Easter Sunday in Schwyz

Town Hall

The Manor House

Ital Reding Estate

Small and Big Mythen Mountains

Interesting tree!

Pretty outdoor shop!

Interesting facade!

My mother posing!

Statue outside the Museum of Swiss Charters!

Easter has finished and back to our normal routines, for me it is the countdown to my big trip to Japan. During Easter the weather was so so, but on most of the days it was not raining at least. My parents and I did two trips, the first on Easter Sunday to Schwyz and Brunnen, which were both really lovely places. Then on Easter Monday to Basel which you will see at the later date!

We arrived first in Schwyz in the morning,  I parked the car next to the wonderfully attractive Town Hall. We wondered around the town enjoying the views of the two great mountains that overlook this town Grosser Mythen and the Kleiner Mythen (big and small). Sadly we could not get a cloud free view, but they looked very impressive nevertheless!

There were many interesting buildings to see and of course lots of lovely views of the surrounding environment. Some of the most interesting were the cluster of buildings that belong to the Ital Reding Estate. We also saw a huge statue dating from 1941 which was outside the museum of Swiss Charters, which was the 650th anniversary of the oath of allegiance. It was pretty impressive and very big!

We had our lunch in a lovely place just off the main square, afterwards I drove us down to Brunnen. That post will come at a later date!

Storks!

My parents arrive on Monday and since then the weather has been just horrible, they have not been able to do much. So yesterday which was Good Friday was the first nice day so out we all went, and I drove to the Greifensee.

On our walk we spotted these storks in their nests, it was really amazing to see them and one of the parents was looking after the baby.

And sadly the weather has gone back to rain, rain and guess what rain! Tomorrow hopefully will be a better day!

Rapperswil Castle

Back in February we visited the lovely city of Rapperswil with the kids from my class. The reason for the trip was to visit the castle in this city. Normally visitors are not allowed inside the castle but we called and asked them if we could look around, as this was our topic at the Kindergarten.

It was a really cold day and everyone was quite excited to be seeing inside the castle, once we got up to the castle the kids played for about 10mins at the playground.

The lady came at 11am and we went inside, she said we could look at the rooms upstairs and down. In all honesty it was not that great, I mean the rooms were nice but nothing special. It did not take that long to look around and then we returned to the train station. With the weather so terrible and cold we could not hang about the city for very long.

Rapperswil is a lovely city and it is always nice to visit, but in nicer weather!

Baden Baden at Night!

Just a few photos of Baden Baden at night, it was nicely lit up as most places are in the evenings. We wondered around and at dinner at the restaurant Gasthaus Löwenbrau, typical Bavarian fare. It was very nice and of course not so expensive at all.

Photo of the Week - Art Work

From my weekend in Baden Baden, Germany I spotted this art work and thought it was quite interesting. No idea whereabouts in the city I saw it, but I wonder who they are looking around for!!

Castle Ruins near to Wädenswil

Back in January we did a trip with the kids from my class to visit the old castle ruins in Wädenswil. Our theme during that month was castles, kings, knights and queens so a visit to this place was just what we needed.

As you can see from the photos it was a super cold day, but all the kids were warmly dressed and ready for an outing. It took a while to get there but once at the ruins we walked around and explored all over, the kids liked to climb up high the best.

We brought lunch with us, once finished the kids were able to run around and play for a while. These ruins were once the largest in the whole of Kanton Zurich, I could not find out much about it online. I did find another post about this place on another blog www.the familyframe.blogspot.ch if you fancy reading it.

We also visited Rapperswil Castle too which I will post another time!

A Visit to Merkur Mountain in Baden-Württemberg

Two weekends ago I was in Baden Baden, it was just a short stay with my friend Arlene. Our designated trip for the Sunday was to go up Merkur mountain (the local mountain) which is 2,191m above sea level. The weather was not to be the best and getting there proved to be a task in itself. The road going up to the funicular turned out to be very near to our hotel, unfortunately we decided to drive around the whole city a few times to reach it instead.

Anyway once you have reached the car park for the Merkur Funicular Railway, it only cost 4 euros return. Which is quite amazing when you consider prices in Switzerland! Then you have the delight of going up apparently Europe`s steepest and most technically advanced funicular railway. To be honest it was very steep and the photos I put up do not do it justice, it only takes around 5 mins.

Once at the top it was blowing a gale, as we were not expecting it to be so cold and windy at the top we did not stay that long. We walked up to the summit which has a observation and radio tower which goes up 23m high but was not opened and on a great day the 360 degrees views would have be astounding.

Owing to the weather we did not do any walks and basically went back down again, but I do recommend a trip if you are in the region.