Lenzburg

About 20 minutes from Zürich is a small town called Lenzburg. We went out there one recent weekend to visit its castle.


The main street in Lenzburg


On the draw bridge


On the grounds of the castle


On the grounds of the castle

A Swiss-Japanese Wedding

Last weekend one of my friends got married in nearby Baden. The couple had a lovely party, and the groom's family arranged for an alphorn player. It was my first time to hear an alphorn played in person. The guests gathered in a courtyard to listen and to watch the bride and groom couple blow into the alphorn. And I, of course, took photos ...

Strasbourg

Last weekend Doc and I took the train to Strasbourg. Amazingly, it's just 2.5 hours away--and that was not on the fast train!!! I had heard Strasbourg is a nice city, but it definitely exceeded my expectations. We had a lovely fall weekend weather wise, which made the city even nicer! We took an open air boat trip along the L'Ill River that went through locks and provided a great view of many sites in the old town and also of the newer areas, including the European Parliament (which unfortunately, we weren't able to visit since it required more advanced notice than we could give). Here are some of our photos:


The old city


Along the L'Ill River


In the locks


European Parliament


The cathedral


View of the city from the top of the cathedral


Restaurant where we ate dinner

Basel

Well, the summer here was short lived and fall has definitely arrived in Zurich. Last weekend, we had some decent weather so we decided to visit Basel for the day. The old town is quite beautiful, especially its Rauthaus (city hall). We also thought it would be fun to walk across the border into France. It was quite interesting how we walked down the street in Basel and everything was in German and after passing the immigration and customs checkpoint everything on the same street was in French.


Das Münster


Inside the Rauthaus


Exterior of the Rauthaus


Das Spalentor

Achada

While driving along the northern coast of Sao Miguel, we came upon a beautiful waterfall tucked against a hillside. There was also a small park across from the waterfall that had grilling facilities and beautiful flowers.

Nordeste

Nordeste, located on the northeast coast of Sao Miguel, was the prettiest town we visited.





As we left town, we experienced a bit of a traffic jam!

Furnas and Cozido

We drove out to a small town called Furnas and spent three days in the eastern part of the island. This area is well known for its steam vents, which were quite impressive. There is also a local dish, cozido, that is placed in bags inside of the steam vents. Dirt is piled on top and the cozido is cooked in the ground for a few hours. Cozido has various meats--sausage, chicken, pork, and beef--as well as potatoes, carrots and cabbage.






Putting the cozido in the ground


Cozido cooking in the ground


Our cozido dinner

As we traveled across the island, we kept seeing people and animals sitting and standing in truck beds. We finally had our cameras ready on this one ...