Life Update

Just a quick post to share a little news – we’re coming home!

After living in Switzerland for a year, we’ve decided it’s time for us to move back stateside. We’ve had such an amazing experience here - truly once in a lifetime! - and we are beyond thankful for the past year. Lots of factors play into this decision, but probably the biggest reason is that we are ready to live in the same country as our family and friends again. We miss y'all! 

As much as we loved living in Colorado, we’ve decided to settle down in Texas…specifically, the Promised Land.
 

Andy has accepted an awesome opportunity in College Station, and we’re really, really excited to live in one of our favorite places in the world. We will hop on a plane headed west on August 20 – just in time to see the Ags btho UCLA!

In the meantime, we’ve still got plenty of traveling to do! We started our European Farewell Tour this past weekend in Pamplona, Spain – before August 20, we’ll also make it to:

Copenhagen, Denmark
Stavanger, Norway
Cinque Terre, Italy
Verdun, France
Brussels, Belgium
Neum, Bosnia-Herzegovina
Budva, Montenegro
Dubrovnik, Croatia

Here we go!

June: Rome, Neuschwanstein Castle, and Wengen

Rome
Rome was always high on our priority list of cities to visit, but we hadn’t yet made it happen and weren’t sure when we would be able to. We ended up having the perfect opportunity to see it, and got to see some family as well; at the beginning of June, Andy’s dad Keith and aunt Debra took a 10-day trip to Italy with a church group from the Beaumont area, so we decided to meet up with them for just a couple days at their last stop, Rome. It was very much a whirlwind visit – we arrived late at night on Monday, June 6 and left pretty early in the morning Wednesday, June 8, so we essentially had one full day to see the city.

We joined the tour group bright and early at 7 am Tuesday morning and immediately headed to St. Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican City. After walking around the basilica for a bit, we were led down below the ground level to the grottoes, where there are a number of individual chapels. Groups are able to reserve these chapels in the morning before the basilica is officially open to visitors to hold their own mass, which is what the tour group had arranged. This was such a special experience – Andy and I aren’t Catholic, but obviously praying and worshiping in arguably the most important church in the world was pretty amazing. Even more poignant to me though was walking through the grotto past all the other chapels with individual mass services being held, listening to people from literally all over the world praying and singing in all different languages. Really, really cool. 

St. Peter's Basilica

Bernini's baldacchino inside the basilica

St. Peter's Square

After mass, we had an official tour of the basilica and St. Peter’s Square, a bit of free time to wander around the Vatican City, and then another guided tour of the Vatican museums and the Sistine Chapel. We were so glad to see all of it through a guided tour rather than by ourselves – not only was it much easier logistically, but we were able to learn so much more than we would have otherwise.

After the Vatican City, the bus took us to the Coliseum, where we had another guided tour, and then to San Pietro in Vincoli (Saint Peter in Chains) church. This basilica houses Michelangelo’s Moses and Peter’s chains from his imprisonment in Jerusalem. Interesting fact about the Moses from Wikipedia: Moses is depicted with horns, connoting "the radiance of the Lord", due to the similarity in the Hebrew words for "beams of light" and "horns". This kind of iconographic symbolism was common in early sacred art, and for an artist horns are easier to sculpt than rays of light. 

Near the Colosseum with Keith and Deborah

Inside the Colosseum

Outside view

Moses

Peter's chains

We got back to our hotel around 5 pm and had a couple of hours to rest before joining Andy’s dad and aunt for dinner. It was great to see them, and we loved getting to hit the highlights of Rome – overall, a very successful 2-night getaway!

Nueschwanstein Castle

This weekend trip was marked on my calendar as “Liechtenstein,” because that was the original plan; we had booked an Airbnb right on the border between Switzerland and Liechtenstein, and we planned to spend all day Saturday hiking in the tiny country. Terrible weather ruined that plan though, so we improvised!

We rented a car and brought Sam with us to Appenzell, Switzerland, about a 4 hour drive from Geneva. Our rental was a super-charming small apartment on the first floor of an old farmhouse: https://www.airbnb.com/rooms/723602

It was raining really hard when we woke up on Saturday with no end in sight, so we decided to drive until we got out of the rain – 2 hours later, we ended up in Füssen, Germany, the home of Neuschwanstein Castle. If you haven’t heard of it:

The palace was commissioned by Ludwig II of Bavaria as a retreat and as a homage to Richard Wagner. Ludwig paid for the palace out of his personal fortune and by means of extensive borrowing, rather than Bavarian public funds. The palace was intended as a personal refuge for the reclusive king, but it was opened to the paying public immediately after his death in 1886. The palace serves as the inspiration for Disneyland's Sleeping Beauty Castle and later, similar structures.
We had a German lunch, took an easy hike up to the castle, and enjoyed the view at the top for a bit. We stopped for dinner in Vaduz, Liechtenstein on the way back to our apartment, just to say we had been there – to give you an idea of how small it is, Vaduz is the capital city and has a population of 5,270. It was still raining pretty hard there, so we didn’t really walk around or try to explore – but we’ve been to Liechtenstein! 

Hiking to the castle

Neuschwanstein Castle

Wengen

Andy’s mom Joyce and little brother Anthony came to visit us for 10 days at the end of June, and we left it up to Joyce to decide where we should go and what we should see while they were here. She picked the Jungfrau region of Switzerland, and it did not disappoint!

Wengen is a charming little mountain village in central-ish Switzerland with just 1,300 year-round residents. It’s only accessible by train and cable car because it’s car-free, and it is breathtakingly beautiful. 

Maybe the best picture I've ever taken

We spent three days hiking around Wengen, Gimmelwald, and Mürren, all small mountain communities with the most gorgeous views. The whole region is full of hiking trails that are pretty well-marked and can connect you to other towns, so we had a wonderful time every day hiking for a bit, then stopping for a snack – then hiking for a bit, then stopping for a coffee. We had bad weather one day, but other than that, everything about our time in Wengen was just really idyllic – if you like to hike, it’s basically paradise! And getting to experience it with some of our family made it even more fun.

Friendly cow

My own personal heaven

After about an hour of hiking the morning of our last day there, we took a train to the “Top of Europe,” Jungfraujoch, which is essentially the saddle between the Jungfrau and Mönch mountains. It has an elevation of 11,371 feet, and the train station at the top is the highest in Europe. The Top of Europe building includes several panoramic views, a restaurant, a chocolate shop, an ice cave, and a few other attractions. 

The views are spectacular, but the train ticket is very expensive – and it’s a VERY popular place for tourists from all over the world, so it’s pretty crowded. If you find yourself in this region, I wouldn’t recommend spending the money; just use that time to do another spectacular hike! 

Next trips up: Copenhagen, Denmark; Stavanger, Norway; and Cinque Terre, Italy!