Time in Titisee (Our 37th Anniversary)

You might have gathered that we came home before DJ's days off were over!  We decided that we had seen what we could see through the haze on Lake Como and originally thought we would stop somewhere in Switzerland between the border and home and spend the night.  Then we decided to go home, save the price of another hotel stay, and take off on Monday, April 25th, for a day trip.  We decided to head to Germany.  When we went to Titisee in Germany's Black Forest last fall, it was gray and dreary, the height of the fall colors had just passed, and it was a bit on the nippy side!  We decided we wanted to see it again---GREEN!  Besides, it's only about an hour and 15 minutes away from home.  So...we got up, went on a three-bridge walk at 8 which was heavenly because there were hardly any people out that early as it was a holiday, hung around (lally-gagged), and left about noon.  Just like the day before I took some shots from the car, and, yes, the bugs are still there (can I tell you that we just drive forever in this little diesel-fueled Audi on one tank, so we hadn't been to a filling station).



I loved all the green, but I have to say that in places the pine trees are such a dark green, they almost look black.  That led to a discussion about why the black forest is called the black forest.  Was it because of the dark green color or was it because the forest is so dense that it seems dark when you are in it?  Wiki.answers.com says, "the Black Forest is called that because all the trees put together make it look black."  Hmmmm, don't think that answers the quesiton!  Yahoo.com says, "Black Forest is a literal translation of Schwarzwald - and the area got the name because its forests are so dark green they can seem almost black, especially when the sky is overcast."  There you have it!

Passing through Hell's Canyon



We had seen fields of yellow in Italy, but we're pretty sure it was mustard.  These were 100 percent, assuredly, dandelions!  There were fields and fields of them.


 When we were at the lake in November, it looked like this:

Monday, it looked like this:

And this:

And this:



And this:

And this:

And even like this:

In November the streets looked like this:



On Monday, they looked like this:

And this:



We decided to go on another boat ride---five within a week hadn't been enough!



Waiting for our boat to launch.  Pictures of our ride on the lake are below.



The mountains were beautiful, though not as large and jagged as on Lake Como.  Both of us thought they looked a little more like the mountains of Idaho and Utah where we grew up.  However, though there's pines on both, you don't see Quaking Aspen here; nor do you see the variety of deciduous trees that are here in Germany on our mountains in the West.





"Thou shalt not covet."

 

There were two major campgrounds lakeside.





We had a great day.  Once again, being on the water was a delight.  It was gorgeous weather. We wandered the streets, and we shopped.  We sat on a bench, gazed at the lake, and people watched.  DJ's really into it---that's a new one!  I love to see him smile at the little children and laugh.  We saw several kids of toddler age throwing some major tantrums, felt so badly for their parents, and chuckled under our breath, glad that we have done our time in that venue.  We made our, now customary, purchases of Black Forest bacon and raspberry jam.  We bought a wooden toy and a wooden puzzle in anticipation of Katelyn's visit in May.  We dreamed crazy dreams like wouldn't it be neat to have a family reunion here!!  We had to pinch ourselves once again---can this really be?  What did we do to deserve this opportunity?  We did some major walking from the parking lot into town and back because it was so crowded. 

On the way home, we saw:

More dandelions!

Yup, there were just a few cars on the road.  This didn't last for long, thank goodness!



I finally gave up trying to get awesome shots of all the neat farms and things we got to see along the way.  After DJ took the camera and tried to get a shot while he was driving, I decided it was time to put the camera away!!



What a wonderful day with an incredible man in a gorgeous place doing very commonplace things that seemed so remarkable!  A great way to celebrate our togetherness!

On the Road Again - Shots Through the Bug-infested Windshield

You might remember last fall when I started this blog that I took a lot of pictures from the car as we traveled.  Some of them turned out quite well (like some of my shots of churches) here.  There were others, some better, some worse; but I've really held back from doing that as we have driven A LOT!  However, as we drove home on Easter Sunday, there was so much beauty everywhere that it led me to think about Jesus Christ's role as the creator of this earth under our Father in Heaven's direction.  Add to that the beauty that we had just experienced on Lake Como.  So I snapped, both figuratively (just couldn't help myself), and literally (on the camera).  These shots, by no means, captured the reality of what was there, but I want to remember just a bit of what we saw!  Oh, and if the shots were taken through the front windshield, I apologize in advance for the dead bugs included in the shots---just look beyond, please!



The green was lush.  The mountains were everywhere.  And...yes, that's a church steeple (be it ever so small) peeking from the trees!



Another beautiful lake on the way home from Como!



Not the best, but just enough to jog the memory.  I love Switzerland!

Como (the city) - Why all the hype?

As we were looking through our travel books about what to see in Como (the largest city on the lake), this is what we read in one:

• "Como...is part elegant resort, part industrial town."  Apparently we missed the elegant part and maybe even the resort part.  Como felt more like any other large European city.  Compared to Menaggio, Bellagio, and Varenna, it was newer, bigger, less charming, more spread out, and because it's at the bottom of the lake, a lot of it isn't hemmed in by mountains and water like the other three.  As you glimpsed into the hills that are there on both sides of the main part of town, you could see the "vintage" Italian influence most of the time, but then there would be a huge (ugly) concrete apartment complex or something.  It also had it's industrial parts as well.  A lot of the downtown area that we saw was full of store fronts and businesses that were ho-hum comparatively.  We were disappointed within minutes of getting off the boat.
• "Parks and bustling cafes line its lake-front promenades, all a stone's throw from the splendid 15th-century Renaissance-Gothic Duomo."  We saw one park that appeared to be closed to the public and some cafes (yes, they were pretty busy).  The Duomo was splendid---only one problem---the plaza in front of it isn't the biggest and because we were there on a Saturday, it was full of market stalls selling art and such.  Because it was spring, it was also full of outdoor dining tables, umbrellas, and chairs for the various restaurants across from the Duomo.  End result---inability to get good photos because we were too close to this ginormous edifice.  (Sidenote:  I just checked to see if ginormous was really a word---indeed it is, officially included in the 2007 editions of Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary).  Here's what we did get:



Front facade minus most of the front-door level---DJ couldn't get back far enough to get the whole vertical shot  (yes, I do share the camera at times) .



The backside of the Duomo - though the plaza is large and was mostly empty, I had to cross the street and lean up against a fence next to the train tracks to get this picture.  A shot of the top follows:



This beautiful building (we think it was used for theater or opera) was located on the plaza at the back side of the Duomo.  DJ's there in the middle!



Look at the beautiful detail.



• "Other fragments of old Como include San Fedele (once the town's cathedral), at the heart of the medieval quarter, and the Porta Vittoria, the late 12th-centruy city gate."  Maybe that's why we didn't see much that we thought was impressive because we never found the medieval quarter nor the city gate (and didn't see signs nor a tourist information booth to give directions to such).  We didn't bring our travel books with either, but neither gave directions to such things.  After a two-hour boat ride to get to Como and two-full days of traveling and exploring already, maybe we just weren't energetic enough to explore, dig, and ask questions.
• "Brave the industrial quarter of Como to see Sant' Abbondio, a beautiful 11-th century church..."  BRAVE the industrial quarter....no thanks.  See, I think we were just not very driven or inquisitive.
• "...and leave enough time to ride the funicular to hilltop Brunate for views of the lake."  We had been told by one of DJ's co-workers, Italian native, Marco, to take this ride.  We were planning on it.  For those of you that aren't familiar with a funicular, it's a cross between a gondola ride and a train ride.  Small gondola-like compartments ride up a very vertical track on the side of a mountain to reach a destination on the top.  We had been on one in Budapest in 2000 and had been on one last year in Interlaken (the photo at the top of our blog was taken at the top of a mountain after our funicular ride).  Anyway, we thought this would be really cool, but there was the HAZE.  We just weren't in the frame of mind to spend the time or money to ride to the top and not have good views!  Aren't we party poopers?

In our travels we did come upon another plaza which had this statue of Volta, Como's favorite son.  Now for another history lesson, Volta is the inventor of the battery!  Maybe you all knew that---not me.

Other things seen in our travels were the city's clock tower located right next to the Duomo:

...and look at this, a restaurant named after me (teeheehee):

I took other pictures of all my favorite things, but I won't bore you or posterity with those again this time.  We enjoyed lunch at an outdoor cafe, shopped at the market, sat at the lake side, and headed back to Menaggio earlier than expected on a Rapido boat which cut the travel time in half.  We even passed by the Villa Carlotta (a gorgeous villa in Tremezzo) for a second time and didn't stop (DJ was villa-ed out!).  You could actually see the house and a lot of the gardens from the lake.  I would definitely recommend a visit there.  Dinner again by our favorite French chef at the hotel, and we went to bed knowing that we would never forget our time on Lake Como---haze included!