Mullivans on the Move

Where have we been? Where are we going? Now you can see with a handy Google map!

Mullivans on the Move!

Lausanne and Geneva

Lausanne: what a disappointment! We stopped there yesterday on our way from Basel to Geneva thinking it would be beautiful, built on a hill overlooking Lake Geneva, but you couldn't see much of the lake without going all the way down there. Not quite the dramatic views we were hoping for, but it was OK.

We hopped on the short train to Geneva, which was beautiful. We spent a lot of time walking around the lake and looking at the big fountain:

While we were sitting on a bench enjoying the view and the people-watching, we noticed an interesting scam. This group walked over together and proceeded to pretend that they were playing this "where is the ball?" game over and over again, trading huge bills amongst themselves. They tried to get us and other people interested, but we didn't see anyone fall for it.

We noticed similar groups all over the place, and always the same game. What gives, Geneva?

On the way to the train station this morning we passed this:

Where's Patrick? There he is!

Bern

Last Saturday we went to Bern, despite the fact that it was cold and rainy. We therefore didn't think Bern was quite as amazing as we should have, because we couldn't wander in the sunshine.

We started the day by going to the Paul Klee museum:

They were showing a Klee/Picasso exhibit, which we decided made Picasso look really good and Klee less so. We also really like the building.

Bern is built along the Aare river, which provided some nice scenery:

Next to the river was the "Bear Park" housing the city mascots.

Bern is known for its covered sidewalks, which was convenient in the rain, but kind of hides the quaintness of the buildings:

The town is also filled with fountains and statues, featuring this gem:

Yes, that's an ogre eating a baby. Why? Who can say?

Here's a pretty dramatic hillside:

And here's Einstein's one-time house, which we went to:

We also saw the famous clock tower:

And the Swiss parliament:

There was some kind of crazy international festival going on in front of it, so we got to buy some cheap food from the different stalls, including "Ananas" which for some reason is the German word for pineapple.

St. Gallen

The first in a series of long overdue updates! We took a trip inspired by music history to St. Gall, home of some really old manuscripts showing some of the earliest forms of musical notation.  The famous library is decorated in a ridiculously ornate baroque style, is filled with much older books, and is housed in a weirdly incongruous modern building. We couldn't take pictures inside the library, so we bought postcards, and then we took pictures of those to post on here! This is what the library looks like:

It's kind of surreal to be in there. To protect the floors from being scuffed, everyone has to wear these enormous gray fleece slippers over their shoes. Unfortunately, I couldn't get a picture of those! Because they're one-size-fits-all, they were ridiculously oversized on me, and I couldn't walk normally. I had to shuffle and slide around the floor.

They had one music manuscript on display that dates from ca. 900. Luckily, I was able to buy a postcard with the image of the same page that was displayed (the one on the right):

We also walked around the town, which was cute, and which features these ornately decorated bay windows called oriels:

We also stopped in a local brewery, which is our favorite type of tourism.

After leaving St. Gall, we stopped in Winterthur, which is a small, quaint town. It apparently has some nice museums, but seeing as we got there after 5 pm, everything was closed. They did have some interesting benches/street art:

Winterthur also, amazingly, had this place:

I got a bagel with cream cheese for the first time in almost three months!

On the way back to Basel we stopped in Zurich to watch the first USA game vs. England, so that was fun.

The Top of Europe

Yesterday the Mullivans were joined by Peter for an epic trip into the Alps. We decided to do the whole trip in one day, so it was an intense one. We took a total of 8 different trains over the course of the day, beginning at 8:00 in the morning from Basel to Interlaken, which took about 2 hours. From there we transferred to much smaller trains that led us up the Jungfraujoch, a totally touristy but awesome journey to the highest railway station in the world. The first train led from Interlaken to Lauterbrunnen (more on that town later), the next went to Kleine Scheidegg, and the final went right to the top. Here are some pictures from the journey up:

This is a shot from Kleine Scheidegg, where we transferred to the final train to the top.

From left to right: Eiger, Monch and Jungfrau. If you look closely in the dip between the Monch and the Jungfrau, you can see the building we went up to. This is a better close-up:

Most of the journey on the final train happens in this tunnel, which is kind of lame. But they stop the train twice at picturesque lookout points, which is great. This is the view from the first one:

And the second, with an underlit Patrick in front:

Here we are at the top!

The incredible views:

This is the view down towards Interlaken.

Mullivans on a glacier! Or in front of a glacier, or in some way near a glacier at least. It was difficult to tell where the glacier was exactly, but it's somewhere under all that snow.

At the top we were amused to find:

Apparently the Alps are hugely popular in India, especially this particular spot. We did not try the restaurant, but it looked like plenty of other people were enjoying it!

One of the attractions was this weird ice cave, which is supposedly carved out of a really slowly moving section of glacier. Most of it was really kitschy (i.e. carved penguins) but it was fun nonetheless, with plenty of tourist-friendly photo-ops:

We couldn't take a picture of me in that spot, since I am way too short! I did fit nicely in this spot, however:

On the way back down the mountain we decided to stop off in Lauterbrunnen for awhile, which is a really cute and tiny town in a deep valley:

We walked through town and climbed a path that led behind the waterfall.

On the way we saw some goats!

We also smelled the goats, unfortunately. We saw lots of goats yesterday, but not too many cows.

Patrick took advantage of the fields of wildflowers to do some frolicking:

We ended up down in Interlaken and walked along the main drag. It is a huge contrast from tiny Lauterbrunnen and relatively un-touristed Basel. Parts of the town are really pretty, like this big park with people flying above it:

Some parts are not so pretty:

Interlaken also features a conveniently located sex shop:

Now, this seems to imply that one would find another sex shop on the mountain, but as far as we could tell, this was not the case.

Despite weirdly commercialized Interlaken, the trip was incredible. We would love to go back and stay for a much longer period of time so we could explore the other mountains and hidden towns. Maybe one day? Or we might just run off and stay there and never go home...