Burn Baby Burn!

Two weeks ago at work we had what is more than likely the last forest day of the year and maybe until March or April, depending of the weather.

It was cold but luckily not too bad, at least in the beginning! The forecast for rain was for later on in the day, as usual we got the children to help find wood for our fire. This usually means that some come with huge branches or long logs.  Making a fire is not something that I have ever done and nor do I think I could do it, thankfully that is left up to the other two members of team Amanda and Tobias.

The kids always love to have a day out in forest and they get to climb, collect lots of natural material and get very dirty. Once the fire is ready the sauages are put on to cook and are eaten with bread, this time we decided to roast marroni, which are chestnuts. At this time of year it is quite common to see marroni stands everywhere.

A Glance of Malmo

Old City Hall

Lilla Torg

Cafe on a ship

Viking Boat

Library

Turning Torso

During our week long stay in Copenhagen we took a trip over the Oresund bridge which is longest combined rail and road bridge in Europe. A very pleasant and comfortable journey in no time we reached Malmo, the third largest city in Sweden.

First of all we wondered around the city to get our bearings as you do on city visits, we saw lots of interesting design shops, which we all wanted to look at especially my mother.

For lunch we bought sandwiches from a supermarket and found a lovely park to sit and eat them, luckily near by there was a wonderful playground which kept Alessio happy for a while.

In the afternoon we took a boat cruise, it was nice to get a fresh breeze for a bit. The boat cruise took us to lots of places we would not have had time to walk there, Malmo being big port which is still active we heard lots of information about it.

We stopped for a glass of wine after the boat tour finished while deciding what we should do next, I wanted to see the Turning Torso building. So we began our walk to see it and it took a lot longer than we thought and it was very hot too. Finally we got to it and my father and I found it quite interesting, unlike my mother!

If you are in Copenhagen, it is well worth a trip to see this city, we did think about visiting more places in this part of Sweden, but decided to see more of Denmark.

Next year will be visiting Norway for the first time, I am really looking forward to that!

Photo of the Week - Cats Galore!

In October Alessio went on a hike from Andelfingen to Rheinau in Germany with my friend Aimee and her son Noah. We met in Andelfingen at the train station and it was there that I saw these little cuties, quite a novel idea.

Hiking in the Alps!

Waiting for the cable car

Alessio and his grandad

Grindelwald

Glimpse of the Eiger

The hiker!

Walking down to Kleine Scheidegg

Alessio and his Granny

After checking into our hotel we decided to go up one of the mountains, and after careful considerations basically being the weather we opted to take the cable car to Männlichen at 2, 225m. Instead of walking the 15mins to the summit we walked downwards to Kleine Scheidegg at 2.061m, it would take us 1.5 hours.

The great thing about this hike is that is it easy to do and you have the amazing trio always in sight Eiger, Mönch and Jungfrau. Of course it does help to have amazing weather too, but you cannot have everything and we had to make do with glimpses of these mountains. I have to say that I am interested in the attempts to climb the Eiger, it all sounds just crazy to want to climb the North Face.

Anyway back to our walk it loops round passing the Lauberhorn and eventually you see Kleine Scheidegg below. Before we reached our final destination we stopped for refreshments, wine for the adults and ice cream for Alessio. There was also a play area which kept Alessio amused, also my mother enjoyed the swing too.

Then the short hop down to the railway junction of Kleine Scheidegg where you catch trains to Lauterbrunnen, Grindelwald and of course upwards to Jungfraujoch. We did not hang about here and caught the train down to Wengen.

It was a lovely afternoon walk and would highly recommend this hike for everyone, kids included! I managed to do one more hike in the October holidays, but I think there will be no more hikes this year.

Apples, Apples and More Apples

As a kindergarten trip with the kids from my work we went to Bächlihof very near to Rapperswil to buy a pumpkin. Bächlihof is the sister farm of the very well know Jucker farm, this was only my second visit here.

It had an apple orchard, the ripe apples looked delicious indeed. I think you are able to pick your own apples, but not 100% sure. I will tell a bit more about it when I post about the actual trip, the pumpkin exhibition is now finished, but remember at Jucker farm the Christmas market is very soon.

Colourful Copenhagen

Architecture Museum

Lovely courtyard

delicious beers

stunning sunset

Back in August Alessio and I went to Copenhagen with my parents for one week, it is a beautiful city and we had a really great time.

One of the things I noticed was that Copenhagen is very colourful, you see it in all places, bright and bold colours.

I cannot remember now which areas the photos come from anymore, but I really liked the courtyard that was hidden just off the street. The amazing orange colour with lots of greenery from the plants and bushes, made it just stunning to look at. I wouldn`t say no to living there, no doubt inside would be wonderful too.

Nyhavn was amazing too with the coloured buildings at the front and then the sun setting made it extra special.

Now with the dark nights rolling in it seems a long time ago that it was summer, but this time of year is always nice (well for me anyway). The next trip is to Munich at the end of November to visit a friend and her new baby and to check out the Christmas markets.

Happy Weekend!