Summer trip 2019

So many things have happened in a year and I don't really feel up to the task of writing funny comments about our summer trips anymore. But here's a brief rundown of the 2019 trip, as a reminder of how normal life used to be only two summers ago.

A stop in France on our way to pick up Leire from her summer horseback riding camp in Germany.

We spent a little while in Freiburg, where we had been years ago, when Noel was still a toddler pulling on his little boat up and down the city's Bächle canals.

Reiterhof Drechsler, in Bullenheim, where Leire spent two weeks riding and grooming horses. and perfecting her German.

Together again!

 

 

 

Leire gave us an extensive tour of the facilities

The summer camp was not far from Rothenburg ob der Tauber, a very popular tourist destination with lots of pretty stores, including a Christmas shop that the kids loved and that we just knew Aunt Noelia would love too, so we took lots of pictures for her.

It also had a cool playground.

 

 

 

After that we spent a few hours in Ansbach, which has really beautiful gardens.

A highlight was the piles of leaves, which made it feel a little like Montreal in the fall.

 

The main feature of Schwabach, as we remember it, is this giant golden banana.

That, and the leberkässemmel....

Oh yes, and the donuts (I mean Krapfen, of course. My bad).

We also visited Regensburg, which incidentally has a very different name in Spanish, Ratisbona, probably dating back to the times when it was an important city within the Holy Roman Empire.

Beautiful views from the Walhalla memorial.

 

This field somewhere after Passau was one of the prettiest unplanned stops in the trip.

  From Passau it was a short drive into Czech Republic, where our first stop was a very impressive forest called Zbytiny with very tall trees. The weather was rainy and the smell was wonderful, and the kids stuffed themselves with fresh blueberries.

After that we ended up in a small village named Prachatice. We had waltzed into Czech Republic so unprepared that we didn't even realize that the country hasn't adopted the euro despite being part of the EU. Fortunately for us, it was widely accepted anyway.

The next day we visited Budweis, the original home of a certain brand of beer.

This idyllic-looking spot near Litschau quickly turned into the Forest from Hell after we discovered, too late, that it was full of a particularly aggressive type of ant that bit our ankles and, in Christian's case, got into his clothes as he went for a swim. Just imagine the scene when he got dressed again...

A very original, and tall, lookout point near Heidenreichstein

Leire developed a big appetite...

Although it was in theory full, Christian managed to talk his way into getting us a spot at this beautiful campsite in Dobra, which is not only right on a lake but also has these ruins to visit.

After that we finally entered Vienna, where we first stopped at the Donauinsel, or Danube Island, known among other things for its summer festival. We, however, had come for a different and more obscure reason.

A VW T3 gathering + picnic.

 

 In Vienna we got to spend time with the Austrian side of the family.

With Oma Herta

With Opa Herbert and Edith

With Petra, Alex and cousins Simone, Lydia and Lukas

We even caught a nice outdoor festival with lots of good food

 

We also spent a little time in Schwechat, where Christian grew up. The exercise was to burn some calories after putting away this small lunch.

As we started to make our way back home, we stopped in Linz, which has a very cool vibe

This building, which houses a tech museum, inevitably reminded me of a landmark building in San Sebastián, the Kursaal.

There was a moored boat-bar where you could have a drink with these views.

Yes, we did try the Linzertorte, but it was a tad dry. No doubt the kind made for tourists

We also stopped in Rosenheim, where the most remarkable thing was this sausage vending machine

 Bregenz on the other hand was quite impressive. Located right on the eastern shore of Lake Constance, it has the world's largest floating stage for its summer performing arts festival. We didn't catch any shows, but did spend some time admiring the stage set.

  One of the highlights of the return trip was this stop in Geneva to meet up with Mama's old friend Miguel and his family. The friendship goes all the way back to the 1980s in Montreal, where he spent a year in high school while I was living there.

With Miguel's wife Eri and their four lovely kids

The children had a blast at these fountains outside the UN building

We happened to be there for my birthday so we celebrated together.

The next day, on their suggestion, we visited CERN

  Back in France it was a little hard to find a worthy spot to spend the night. We made a couple of wrong turns...

But finally found a very pretty town named Chabeuil with historic buildings and good views.

Not to mention great viennoiseries

 If the campsite at Dobra was special, this one in Saint-Ambroix had its own, unique kind of charm as well. It was tiny, located on a steep slope, and everything (including the owner) felt out of an older era.

Can you spot the van? That was our sleeping spot.

Donut: The Musical

There was still one very special place left to visit: Bouilhonnac, a hamlet where Tia Noelia had been on a summer camp many years ago.

We did a video conference and she couldn't believe we had actually made it all the way there. It was very exciting. The castle had changed from the days that she was working on it, but many other things remained the same, including the building where she'd slept.

A historic picture, with Tia Noelia in the blue cap

Very near Bouilhonnac is the very attractive

 Trèbes, with its canal and outdoor restaurants.

And, it turns out, with a horse and a donkey as well

Our summer trips, alas, typically end in some awful, loud campsite in a tacky tourist town on the Catalan coast, and this year was no exception. The best thing about Comarruga was these pictures of Christian and the kids.

But we have learned our lesson, and vowed not to let this happen again!