Friday, August 2

Claude and Pierre Immer are Swiss French speaking friends who we first met in 2007. We try to meet them whenever we are nearby. We arranged to meet them for lunch today in Zurich. They had made a reservation for all six of  us at the Latino restaurant in the Seegarten Hotel about 3 blocks from Lake Zurich. We all arrive within about 10 minutes and hug and start laughing almost immediately. This restaurant is expensive. It is Zurich. Claude tells us later that Zurich is one of the most expensive cities in the WORLD. Yeah!! And, now that we are in Switzerland, the currency is Swiss francs at 1.07 to the US dollar, which is a better exchange rate than the Euro. We all have different dishes and as Linda and I expected, Pierre ordered a bottle of wine. Never saw the price. And, then later, he orders a second bottle. Bummer, but he's like that. We split the bill into 3 equal parts - 125 francs for each couple. Now that's a lunch. Compare it to 170 Euros for our previous night's stay in the beautiful B&B in the Alps with a very nice dinner on the terrace and breakfast. Oh well.

We decide to walk down to the lake and look for a chocolate shop. Its hot. The sun feels like the Florida sun. There are young people sunning themselves on swim platforms and swimming in the cold Lake Zurich water and white swans nearby. We know its cold because Dan and Sue put their feet in it. After about 30 minutes and sweating, we find a chocolatier. ITS AIR CONDITIONED!!!!!!!!!! Chocolate and cool air, oh thank goodness. First air conditioning in a hot week. We take our time looking. I buy some truffles to eat there. If you take anything out of the store, it will melt within minutes. Better to eat immediately and its real good.

We walk back to the cars and say goodbye. Nice visit.

Back on the road, it is really hot and the air conditioning in the car cannot keep up. We suffer. We head for Baden-Baden for the night. Its an ancient spa town. We think we might get a massage, but the timing will probably be wrong. As I drive, Dan makes phone calls looking for a place to spend the night. The first two places he calls are full, so he does again what Rick Steves suggests - call the information center. They quickly give him two places, one 50 Euros less than the other. We choose that one and they have two rooms for us.

After studying the map, we decide to take a detour off the main road to drive through the Black Forest. Parts of the drive are fields of crops and some of the stretches are the woods. If you were walking, you can see where this forest got its name. We drive through St. Peter and then later through St. Margen. As we backtrack, we stop at St. Peter and stretch. As we walk out of the parking lot, there are 5 kids trying to sell books and other stuff to make money for themselves. One of the boys speaks a little English. Dan and Linda talk to them, quiz them, and then, not seeing anything they want (all the books are in German - go figure) give them a donation.

We backtrack a bit and then return to the highway and drive to our B&B for the night. Its clean and neat. Our host and hostess both speak English and they tell us how to catch the bus right outside the door and take it into the Zentrum (center) of town. We walk around a little in the main platz and settle on a restaurant which has outside seating. Having taken a cold shower and now with a cool breeze, we're refreshed and ready for a good German beer. We are trying to drink as many different German beers as we can and Dan calculates that we have tried as many as 60 different beers so far and so we order accordingly. Linda is starting to like dark beers like Sue and I, so that's what we have. The food is good. When I pay the bill inside the restaurant, I learn that our waiter is from Kosovo. It appears that there are a lot of eastern European people working in Germany. That may be because of the expansion of the EU which must make it easier for them to come west.

As we walk around the city, we happen upon the Lowenbrau beer hall which Sue had read about. Another beer and I eat 2 pretzels. Off the non-gluten diet. This place has a band but they play a variety of music, no oompah music. We walk over to the bus stop and our bus comes immediately. Ten minutes later we're back at our B&B and shortly after that in bed.