host to our friend Charlotte who was between business trips to Israel and Germany.  After picking her up at the train station in Neuchâtel Friday night, we had a homemade fondue and salad and stayed up late chatting.

Saturday, we drove down to Broc to do the Nestlé-Cailler chocolate factory tour and had a light lunch of panini and crepes in Gruyères.    On the way back, we stopped in Avenches, to the west of Lake Murten, to see the Roman amphitheatre there.  The amphitheatre is still in use today, and there was actually a very elaborate rotating stage in the center which had been constructed for an upcoming opera.  We had heard that there were other Roman ruins in the area, but we did not have time to go exploring as we had to be back in Neuchâtel to meet some people.

Amphitheater at Avenches

On our way back to Neuchâtel, however, we decided to stop briefly at one of the local wine tasting rooms in the Vully region.   It took us awhile to find one that was open.  The first one that we found that was open didn't have very good wine.  The second one we talked our way into, as the proprietor had forgotten to remove the OPEN sign that was posted in front.  The wine at this one was much better.  While we drank the wines, K and M tried to converse with the man in French.  While Charlotte was able to catch a few words, K and M did only marginally better as the man spoke very, very fast.  When we finished our tasting, we bought a bottle and headed to downtown Neuchâtel where we met up with Sarala, Claire, and Sacha, coworkers that also know Charlotte.  We enjoyed the early evening in the Place des Halles, sipping local wines, and then Sarala and Claire joined the three of us for dinner at the Cardinal Brasserie.  Dinner was delicious- M and Sarala had constructed veggie plates and the other three each ordered big buckets of mussels.

Cigognier Sanctuary

Sunday morning was leisurely.  M made scones for breakfast, and then we went for a walk down by the lake.  Unfortunately, halfway through our walk, the sky opened up, and we wound up in the middle of a downpour.  By the time, we had dried up a bit it was time to head back to the apartment and take Charlotte to the train station for her trip to Stuttgart.

The following weekend, on Saturday, we caught up to a lakeside pub crawl sponsored by some members of the Neuchatel International Club, of which we were members last year.   We were about 2 hours behind the start, but we managed to catch up near Auvernier and stopped at 3 places with the small group before we took the tram back to Neuchatel.

Roman Theater

Sunday, with the gorgeous, warm weather, we decided to picnic down by lake.  We stuffed a bag full of radish and camembert sandwiches, chips, and cold white wine, and biked down to the lake near the big pools.  We had a wonderful lunch on the grass under a shady tree with the lake and the Alps laid out before us.  After lunch, we met up with Sarala and Claire and biked, mostly along a canal to Le Landeron, a half kilometer from Lac de Bienne.  We had ice cream and beer before we biked back to Neuchatel.





This Friday night, after a long work week, we went over to our coworker Lindsay's apartment (building next door) for a wine and cheese tasting party.  We had a great time, had Swiss, Belgian, Dutch and Spanish cheeses and an equally varied selection of wines.  Additionally, there was American-style spinach dip flavored with imported Ranch seasoning; what a trip!  It was a really pleasant evening with the food and drink and chatting.

This past weekend, we decided to go back to Avenches to find the rest of the Roman ruins.  The village of Avenches overlaps with the ancient Roman city of Aventicum, the capital of Helvetians.  Today, there is a Roman archeological museum in the tower behind the amphitheater that houses many of the findings from the area.  The Roman archeological monuments of the area, which include the amphitheater, the theater, thermal baths, and the city wall, are open to the public.  Most of them are within easy walking distance of one another.  We started again at the amphitheater and then walked from the Cigognier Sanctuary with its two standing columns to the Roman theater (at which an Alpen horn ensemble was practicing) to the East Gate.

M at the East Gate of Aventicum

The East Gate includes a portion of the city's walls, as well as a tower known as Tornallaz, which is known a conglomeration of Roman, medieval and early 20th century architecture.  You can climb up on the wall and in the tower for a nice view of the area.  After we played and explored the wall and tower for a bit, we headed back towards the theater and across the corn and wheat fields to find the covered thermal baths.  The baths are enclosed so you can't play in them, but you can see parts of the tiled floor and the columns that supported the floor for the hot and warm rooms.  You can walk around and get a feel for the different areas of the baths.  After the baths, we walked through another field to the road and then headed back to our car.

La Tornallaz

Sunday we lazed about the apartment with the cats.  Ken managed to get a pretty nice sunburn across his stomach from a leisurely day of reading outside.

 Lessons Learned:
1.   Black currants (cassis) and red currants (raisinet or groseille) are two very different fruits.  The black currants are considerably larger and have a piney, astringent taste.  The red currants are tart and sweet and are considerably softer than the black variety.  We prefer the red currants.

2.  Even when it's not that hot out, you should still make sure you have on sunscreen when you are outside in "high-altitude" Switzerland.

Ken climbing up Tornallaz

One year and 5 weeks - Visitors!

Mary and Jack touring Neuchâtel

Last weekend, we had our second set of visitors arrive in Switzerland.  We picked up Mary and Jack, friends from California, at the Geneva airport last Saturday night and had a dinner at Les Brasseurs (the local brewpub).

Sunday, we gave them a mini-tour of the canton.  We walked down the hill and then back up to the chateau and the collegiale.  Then we strolled through town past Neuchatel's famous painted fountains.  We walked along the lake and enjoyed the views and played on the dangerous playground equipment.   In the late afternoon, we drove up to the Creux du Van for a short hike.  The weather wasn't great; it was cloudy and rainy which meant that it was quite muddy.  But we enjoyed our walk, especially when we got to see the chamois mountain goats.  There were two adult females and two yearling goats.  The goats were primarily interested in eating grass at the cliff edge and seemed unconcerned with our presence; they let us come within only a couple meters from them.   It was wonderful to be able to watch them from such a close vantage point.  Sunday night, we had fondue at home.

Monday morning we tried to visit an absinthe distillery in the Val de Travers but had neglected to see that we needed to book in advance.  We did, however, have a nice drive through the hills and valley.  Next, we took our visitors to Gruyères where we visited the fromagerie and the Nestle/Cailler chocolate factory.  We decided to skip the castle this time but did drive up to the town of Gruyères to souvenir shop and to walk along the old ramparts.  This time at the chocolate factory we arrived early enough that we were able to take advantage of the chocolate tasting at the end of the tour.  M was the only one that powered through all the samples, but, needless to say, she had a belly-ache later.  After returning to Neuchâtel in the evening, we headed up to the local peak, Chaumont, and the observation tower, to look over the valley de les trois-Lacs.

Luzern, L to R: Mary & Jack at Verkehrshaus, Swans in front of the
Hofkirche, Kapellbrücke & Wasserturm

Tuesday, we went to Luzern (Lucerne in French).  We started the day with a trip to the Verkehrshaus, also known as the Swiss Transport Museum.  Though the entrance fee was steep, the museum was pretty amazing especially for four inquisitive engineers (though M is slightly less inquisitive than the other 3).  The museum was comprised of multiple buildings, each filled with a mode of transport: trains, cars, boats, and aircraft.  It had cut-aways of a train and a steamer boat, a car crash-test demonstration, flight simulators, a giant photo map of Switzerland, and a courtyard with razor scooters to play with.  It wasn't quite as awesome as the Deutsches Museum in Munich, but it was close. After the museum, we parked in the city and walked to the lake.  We then threaded back and forth over the Reuss River on the series of bridges, one of which was the Kapellbrücke, or Chapel Bridge, originally built in the 1300s and restored after a fire in 1993.  Next to the bridge is the Wasserturm, or Water tower, dating from the 1200s.  The town is quite pretty, particularly with Mount Pilatus towering over the lake, but Luzern is also full of tourists.  We stopped at an English pub by the river and enjoyed the late afternoon.

Geneva, T to B: CERN building,
Yvette and Sean

Wednesday, we headed to Geneva, but first stopped for a tour at CERN (Conseil Européen pour la Recherce Nucléaire, or the European Organization for Nuclear Research).  Things got rather technical in talking about particle colliders, and, well, M got kinda bored.  (In her defense, there was a group of Dutch teenagers that wouldn't shut up making it pretty hard to follow the technical explanations.) K, Mary, and Jack were enthralled.

  In the afternoon, we met up with Sean and Yvette, more friends from California, now currently living in Wisconsin, who had arrived for a day in Switzerland to accompany Mary and Jack to Italy on the next leg of their journey.  After we had everyone in tow, we walked around the city a bit to see the Flower Clock and the Ile Rousseau.  We were also able to see the Jet d'Eau this time, which had been off during our last visit.  Since we didn't have enough room in the car for 6 people, we split up.  The girls took the train back to Neuchatel, and the guys drove.  The final meal of the visit was another fondue.  There was lots of fun conversation and laughter so it was with reluctance that we turned in close to midnight.

Thursday morning, we bid "adieu" to the gang at the Neuchatel train station as they caught their train to Italy.  Then, we headed to work for a short week.

This Saturday, we had a somewhat unexpected guest.  We learned midweek that a friend from California, Joseph, now living in Chicago, was in Zurich for business.  We invited him to Neuchâtel and gave him a tour of the town.  The weather was wonderful (t-shirt weather), and we walked by the lake and through the market which was full with people out enjoying the sunshine and warm temperatures.  In the late afternoon, we decided to head up to Creux du Van for the second time in a week.  Though we saw no chamois this time, the view was awesome.  The skies were blue, and we could see the Alps behind us, as well as part of Ile St. Pierre in Lac de Bienne.  We got back to Neuchatel just in time for Joseph to catch the 7:30 train back to Zurich and for us to get ready for a colleague's birthday party.   We had an interesting time at the party.  M primarily stuck with the English and Spanish speakers, but K chatted up some of the francophone guests.

Sunday, we took the bikes out to enjoy the gorgeous weather.  We decided to go easy, so we made it a relatively short bike ride to La Tène.  Everybody else in Neuchatel seemed to think that being outside was an excellent idea too, and all the grassy areas we passed were brimming with people grilling, sun bathing or playing volleyball.

Lessons learned:
1)  So figured out why we haven't gotten our residence permits.  Apparently, the commune was missing some paperwork from our company that justifies why they need to employ us, non-EU/Swiss citizens.  And apparently, the commune had asked the law firm that had handled the paperwork for our original application to provide this paperwork.  The law firm ignored the requests, so the commune threatened our company that if they didn't get the paperwork in 10 days, we'd be deported.  Fortunately, it appears that HR was able to clear things up so that we will not be kicked out of the country.  However, we won't be convinced that everything is alright until we get our new permits.
2) CERN was founded in 1954 and straddles the French/Swiss border.

Weeks 33 and 34 - Buon Compleanno In Italia

For M's 30th birthday, she wanted to do something big. So, for half a year, she had been planning a trip to Italy. She had an image of herself riding on a robin's egg blue vespa through the Tuscan countryside in between her pasta-making classes and playing bocce with the locals. That didn't exactly happen, but Italy wound up charming her anyway.

We started our trip early Saturday morning (end of week 33) at the Neuchâtel train station. This was our first long train ride in Europe. We would change trains in Bern and Milan before arriving at our first stop of the trip: Florence (Firenze in Italian).

Florence, a Renaissance town, is full of sculpture and paintings from some of the great names we all learned in school. Our B&B was near the Ponte Vecchio (old bridge), so we had lots of chances to look at the old goldsmith shops lining the bridge. On our first day, we wandered around town and got caught in a rain-shower.We stopped into a wine shop to try a tasting (and to get out of the rain). We learned a lot about Chianti, Sangiovese (which we had met in Northern Cali), and black roosters. The rain put a bit of a damper on K's enthusiasm, so we didn’t do much more exploring in the rain. Which was good, because we would need a break before the art-ganza the next day.

On Sunday, we visited the Uffizi. While the Uffizi was incredible, it was a bit overwhelming. The Uffizi is considered to be THE BEST collection of Renaissance art in the world, and we saw pieces by Leonardo, Michelangelo, Botticelli, Titian, and on and on, so we had a very full day of looking at art. By the end of the day, we felt worn out.

However, we can now recognize St. John the Baptist, St. Sebastien, and the Annunciation of Mary (who is also a saint, but none of the pieces were called the Annunciation of St. Mary. hmmmm....) in under 3 notes. Wearing a fur (debate between bear or camel), shot full of arrows, and being yelled at by an angel and/or vomited on by a dove, respectively.

The Loggia (a public, open-air sculpture “garden”) was one of our favorite places in Florence. The Loggia is right next to the Uffizi gallery, off of the Piazza della Signoria. In addition to the sculpture garden, there is a reproduction of Michelangelo's David, as well as Neptune's fountain. The area seemed to have a jovial atmosphere and was flanked by outdoor cafes. We even observed what seemed to be a gypsy band parading through the square.

New Pirate Joke: What did the pirate say after sacking Florence, but then accidentally dropping his booty overboard into the river? Aaarrrrrrrrrrr Nnnooooooo

After Florence, we took a bus to Siena, a medieval town. The myth/history is that Siena was founded by Remus, brother of Romulus the founder of Rome, so there are statues of human babies suckling from a she-wolf all-over town. The towns streets are narrow and curve around, and the town is incredibly hilly, not like Florence. We found numerous sign-posts pointing two different directions to arrive at our intended destination. K decided that we should always take the right turn when it was an option, because, well, why not (like a “your Delta Tau Chi name is Flounder” kind of why not).

The art/architecture highlight for us was the Duomo, a truly impressive gothic church from floor (and sub-basement) to ceiling to roof. What was possibly even better was that they had planned an expansion that would have turned the entire church into the short-arm of the expanded church. They have a few walls and arches of the expansion; it would have been incredible. Unfortunately, a plague that killed ~2/3rds of the town deprived them of money and manpower, so the expansion was never finished.

We had a great lunch soaking up sunshine in the big town plaza of Il Campo (I wanted to write town square, but it’s definitely NOT square; it’s more semi-circular). They hold two horse-races, called Il Palio, there every year which has to be a crazy experience.

Then we caught a train to Rome through Chiusi (for those keeping count, we’re now at train, train, train, bus, train, train). In one sense, our trip just kept going back in time: Renaissance Florence, Medieval Siena, Ancient Rome; but the Renaissance was very visible in Rome, so maybe we were just bouncing around thru history. By the way, anyone wondering what's in Chiusi: niente.

Once in Rome, we met up with M’s parents and then assaulted the city like Sherman and Atlanta.

Thursday was Ancient Rome: Imperial Forum, Palatine Hill, and Colosseum. We were definitely glad we weren't visiting in the summer because, with bigger crowds and heat, ancient Rome would not be so pleasant. It was fascinating learning some of the stories of the area from random tour guides walking around (the audio guide was crap), but it took a lot of imagination to picture how things would have looked originally. One of the things we learned was that the stuff that was best preserved had been reused over the ages, for example, ancient temples converted into medieval churches. Otherwise, new rulers tended to plunder for building materials for their new magnificent monuments. The 3Rs (reduce, reuse, recycle) mentality is why the Colosseum is in as bad a shape as it is.

Friday was a visit to the smallest nation on Earth, Vatican City. We hit the Vatican museum(s) and St. Peter’s Basilica. More big names: Rafael, Boticceli, Leonardo, Michelangelo, and on and on. The Sistine Chapel truly is inspiring, but the conventional wisdom that Michelangelo painted it lying on his back is bunk. He apparently craned his neck to look up just like we did. With all of the Renaissance art, there were also plenty of ancient artworks from Greece, Rome and ancient Egypt, along with more modern pieces (we saw a Van Gogh Pièta).

Saturday was a jumble: ongoing excavations of the Roman Fori (though K thinks it should be Fora, since the singular is Forum), Trajan’s column, the Pantheon (both ancient and merely old), Trevi Fountain (which included tossing coins into the fountain to ensure our return to Rome one day), the amazingly crowded Spanish Steps, and St. Giovanni in Laterano.

Sunday was M’s birthday, and we took it easy. In the morning, we walked around the ancient Roman baths at Caracalla, which had some preserved mosaics and tile work. Then we took a brief tour of the ancient Roman ramparts and did some general wandering aboot town.

The weather in Rome was fabulous compared to what we’ve had in CH. It was nearly short-sleeve shirt weather. Rome in the Fall was great with the mild weather and color-changing foliage.

The discourse thus far has been weak on culinary details, but be assured the trip was dotted with excellent food experiences. We learned a Tuscan custom of dipping your biscotti in a glass of Vin Santo (dessert wine) as an aperitif. Plenty of gelato was consumed (the lime and coconut mix was one of M's favorite flavors). We ate loads of pasta: from spinach cannelloni to fettucine with mushrooms. Had melanzane alla parmigiana (eggplant parmesan) and insalata caprese and arancini (fried rice balls stuffed with melted mozzarella). K had his share of exotic foods as well: polpo (octopus), veal, wild boar, and certainly some Parma ham. And of course, we had pizza. One of the best was pizza bianca (flavored with olive oil and rosemary).

Lessons learned:

1. The last bus from Siena to the suburb of San Dalmazio where our B&B was not at 8:00 pm. Turns out there is a bus that runs almost until midnight. Ah well, we got to bed early.

2. Although you are encouraged to order multiple courses in the guidebooks, we oftentimes found a plate of pasta to be sufficient. Sometimes they were Olive Garden sized portions. It was nice to try some of the veggie sides on the menu.

3. Italians tend to eschew toilet seats. Got a leg workout in the bathroom. Some bathrooms we came across did actually look spotless, they were just missing the seat.

4. The table bread in Tuscany was unfortunately subpar. It seemed better in Rome. However, the pizza was really good in Siena. Pizza at the Vatican...not so good...I think they just put toppings on giant communion wafers.

5. Your average Italian has no clue what a pasta drying rack is. In fact, I think they primarily use dry pasta. Sacrilege.

6. Despite the somewhat laidback attitude of Italians, don't think that your Italian vacation will be loosey goosey if you are planning on seeing the big attractions. Most of the museums require prebooking with a specified entrance time, and if you haven't prebooked, prepare for really long lines. However, if you can, do prebook (despite the 25% upcharge required for prebooking) because it is totally worth it. Both at the Uffizi and the Vatican we skipped insanely long lines and got in within about 10 minutes; lines into the Vatican can be up to 4 hours long! Also, if you plan to go to the Colosseum, go over to the Forum and Palatine Hill to buy your ticket there. The line is much shorter.

7. Yes. Italians really are crazy drivers.