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Switzerland 2012
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Saturday August 25, 2012
Bern to Colmar

Sunday August 26, 2012
Colmar, Eguisheim, and Munich
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Monday August 27, 2012
Munich

We knew Sunday would be a busy day.  We wanted to rent bikes to ride to a nearby village.  There were only two places to rent bikes in Colmar - the train station and a parking garage on the other side of town.  Neither place openned until 1pm.  Sunday morning Paul wandered town to find the parking garage.  We also had to catch a train to Munich that evening since we had hotel reservations there. 

We packed up, checked out of the hotel, and left our backpacks in the hotel lobby, and went to the Unter Linden Museum, which was a stunning collection of impeccible artifacts. 



Wine presses



Wine casks




Most of the pieces on display looked brand new even though many were hundreds of years old.  One of the several hundred year old books on display had brilliant white pages and vivid colors that defied the centuries.  The musuem's centerpiece is the Isenheim Alterpiece, a set of paintings that once covered the actual alterpiece. 



















On the way back from the museum we found a car show featuring a number of makes and models I'd never heard of.



After the car show Ray went shopping while the rest of us wisely hit the wine bar for lunch and wine.  We enjoyed a few quick bottles. 



When Ray showed up, he had his Meow t-shirt on.  We had noticed a local man who appeared to be completely blitzed with a couple of his friends.  It was noon on a Sunday, he must have been drinking all Saturday night.  The drunk decided he didn't like Ray for some reason, making more and more noise in Ray's general direction and eventually talking quite loudly about 'Americano gato!'.  Fortunately the drunk's friends were able to control him so he didn't physically acost our Americano gato. 

After lunch at the wine bar Paul lead us to the parking garage where we rented bikes. 





After pumping up all the tires we crossed our fingers and headed out into the French countryside.  We passed the train station, heading southeast on paved and gravel trails into the cornfields.  My GPS app MotionX was a huge help here, keeping us on track for Eguisheim.  It was a gorgeous sunny day. 





Paul's pic



Paul's pic



Paul's pic



Paul's pic



Paul's pic - our first view of Eguishiem



Paul's pic



Paul's pic

Once we found Eguisheim we locked our bikes up and wandered into town.  The town was packed, we quickly found out that we had arrived on the day of the Eguisheim Wine Festival.  We couldn't have planned this any better if we had tried.  We bought our requisite festival wine glasses so we could enter... and partake.  Food, wine, and beer vendors were everywhere, and the town was packed. 






Eguisheim is an ancient walled village.  We entered at the north end of town, which was the end of the parade route.  We then walked counterclockwise between the town walls before entering the center of town where we watched the parade for nearly an hour.  A local high school marching band was excellent and played Kiss' "I was Made for Loving You" and the Beatle's "Let it Be".  Everyone in the crowd captured the songs on their smartphones.  Numerous other costumed dance troupes paraded as well. 



Kiss' I Was Made for Lovin You


The Beatles Let It Be.
Towards the end of the song the band members laid down on the ground, one section at a time, without missing a beat, until they were all playing on their backs on the ground. 
Hard to describe, but it was pretty cool.










I eventually realized that while we were having the time of our lives, we had to get to Munich, and we only had 2 hours to bike back to Colmar, drop off the bikes, hike all the way through town to get our backpacks, and catch the last train that could get us to Munich ... after midnight.  Reluctantly and slowly we left the bliss of the wine festival behind us.








We rode back through the corn fields and vineyards toward Colmar.  We stopped for a few rest room breaks in the vineyards and somehow lost Mike - he had continued on, made a wrong turn and started on the Route de Vin. 







In Colmar, Ray, Kent and I managed to miss the last turn to the parking garage, so we rode around in circles as I grew increasingly concerned that we'd never catch our train.  We'd all had way too much to drink to navigate or give directions over a cell phone successfully.  We rode back to the hotel - the manager was no help in giving directions, at least partially due to both language and intoxication barriers.  Eventually we re-traced our steps and stumbled into the parking garage.  We power walked back to the hotel, grabbed our backpacks, and somehow we all made it to the train station on time.



We hadn't made reservations for the TVG, which was now full for our segment of the trip, but the ticket agent was able to route us to Munich...scheduled arrival at 2am.  I called ahead to our hotel make sure they knew we were coming in late.  We later found out tourists in Munich tend to stay out all night drinking, so unlike Zermatt, the hotel's front desk was open 24 hours day and a 2am arrival would not be a problem.

We were leaving Colmar, vacation destination, on a Sunday evening, so all the trains were packed, and we weren't able to sit together on the first few trains.  We had to change trains in Strasbourg, France, Offenbourg, Germany, and then Mannheim, Germany.  We had dinner at the fantastic McDonalds in Strasbourg, where our choices were fairly limited due to time and lack of any other fast food options. 



View from the Strasbourg train station

We waited perhaps 20 minutes in the dark for our train in Offenbourg.  We were a few minutes late for our 10:30pm arrival in Mannheim, and we weren't all sitting together, and we had 8 minutes to make our connection to Munich or we'd be sleeping in the train station.  We hurridly checked the schedule to find the track for the Munich train, along with hundreds of other passengers.  There was a note that tonight's Munich train would be on a different track than the regular track - most of us saw the note, but not Ray.  I got a call from Ray on my cell indicating he was at the track and there was no train - I told him the correct track number, and he raced to get onboard a minute before the train left.  That was exciting :)  Fortunately we were able to get a compartment to ourselves on the Munich train.  We arrived in Munich at 1:30am, and eventually found the hotel.  They were open as promised, and we crashed in our rooms.

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Switzerland 2012
Previous
Saturday August 25, 2012
Bern to Colmar

Sunday August 26, 2012
Colmar, Eguisheim, and Munich
Next
Monday August 27, 2012
Munich