Oberammergau, Liechtenstein, and Switerland ...

July 8, 1963

We got up comfortably late and had continental breakfast, little pots of tea or coffee on the tray with hard buns and delicious butter and jam. Daddy took the car to be tuned while we wash close, wrote letters and rested. Then we sallied forth shopping. We got a nice tent, for folding chairs and the stool and folding table for about hundred and $150. I got my purple stretch pants and Patty a blue wool drindle skirt and blouse. We climbed the Stadtturm, the town tower and saw the Goldane Dachl, the king’s palace with its gilded copper plated balcony and the Lauben or vaulted arcades which had all kinds of shops inside. We saw the Hofkirks over the roofs where the Archduke Maximilian is buried. We got supplies for lunch and took off again.

We ate overlooking the city on the beginning of the road to Partenkirchen and Gromish which are in Germany. As we were eating a Canadian family also stopped and they told us the past was very steep but it was nothing compared to the little label! It was rainy and cold all afternoon. We had all our things in the backseat instead of on top. We got to Oberammergau about 3:30 after driving through very picturesque little towns with painted walls, lovely gardens of flowers and window boxes. We stopped at a lovely little place with paneled walls, leaded windows, gleaming bar and soft smoky atmosphere for cokes and arrest.

Oberammergau was lovely. Mother thought it had gotten very commercialized she was here as a child. The streets are lined with houses with beautiful paintings of Bible scenes on them and all have wooden beams and whitewashed walls. We went on a tour of the theater and saw all the costumes, the spears, crosses and the huge stage with its open air setting. We bought some postcards and a script of the play and wandered around the wood carving shops a while trying to find something cheap enough to buy, but did not get anything.

Our camp was on a little island and we used our tent the first time. We cooked on the little

gas stoves inside the gym building. Met an army man and his daughter, Patty’s age. They had a VW two and a big Alsatian dog. He was a trainer working with Army boys? It was a track and we saw the athletes practicing. As they came in to put their things away they spoke to us nicely “Gruss Gott,” God bless you. It was drizzling a little and cold. Mother was sitting there sowing and she gave Bobby his PJs to put on. He kept yelling they were too baggy and she would not listen. Finally when she look she discovered they were John’s. Bobby thought that was so funny. So with the tensions of living cooped up together we have some fun to.

July 9, 1963

We were up and off early for a long drive. We got back into Austria pretty quick through the Fern Pass which also was nothing. At noon we were going over the Arlerg and it reminded us a bit of Turkey, big barren hills and we really knew we were climbing. We stopped for lunch by a little stream just over the pass, very cold.

Around 3:00 we passed Feld Kirk and into Liechtenstein. Stopped in Vadus and peaked in the church, bought some stamps and looked into a real nice art museum while daddy and the kids got ice cream. I got four prints of things we had seen.

All afternoon we drove past lovely lakes, first Lake Walen and then Lake Zürich. We stopped just sort short of Zürich for the first night after looking at one camp and deciding against it we went to another nicer one. There was nice lawn and a swimming place next door were Pat and Bobby went in but it was too cold for the rest of us. There were swans at the edge to. The people next to us were French. They drove up and spread out a lumpy looking thing and then began pumping it up the ridges were rubber tubes that inflated to hold up a tent, most amazing! It rained hard but we were cozy and our tent.

July 10, 1963

This was the day we really made tracks and site saw! We have seen three big towns in one day. Within a few minutes after we started off we were in downtown Zürich. We found a big department store and got mother and the boys some shoes. Bobby was given a helium balloon. We went to the museum then saw a lot of very interesting rooms furnished as in the middle ages. There were water containers shaped like fish, wooden flowers, carved cribs, chandeliers, leaded windows, kitchens with all the old kettles, etc. libraries, harpsichord’s, and all this in the huge old building with lots of corridors, stairs, ivy clinging to the walls outside. This was the Swiss national Museum we look for the costume section but it was closed, worse luck

On to Lucerne. We had read what to do in Europe on $5 a Day so we went to the railway station for lunch. This was the gastronomic high point of our trip. We hunted around till we found a cozy little alcove in the back of the restaurant with the double row of tables. We ordered what the book said, rosti and sausage.  It was pouring outside the mullion window by us, very cozy and nice in our little room. Our meal came, on a little candle warmer and rosti was potatoes boiled, sliced, fried and baked, tender crisp and hot, sausages big is large bananas in a delicious gravy, butter lettuce with a light dressing and our first Coke since Iran with lemon squeezed into them. It was wonderful. We ate and ate and ate. Then for dessert the waitress brought a cart loaded with everything good and we chose strawberry torte, puff pastry crust with strawberries and three big puffs of cream. All and all the meal was a huge success.

After lunch we walked across the Kapelbrucke, wooden bridge with quaint pictures on each cross support of the roof, the Reuss River slipping clear and full of green blue bubbles underneath and the sides festooned with bright flowers. We hunted for Birbohms which is also mentioned in Europe on $5 and bought John a watch for about $11. The clerks were charming and helped a lot in choosing. They wouldn’t let us get the most expensive one. Some American girls were choosing watches fixed as pendants. We had a hard time meeting up with daddy. He was going around a different block than the one we were walking down. Bobby’s balloon flew away. We finally got together and off to our third major city in the day. It was clearing a bit and we saw a glimpse of the high Alps in the distance, the Trois Cole and Bernese Overland, all we ever saw of the Alps.

 

The drive to Basel was uneventful, it was dark and rainy and we were all tired. We were going to go to Aunt Gerda Laun’s sister but it got quite late and we had not written to her so we decided to not look her up. We stopped at the railway station and got spoons and souvenir dolls for Patty and stamps for John and then went and climbed the tower of the Cathedral. The tower was quite high and we had a nice view of the town and the Rhine River. The church was very lovely, rather empty, quiet and shadowy at that time of night we set. We set off again across the border into Germany and camped at a rather forlorn little place. Not many there, it was like a meadow. We fixed supper on the gas. Mother and daddy wash some clothes which was not so hot an idea as the clothes didn’t dry. We talked a little with two Australian boys who came and made friends.