Lent 2014. The priests will visit families for an Easter blessing on Monday the 17th from 5-8 PM.
I wasn’t going to blog today (January 5) but we had such an interesting experience in Spiez, Switzerland, I had to write.
Castle on a lake
We had a 3 hour layover in Spiez, waiting for our train to Milano. Good time for a walk and lunch. Spying the restaurant in the train station, I checked the menu just-in-case that was our only option. Spiez is small, it’s Sunday in religiously conservative Switzerland, and choices might be limited.
In the U.S. certainly, and for the most part in Italy, one would not expect much in the way of “cuisine” in a railroad station these days. In Italy you can get a good panino to-go, decent wine, pastries, and of course, fine espresso on-the-run. In my limited experience in train stations in the U.S., all I have seen is over-cooked hotdogs, bags of chips, and similar culinary delights. Gone are the days of white tablecloths, crystal glasses and sparkling flatware with “home-cooked” Sunday dinner. My expectations were not high for Spiez.
After a walk thru the town (there’s a castle and a lake), we returned to the station, not having seen
Castle kitty, expectant mamma
another option. To our surprise the Restaurant Bahnhoff Buffet was thronged with diners (most of them older than we are) and the clock was only touching noon! Despite the fact we did not have a reservation (who knew?!), they seated us next to a cute old couple (yes, even to us they were old) and their ancient hund. Although my German is almost non-existent, it was better than the server’s English, so we managed to order one of the four daily specials. It was the best meal at the best value of any we had in Switzerland the past few days! Starting with potato soup, we then had access to a salad bar.
Fish filets, potatoes and carrots. The big yellow things are NOT lemons. They are buttered potatoes.
In typical efficient Swiss manner, much like dining in small town USA, the entrées were delivered before we could finish our salads: perfectly pan-fried perch, buttered potatoes, al dente carrots, side of tartar sauce. I felt like I was back in Lindstrom, MN, having the Sunday dinner special at the Dinner Bell Café, except there the fish would have been walleyed pike. The tables were lined with locals whom we suspect eat there every Sunday. For CHF 19.50 (about Euro 15.85) per person we had a 3-course fresh, reasonably healthy meal. Of course, in typical local fashion, a glass of mineral water and a cup of coffee were about CHF 4.00 each, clearly a profit generator. We were thus successful in emptying Ric’s pockets of Swiss francs before returning to Italy. Another reminder of small town USA “dining:” Elapsed time from entering the restaurant to exiting: 45 minutes. In Italy we’d have barely finished in time to make our train 2 hours later.
The dining room at Restaurant Bahnhoff Buffet, full of locals, no English.
Another amazing thing I have not seen in all of our travels the past 3 years: lockers. Switzerland apparently is not in fear of people who would do harm leaving objectionable items in stations. For CHF 5.00, we were able to secure both suitcases and walk freely about the city. What a treat! We saw lockers in the small towns of the Berner-Oberland, and now in Spiez. There is luggage storage in many Italian stations, with an attendant who will charge a few euros for a few hours of storage. However, some of these close (of course!) for la pausa at midday. So if your train is at 13:00, you may not be able to retrieve your bag because la signora who took your euros and gave you a claim check is enjoying her 90 minute lunch, obviously away from the train station since there is not a nice Bahnhoff Buffet.
If you are ever in Spiez, don’t hesitate to eat at the train station. If it’s Sunday, you might want to call ahead for a reservation!
The castle in Spiez
On the last day of Christmas….
If you were a tourist in Rome today, Epiphany, you’d have awakened to beautiful sunshine. Perhaps desiring to go to Piazza Navona and see Bernini’s masterful Fountain of the Four Rivers, sipping a glass of wine in a cafe, gazing at the fountain. Ah, bliss! Except when it is La Befana or L’Epifania, a national holiday. It seems every family in Rome was there today to visit the Christmas market one more time. Balloons and strollers, parents and grandparents, vendors and street performers: Absolute madness. Today was the LAST day of the 12 days of Christmas. Tomorrow is back to school!
This trip was to be a mutual Christmas present of Paris or London for a weekend, but we decided we wanted to go by train. Then a friend suggested Vienna—also too far by train—which led Ric to think maybe Switzerland. But in the winter? We haven’t willingly spent time in snow for years. Then I discovered that the Swiss groom trails for something called Winterwandern (Winter hiking) and as hiking always interests us, the planning began.
The little Swiss town of Spiez; Snow in the mountains, nothing in the town.
When we stepped off the train in Spiez, the first thing that came to mind was the line from the movie “White Christmas” where upon stepping off the train Rosemary Clooney says “There has to be snow! This place is advertised as America’s Winter Playground!” We thought Switzerland in winter would be snow-covered from end to end. We needn’t have worried: Once up out of the valleys there was plenty of snow…and great hiking!
January 3 saw us above Lauterbrunnen hiking to Mürren. Of course one can hike up the 700-or-so meters (1800 feet), but why waste energy (and knees) when there’s a fun gondola? Once on top, we hiked almost alone the 1.5 hours to Mürren, paralleling the electric railroad that ferries skiers and non-hikers. Quiet, except for the distant sounds of helicopters doing God-knows-what on the other side of the valley, and the electric glide of the train every 15 minutes. Crunching through snow in and out of forest on groomed trails was absolutely delightful.
Trail to Murren, through lovely piney woods.
On the trail, a mother pushes her children in a “sledge”
Captivating town of Murren. Only a few service vehicles allowed. Otherewise all pedestrian…which includes people on skies and sleds.
Tiny skier in Murren
Mürren is cute and definitely on our radar for a future summer trip. With minimal motorized traffic and typical Swiss architecture, filled with adorable children learning to ski, it is also the jump off point for a ride on a gondola to the Schilthorn and Piz GLoria, a mountain setting featured in “On Her Majesty’s Secret Service” the 007 movie starring one-time Bond, George Lazenby. More intriguing to us, as non-skiers, were the people heading to 9748 feet to ski and snow board down. Yikes! The slopes looked impossible to us (remember, we are from MN and ND originally), but even children were whizzing down them from this amazing height in a snow storm!
Japanese tourist in snowstorm to have her picture taken with “James Bond”. I stayed inside.
Sun!
Descending via the cable way, we re-entered Mürren and the sun came out, brightening the winterscape and warming our backs as we hiked down to Gimmelwald, a tiny village on the cliff from where one can catch yet another gondola back to the valley floor. On the way down to Gimmelwald from Mürren we were passed by those commuting on sleds through what would be village paths in summer. No one even came close to hitting us as everyone is very aware of the need to share the “road” safely. The occasional and friendly “Achtung!” warned us to step aside.
Little sledder spins out on the trail to Gimmelwald. She laughingly recovered.
January 4
The weather report says 1-3 inches of snow expected in Mürren and Wengen. Better than rain in the valley, so we headed up the cliff again. This time treating ourselves to the train along the cliff top to Mürren, we were joined by a Japanese tour group. The Japanese apparently flock here in winter, not for skiing but for simple sightseeing. There are families as well as young singles, each with a smartphone, iPad, or camera snapping away at the scenery and each other. I was struck by the politeness of the group, standing aside to allow people to descend from the train row by row. After the every-person-for-themselves attitude in public transportation in Rome, it was surprising to have the Brits “minding the queue,” Germans telling their children to “akt freundlich” (Literally “act friendly” but used in the context of correcting a child about to barge through a crowd to get to the front), and now the Japanese bowing to let us out of our row in turn! For those who do not know, there is no queue for bus or Metro in Rome. People do not wait for those exiting to descend before trying to crowd onto buses or trains. It is a free-for-all at every stop. Italians are warm and engaging, helpful and friendly. They will give you free food, the shirt off their backs, and go ten minutes out of the way to give directions, but they’ll knock old ladies out of the way to get on the bus first. In Switzerland there is no free food – they even charge for tap water – but they do line up and allow people to pass on the sidewalk or trail. The Swiss are efficient above all. But I digress….
The train to Murren parallels the trail for much of the way. Note the open air baggage car for luggage, supplies, skies.
Funicular to Allmendhuble
Yet another mode of transportation awaited us, the funicular at Allmendhubel. A quick three minute trip took us to the starting point of a downhill hike back to Mürren. The big difference this time is we shared a mixed-use trail with skiers and “sledgers” as translated into English, the people using the “bob run.” It was a little disquieting to have tiny children as well as adults flying by us on skies and on sleds for what must easily have been a 6 km downhill run. Once again, everyone behaved beautifully and watched where they were going. I doubt we’d have as much luck in the U.S. on such a run as evidenced by my friend Heather who was run down by a sled a few days ago in Oregon. Grazie a Dio she wasn’t injured. Here, if someone ran you down, you might go flying off a cliff!
Murren
Skiers gather in the shadow of the Jungfrau
Sharing the “trail” with sleds and skiers.
A final word on food here: There’s little variation. I know, some of you are thinking “Italian food is all the same” but I beg to differ! There are 10,000 <sic> pasta dishes, there’s risotto, there are fagioli, vegetables beautifully prepared, seafood galore. Sure we have salumi and cheeses in Italy, but meat is often only a small portion of the meal. Here it seems every restaurant’s menu is the same as the next. Raclette, fondue, rösti: everything is bathed in cheese, there’s a huge emphasis on meat and potatoes, and the major form of vegetable is salad. The “Italian food” served here in the Berner-Oberland is more like the American-ized version, not the preparations we have come to love. The bread is phenomenal, though, and breakfast is more than a croissant. The coffee comes in large cups and is robust. While I love my Italian espresso shots, sitting here in the cold a larger cup of coffee seems right, although it costs about as much for a cup of coffee (no refill!) here as it costs for a great panino for lunch in Rome.
Tomorrow we return to Rome. We’d love to hike this place in the summer for comparison, but it has given us resolve to go to the Dolomites next winter. Maybe we’ll have a White Christmas in Italy’s Winter Playground. At least we know they serve Italian food there.
It’s still Christmas here! Ends with Epiphany, January 6!
January 1
It is 20:48 and I am already tucked into my fedderbett. I probably should take a statin drug after what I ate for dinner. At first nothing looked good on the Swiss menu. There were no good antipasti. Surely I would not order pasta here, and certainly not the pizza. Where are the grilled fresh vegetables? So we both went with Rösti and salad. The former are a little like hashbrowns but worse for you, dripping with cheese. At least mine had sliced tomatoes on them. Oh my God, get me back to Italy before I kill myself on this food! The wine is marginal, but the country is jaw-droppingly beautiful and the trains are lovely. We’ve been on four different types today coming from Rome to Lauterbrunnen. (Examples below.) Now to sleep as we only had 4 hours on New Year’s Eve.
EuroCity from Milan to Switzerland
Frecciarosso, top of the line Trenitalia
Interlaken to Lauterbrunnen
January 2
Cogwheel train to the mountains, filled with skiers
With precipitation in the forecast – rain in the valley and snow in the mountains – we decided to head up the Jungfrau side of the valley on the cute cog railway, joining throngs of skiers as well as hikers and those intent on sledding. First stop, Wengen, a resort town in sight of the Jungfrau. The day quickly became about transportation, always popular with Ric. The cog railway goes up very high, ferrying skiers to an array of lifts. They ski down a variety of runs, and in a complex network of lifts and railways, can return for additional runs via traditional ski lifts or rejoin the train for a warm ride to another starting point. We continued on to
Apfelkuchen for 2nd breakfast at Kleine Scheidigg. The apples are barely mortared together with cake. Yes, it was huge. Luckily it was for two.
Kleine Scheidigg and in a heavy snow storm there determined hiking down was not in the cards, so we took another train to Grindlewald, a larger ski resort. Luckily the pass we purchased covers all forms of lifts, gondolas and trains for three days as the tickets purchased one-at-a-time are quite pricey. Reversing, we came back to Wengen, the snow stopped, the clouds parted, the sun came out, and we caught a gondola to a magnificent viewpoint at Mannlichen. We rode so many transports we actually amortized the cost of the 3 day pass in one day. Ric was in heaven, and we managed to log over 8 kilometers on foot too.
At Mannlichen, 3 peaks, the Eiger, the Monch and the Jungfrau
For our flatland readers, sledding is nothing like when we grew up. When we were kids we hoped to find a little hill and take our sleds for a 30, 60, or 90 second ride, then slog back up and do it again until we were soaked through and had blue lips. (Of course as kids in the Upper Midwest, Ric and I also dealt with temperatures as low as -10 Fahrenheit or worse, which led to blue lips pretty damn fast.) Here, they groom the runs for walking and sledding. You take a train or a lift to the start of the trail and can sled for several kilometers on
Ric in the snowfield at Mannlichen. Yes, it was cold!
snow packed for your pleasure. And the temp hovered around 28-30 Fahrenheit, practically spring in Minnesota. Then take a lift or train back up and do it again!
People warned us it was expensive here. They were right on some things. For example, a bottle of water that is CHF 2.20 in the valley where we are staying is Euro 1.80, or $2.44. Up on the mountain, that same bottle of water is CHF 5.50! But everything has to be carted in on the train, increasing costs considerably. I shudder to think the cost of bringing fresh vegetables in. Dinner was on par with prices in Rome, although the wine cost more and was of lower quality. We are spoiled at wine quality and price in Italy: It’s a basic human right to have good wine at a reasonable price in Italy.
I miss hearing and speaking Italian. I never know what will come out of my mouth now. Buongiorno gets a funny look, as does grazie, but guten morgan sounds strange from my lips. Funny, though, I remember my numbers in German although I haven’t spoken it in 40 years. We sat next to four Italian young people on the train this afternoon and I really enjoyed eavesdropping on their conversation. The most priceless statement from one young man, probably 20-22 years old: “I hate the telephone. I never call anyone on my cell phone, except my mamma.” Bravo!
Tomorrow we will attempt a hike on the other side of the valley, magari
On Monday I was a little surprised to find it was Christmas week already. We had the usual advance warning of the Thanksgiving celebration, but
The Galleria on Via del Corso.
that was a false start: the “season” doesn’t kick off in Italy until L’immacolata, December 8, the celebration of the Immaculate Conception. The season does not end at midnight on December 31. Rather, the holiday season lasts until Epiphany, January 6.
In the U.S. we are bombarded with Christmas music beginning at Halloween. Here, the evidence of the coming holiday is a little more subtle. Decorations start going up in early
3 years ago, the lights on Via del Corso celebrated Italy’s 150th year with red, white & green lights. This year, a rainbow.
December, but the majority are not illuminated until the 8th. One barely hears a Christmas Carol outside of a concert or church venue until this very week of Christmas. The music continues to be part of the background until Epiphany. The lack of Christmas music early in the month is almost profound. In fact, less than two weeks ago I was having my nails done and listening to old Beach Boys and other seasonally non-specific American music (very popular here at all times of the year). While shopping at a major department store on the 14th we saw lots of decorations and holiday merchandise, but no seasonal soundtrack. Odd but appealing, this absence of public holiday music made it more fun to listen to our collection of 752 holiday songs on iTunes.
This priceless statue, Venus After the Bath, by Giambologna is in the U.S. Embassy. Here she stands amidst a display of poinsettias that only serve to make her more beautiful.
So what did Ric and Laurel do? In the week following L’Immacolata, the Ambassador held a reception for all Embassy employees at his beautiful residence, Villa Taverna, my boss held a party at his apartment, and we went to an Advent concert at La Chiesa dei Portoghesi. This church has a fabulous organ on which an amazingly talented organist played an improvisational concert. We’ve never heard anything like it: non-traditional, more akin to a jazz session.
Seat of the Portuguese Catholic Church in Rome with an exceptional organ and organist.
We were delighted to be invited to the Boncompangi Ludovisi home at Villa Aurora for a party on December 21, where the Prince and Princess (see Evening with an American Princess) entertained the residents of an orphanage they support. Tucked into the evenings here-and-there, we wandered the city viewing the lights, baked Swedish Kringlor (pastries) as gifts for several people, and decorated Casa di Barton.
The magificent Villa Aurora, on a hill just a few steps off Via V. Veneto.
The Aurora Room, with it’s famous fresco, and a gigantic tree.
Leo (back to camera), Francesco, and Alessandra – with me in the middle – enjoy one of the elegant salons at Villa Aurora.
A lot is crammed into two-and-a-half weeks from l’Immacolata to Christmas, versus the four-or-so weeks we have in the U.S. from Thanksgiving. Last-minute shopping is also a tradition of the season here as in North America. Every day beginning the 18th, the traffic became more and more intense, the horns sounding more frequently and with greater than usual annoyance. But after the usual pre-Christmas recitals, concerts, parties and receptions, almost two weeks of the holiday season remain and we take 4 holidays: Christmas, Santo Stefano (26th), New Year’s Day, and Epiphany (January 6). Gotta love a schedule like that. Clearly there is no separation of Church and State, although Ric says that since the Carabinieri put their nativity scene outside of the station at headquarters in Parioli, that’s sufficient separation.
The tree in Palazzo Margherita, the U.S. Embassy, sparkles in red, white and blue.
On Christmas Eve we attended an early (19:00) Mass at Santa Susanna, the seat of the American Catholic Church in Rome. Apparently Papa
This is outdoor space in 3 season, but for winter, encased in a transparent plastic “tent” heated by flaming torches.
Francesco’s policy of inclusion is working because lightening did not strike our Lutheran selves. At the fashionable hour of 21:00, we took ourselves to our favorite trattoria where we have dined the last three Christmas Eves. They serve an all fish dinner, including mussels sautéed in wine (this is the restaurant where I learned to love cozze), shrimp pate, smoked salmon, marinated anchovies (yum!) and insalata al mare. That was just the antipasto course! Seafood risotto and paccheri with shellfish comprised the primi, and our entrée (secondi) was a whole steamed seabass (spigola) served with puntarelle bathed in an anchovy sauce. Two-and-a-half hours later we headed for home. Yes, we have become quite Roman in our dining hours and duration. We also ate all’aperto in that most restaurants have their outdoor tables encased in a plastic tent with heaters making it warm enough to remove your coat and be comfortable unless a high wind is blowing.
Christmas Eve by the light of the flaming heaters. The waiter took our picture…. I’d had an 18 hour day by this point. That’s my excuse and I’m sticking to it.
The eating must continue, of course, but we chose to forego the family tradition of Swedish plättar (pancakes) and save ourselves for Christmas Lunch, a two-hour affair at a quaint restaurant in the ghetto of Rome. All restaurants and shops are open in this quartiere on Christmas (unless it is Shabbat), making it a convivial destination with some fine options. Many Italians dine out on Christmas Day, we have found, so reservations are essential. There were quite a few people waiting hopefully for a table outside the restaurants lining Via Portico d’Ottavia. We waltzed right in at 14:00 to a fine table in the back by the garden.
We caught up with the Bartons of Omaha Christmas night, and look forward to their invasion visit in August. We also peeked in on Derek via Skype. With a few more Skype sessions planned, by the end of the season we will have seen many friends and family from afar. We will wrap up the season with a day of repose today, Santo Stefano. A wind-and-rain storm last night makes staying inside seem like the best idea. The weekend will have us wandering the streets again (have to work on Friday), but January 1 we’ll take off for Switzerland, a mutual gift to each other: Winter Hiking in the Berner Oberland. I’ll be sure to post news of our trip.
Many thanks for cards, e-cards and various greetings sent our way. However you choose to celebrate, we wish you the very best! Buon Natale, Felice 2014, e tanti tanti auguri!
In a piazza, a forest of Christmas trees surrounds a little cabin where Babbo Natale hears the wishes of the bambini.
One of Princess Rita’s bichon frises dresses for the occasion.
Girovaga 