Schloss Oberhofen

Thursday was an exciting day for us on two fronts.

First, we finished organizing our travel plans for a mini-vacation next week in France. Even though our game at Fribourg on Sunday is our last Senior skirmish, our playoff bound U-19 team, and our U-16 team that starts playing games in August, are still practicing on Monday night.

Thus we will board a train early Tuesday morning to Lyon to see France's third largest city and meet with Julien Urgenti who coaches the Bron Falcons, an American football team, in one of Lyon's suburbs. Julien has become a good friend by way of the internet and I enjoyed visiting him earlier this spring in Lyon. After spending the night in Lyon, we will then board a French TGV high speed train to Avignon in the wonderous French area known as Provence.

We will return to Thun on Friday at 18:52 just in time for the 19:30 U-19 practice, if the two French trains we need to take to get back into Switzerland run ontime.

That is a BIG if.

I will be missing the Wednesday night U-16 workout though.

Secondly, we decided on a trip close to Helvetica today so we loaded onto the #21 bus for the short ride along the Lake Thun shore to the picturesque Schloss Oberhofen.

Unfortunately, I lost many of my pictures from today as my computer's iPhoto app was pushed over the brink as the 20,993 pictures stored there said "NO MAS!"  After deleting almost 6,000 pictures that I have saved to various flash drives in Camarillo, the problem was solved. Still though, I lost some good shots.

Schloss Thun 

I've been here for over four months and I still don't get tired of this view.

Just an interesting old building

on the walk into town

What came first,

the pipe or the stairway?

More murals in Thun

Spring flowers in Thun

After buying the French vacation train tickets at the Thun Bahnhof, it was off to the Schloss Oberhofen!

To review, schloss is German for castle.

But first a little repast

We found this nice little bistro on the Oberhofen Dorf lakefront near the docking spot for the Thunersee lake boats that take passengers on day cruises around Lake Thun.

It was sunny and warm, so we ordered two adult beverages and some delicious nachos.

A steam driven paddle wheeler

approaching our dock

The Schloss Oberhofen's

 Entryway

Between the views of the lake and the majesty of the surrounding Alps it is easy to see why this spot was picked for a castle back in the 12th century.

Love thier towers

Today the castle is a museum housing primarily extensive exhibits of the home decor that was popular in Bern canton in the 16th to 19th centuries.

Popular among the rich nobility that is.

It is always a good idea to

have a few extra clock hands

stored in the basement 

This royal family must

have gone to Disneyland 

A schloss just has to

have a nice garden or two 

A crossbow

in the children's room

And a toy soldier as well 

The Armory

"With your shields or

on them!"

A cradle in the master bedroom 

Tapestries, any good schloss

MUST HAVE TAPESTRIES!!!

St. Beatus

A local monk who killed a dragon.

Maybe.

A heart for my honey 

A second wonderous garden 

Laurie by the schloss boathouse 

The Schloss' best view

Are we in the Guatemalan

jungles finding Mayan ruins?

Love that fountain

The wind was blowing

It was too good to be true, the weather that is. Clouds blew in in the afternoon and we had yet another tropical rainstorm.

The word tropical in reference to Switzerland . . . who would have guessed it.

Interesting Totem

It is located at an elementary school just outside of the castle's gates.

Only one way to beat the rain

Find a good bakery, sit down and have some onion quiche and hot chocolate!

Another good day in Switzerland!