My little rock climber...

She couldn't get enough of climbing up the sides of mountains...John and I have decided its time for us to get our rock climbing/belay certification...

I did not help her get up there...I monitored from below...but this kid was fearless with climbing...

Little Man in Interlaken....

You *might* be thinking I'm talking about a "little person..."  i.e. midget...?  But no, alas you will be sorely disappointed to learn that my nephew, Orion, is half Swiss.  When he was born he adopted the name, Little Man and it stuck.  During the summer months, Orion can often be found with his dad, Sascha, in Interlaken, Switzerland.  Since we were driving that way to get to Triberg we decided to stop for the afternoon and play a little.

Sascha had to work, but he had left Orion with his friends at the Hotel Mattenhof...

It hadn't been more than 30 seconds that we were there before the boys had to play foosball...It was them against John...guess who won?!

If you guessed John you were WRONG!  It was a very exciting end to a foosball game...tied..one ball left and WHAM...they whacked it right into the goal before John even had a chance to spin...  He spent a few minutes crying in the corner and sucking his thumb.  *wink wink*

The kids had to do lots of hugging and investigating of Orion's summer stomping grounds...

Including petting the biggest dog EVER.

We decided to spend the afternoon at Trummelbach Falls.  Its one of the things I remember most from my last visits to Interlaken.  That might be because those were the fall where I lost my brand new $400 camera...They slid right into the pounding tons of water...I dove for the camera (yes, there are guard rails) and a German woman and a Japanese woman must have thought I was throwing myself over the ledge because they shrieked and made quite the scene. 

Maybe my desire to have a better experience there was what led us back that direction...it was very different.  Now they have a funicular to take you to the top and you can walk down...oh, and you have to pay to see them.  AND there is a touristy thing there too...little souvenir shops and all.  It was very strange, but we were glad we went...the falls were spectacular....even better than I remembered them.

You can get just a glimpse of the awesome power of the water from this short video....It was spraying us so hard...our backs were soaked from standing there for 10 seconds.

When we were done I figured the kids still had too much energy so we did runback races...they had to run long distance, do spins, jumping jacks, burpees and other forms of physical torture to get all that energy out.  Even Bella ran...in fact...she's got a set of little leggies on her...

Plus I made her climb a tree...she did pretty good...

Upon our return to the Mattenhof we met up with Orion's dad, Sascha, and had ourselves some delicious Thai food.  It was great fun to catch up with him and spend a little time with them.  Next summer we've already got plans for a longer trip to visit them...a little fishing...some canyoning...maybe I'll actually get to paraglide...?! 

Our final goodbyes were quite appropriate...they do call the Mattenhof the "funny farm..."  I wonder why.  :)

Cuckoo....cuckoo...

There's a sad sort of clanging from the clock in the hall
And the bells from the steeple too.
And up in the nursery an absurd little bird
Is popping out to say cuckoo...

 Cuckoo!

Cuckoo!


Triberg, Germany....in the middle of the Black Forest...  We arrived there with three things in mind to experience...

1.  Eat a piece of Black Forest Cake.
2.  Buy a cuckoo clock.
3.  Walk up the Triberg Falls...the highest waterfall in all of Germany.

We left with...

this...

 this...

and a day full of festivities from the 900th anniversary of Triberg the town.  Yes, thats right NINE HUNDRED YEARS old.  Sheesh...We Americans are such infants in the birthday department...

We did walk up to the top of Triberg Falls...they were absolutely beautiful.  It was a rocky start with the munchkin throwing a giant crying fit over wearing her flipflops.  John actually walked back down the hill to get her tennis shoes and the backpack.  Some might say it was a failing on our part to plan that out as parents, but hey...why have kids if you can't blame them some of the time.  *wink wink*

Eric and Bella were both avid rock climbers during our Eurotrip...any chance they got they were climbing all over them.  The Falls had gorgeous rock formations covered in moss with little creeks running through them.  Eric was quite the explorer...

Triberg Falls is the tallest waterfall in Germany.  It cascades over 7 major waterfall "steps" to drop a total of 163 meters (535 feet).  Of course I had to take some photos of it...it was so beautiful, but not very peaceful.  Its a major tourist attraction and there were lots of people at the bottom.  Luckily the higher we climbed the thinner the crowds got.  It was a good steep climb (think Multnomah Falls for you Pacific Northwesterners) but I was not about to get wimpy when I saw an old German woman in a skirt and PUMPS hiking it up the hill with no problem at all.

I stayed below and took this photo from one of the switchbacks on the trail.  As you can tell it was a beautiful day...sunshine and forest and water...three of my favorite things...oh yeah...and the other three things in the photo are up there in the "favorite" scale too.  :)

Eric begged to get down near the water.  Originally we said no because there were clearly marked paths and signs that I'm sure read "stay on the path..." but then I thought, "Hey...whats the point of being able to claim "tourist that can't read German" if you don't break the rules occasionally..."  So down he went...

Bella strayed just off the path for this photo of the top step of the waterfall.  Beautiful....both of them.  Even if one of them is turning into a camera ham!

As we headed the long way back down the mountain to get away from the touristy hordes of people we found this enormous rock that both kids wanted to pose in front of...they each came up with their very own pose.  I love it...  the salute and the stork.... 

We reached the bottom at the hill at a fun little park that we ate our lunch of  "treccia di burro", salami and formaggio...

Yep...braid bread, salami and cheese.  The kids played in the park, tossed rocks in the lake and generally had a nice little break in our day.

The best part...Bella's slide....watch this video...FUNNY.



We then headed back down into town...

We ended our day at the Triberg festival featuring bunnies, icecream, and people in medieval garb. 

It was a lot of fun.  We had only intended to stay for a few hours...but our trip to Triberg ended up being an entire day. 

The NEXT TIME we go, however....Triberg will be older than 900 years...John will get one of these too...

...and I'll eat my black forest cake and buy a cuckoo clock...

Regretfully they tell us, but firmly they compel us
To say goodbye....

to you....

cuckoo!

cuckoo!

EuroTrip 2011

We're back!  Tonight...after 10 days of travel through Germany, Czech Republic, Austria, Switzerland, and Italy.  Five countries in 10 days.  We had a great time and I'm properly exhausted...so I thought I'd start my Eurotrip blog with the last photo I took today...

Can you tell we were ready to get home? 

LOVE THE AUTOBAHN...where even a Subaru becomes a precision driving machine.  :)