In and around Emmental

I(Chris) had a 2-day business meeting in the Emmental – a region in west central Switzerland, forming part of the canton of Bern. It was supposed to be a drive that is less than 2 hours from our office, according to an estimate made by Google map. But due to road works near Burgdorf (the main city of the region), SK (who kindly drove me and another colleague) had to detour several times and we got lost in the countryside.

The GPS (Ms. Garmin) was “stubborn” and “narrow-minded” by insisting on guiding us to the narrowest country road. The end result was that we were late but were treated to some beautiful views of the rural area.

Our hotel, Romantik Hotel Bären is in the village of Dürrenroth. The hotel has a street-side seating area for drinks but there is hardly any traffic – so it was a nice place to gather around and relax.

The hotel’s guest rooms are in a separate building across the street from the restaurant and office.

My room faces the local church which rang its bell at 6am and continued every 15 minutes – so I made it to breakfast both mornings at 7am.

The region is mostly devoted to farming, particularly dairy farming. So it is no surprise that the region’s main produce is cheese. Emmental cheese or Emmentaler has big holes in them which is known generally outside Switzerland as Swiss cheese. The holes are called eyes.

Not sure why the cows, some visible in barns, are not out and about as the grass is so lusciously green. The area looked like a giant golf course.

The landscape is dominated by meadows and pastureland, with forest interspersed.

What peaceful countryside.

Mummelsee, Schwarzwald (Black Forest), Germany

Mummelsee is one of the most visited lakes in the area since it lies directly on the Black Forest High Road (Schwarzwaldhochstraße, see earlier post). In fact, we did not know about it until we came upon it at lunch time.

The lake is 3.7 acres in size, 17 meters deep and is located at 1028.5 m above sea level. Spring came really late this year. The lake was still iced over during Easter and judging by some fresh footprints, someone made it across on foot.

The lake is bordered in the west, north and east by steep, wooded mountain slopes. It is a glacial cirque lake – I(Chris) have to mention it as I enjoyed geology while in high school.

Next to the lake on the almost flat south bank is a chapel and a small hotel – the Berghotel Mummelsee.

We had a hearty lunch at the Berghotel Mummelsee (by the way, berg means mountain and see means lake in German, = Mountain hotel Mummel lake).

The shop next to the hotel is a tourist trap for international tourists and Germans alike (judging by the language spoken). It sold every thing from stuffed dolls (witches, bears, etc), magnets, liquors (which Sue bought some), to local delicacies.

Dried smoked pork is a specialty and we bought some.  It tasted very smoky and was quite good with a soft cheese in a sandwich. Schmalz is one of the products sold with the dried meat. We did know what it was at first until they served us some at the restaurant. It is essentially rendered animal fat – a kind of clarified lard with spices added to it – commonly used by middle and eastern European  Jews.

The area is definitely worth exploring by hiking during the summer.

Schwarzwaldhochstraße, the Black Forest High Road

The Black Forest  (Schwarzwald) is a wooded mountain range in Baden-Württemberg, southwestern Germany.

On our return trip from Baden-Baden (See earlier posts), we decided to take a scenic route, instead of the autobahn (which offers fun in a different way). Running east and then south from Baden-Baden, this route is a part of the German federal highway (Bundesstraße) B500 which took us right through it.

The route is known as the Schwarzwaldhochstraße, or “Black Forest High Road”, is the oldest and one of the best known themed drives in Germany.  It is about 60 km (37 miles) from Baden-Baden to Freudenstadt. Below is a profile of its elevation, and along with the above map, both courtesies of the official website – here.

As a mountain road, it was a pleasure to drive on with few sharp bends and a generous width for the entire length.

As we climbed higher, the area was still covered in snow.

Against the white snow, the dense forests do look black from a distance.

The Black Forest occupies part of the continental divide between the Atlantic Ocean drainage basin (drained by the Rhine) and the Black Sea drainage basin (drained by the Danube which originated from the Black Forest).  Pine is the predominant tree in the forests.

Spring came late this year as we were traveling during the Easter weekend. Some ski slopes were still open.

This could be a nice trail for cross-country ski or snowshoe-ing.

At the mid point, we stopped by at Mummelsee, a popular lake along the way (#13 on the map), for lunch. See later post. After we reached Freudenstadt at the end of the Schwarzwaldhochstraße, we went to Furtwengen to see the German Clock Museum (see later posts) before returning to Freiburg (see earlier post here) via B31. One section of this highway passes through a narrow canyon, known as the Hell’s Valley (Höllental).

The narrowest part of a valley was marked by a bronze statue of a deer (Hirschsprung) ready to leap over the gap which is reported to be about 9m. We did not stop here but saw the statue high up on a cliff as our car sped pass it.

There are lots of hiking trails in the Black Forest and a hike through this canyon would be really fun. Alternatively, one can take the train – the Höllentalbahn (Hell’s train) – one of the steepest track in Germany, which we luckily caught it on camera while it was going across a viaduct.

Excuse us for the fuzzy pictures as many were taken from a moving car and some were taken through a less than clean windscreen.

UEFA Champions League Final 2013, Wembley

This year’s UEFA Champions League Final was played between two German teams in London’s Wembley stadium. The football teams were Borussia Dortmund and Bayern Munich. We were lucky again this year to be able to see the game as guests of a broadcasting partner of UEFA. We flew into London Gatwick super-early on game day on a late May weekend.

Last year, the final game was played in Munich with Bayern Munich being one of the finalist. They lost, however to the visiting team – Chelsea, to much visible disappointment of the whole city. Here are our posts on last year’s pre-game show and the game.

The Wembley stadium was huge. From the hospitality suite, we circled around half the stadium to our seats somewhere near mid-field.

The pre-game show started with both sides marching onto the field in medieval armor in their respective team colors.

Bayern Munich was in red, Borussia Dortmund was in yellow.

The two sides, shooting arrows and waving fake swords and shields, charged at each other on the field fighting a mock battle.

Then the giant flags came out.

The best seats in the house were on the other side where the players faced the spectators.

The Dortmund fans were seated to our right side.

The Munich fans were seated to our left side, a bit more organized in their expression of support.

The red flares lit by the Munich fans were dramatic, dangerous, and sent choking smoke everywhere.

We took pictures of some of the actions on the pitch but they are no match to what can be seen on TV, so we won’t bother to post them. Although Dortmund mounted an early attack, Munich finally won the match clearly by being the better team of the day (Dortmund 1 – Munich 2). This was the scene immediately after the game was over.

The Munich players and the fans celebrating the win below where we sat.

The German team, Kings of Europe, collected the trophy as seen on the giant TV screen. Angela Merkel, the German chancellor could be seen in the background (the only woman in a purple outfit).

The hospitality experience, however, was slightly less than Munich last year, partly due to the smaller space.

We had a wonderful day in London, really enjoyed the game and our company. After the game, we stayed the night in London. On the next day, we took the Eurostar train to Paris where we saw the French Open Tennis games (see earlier posts here and here).

Museum Freider Burda, Baden-Baden

While I am fixing the pictures taken from our June trip to Paris, we will continue with pictures of our Easter trip to Baden-Baden in the Black Forest. The earlier posts on Baden-Baden are here and here.

As usual, we were rushing around trying to catch as much as sights as possible on this trip to the Black Forest. After having gone up by a funicular to the summit of Merkur overlooking Baden-Baden, we came back to the city center and wandered in the direction of Lichtentaller Allee (Light Alley) – a 350 year old, 3 km walk along a river among the city’s parks. A white modern building can be seen situated next to a classical stone building joined by a connecting bridge.

The older neoclassical building is the Staatlichen Kunsthalle and the new one (on the left) is the Museum Freider Burda (which has a beautiful website, don’t miss it).

Museum Freider Burda, completed in 2004, is the work of Richard Meier – an architect famous in the 80’s.

He won the Pritzker prize in Architecture in 1984 with Los Angeles’s Getty center.

He is well known for using white materials and built with early to mid-century styles in spirit – think Le Corbusier.

Here in Baden-Baden, apparently much has been done to harmonize the new building next to the old museum and at the same time preserve the identities of the two buildings.

The interior has a ramp system that allows visitor to slowly ascend to the higher floors in the building.

Lots of natural light.

According to the museum website, the fascination of color and emotional expressive qualities of painting are the driving force behind the collector’s interest in art. Freider Burda is a locally-born, leading commercial printer and publisher in Europe.

We visited another one of Richard Meier’s white museum – the Barcelona Museum of Contemporary Art (Museu d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona or MACBA). Here is a picture we took of it 2 years ago.

We like visiting museums. But sometimes the building is more interesting than the contents. Like a box of bonbon, the container is sometimes more attractive.

Is this the case with the Museum Freider Burda at Baden-Basen ? We never knew because we did not have enough time to see the exhibits – paintings by Matta Fiktionen. But there were some sculpture on the grounds to look at.

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Roland-Garros 2013, Paris

This is the first time for us to attend the French Open Tennis tournament (see earlier post about Serena Williams). The Stade Roland-Garros is situated at the outskirt of Paris on the west near the Porte d’Auteuil. The entrance to Roland-Garros was about 10 minutes walk from the train station.

There were no lines to enter as we arrived in mid-afternoon after the matches started at 11am. But the public areas around the stadiums (the Allees) and open courts were quite crowded.

We bought some souvenirs and found our seats in the main court – Court Philippe Chatrier. A couple of friends who arrived earlier greeted us and provided us with sandwiches!  Nice.

This is the broadcasting open air studio on the main court.

By the time we settled down, we missed two earlier matches played by Victoria Azarenka (seeded third) and the Frenchman J0-Wilfried Tsonga (seeded 6th). The first game we saw was a men’s game between Ernests Gulbis (ranked #40) of Latvia

and Gael Monfils (ranked #81), a Frenchman who has a reputation for doing goofy things on court.

The match stopped for about 10 minutes due to rain.

The match was tense which took four sets to decide the winner – the Frenchman who received much support throughout the match won.

For a while, there were discussions about moving the French Open tournament to another location due to the size of Stade Roland-Garros. In 2011, it was decided that Roland-Garros will undergo major renovations by 2018. Court n°1 will be demolished, while 2 new courts will be built. In addition, a retractable roof will be installed on the Philippe Chatrier court (point proven during this match). For more info about the renovation, see this recent NY Times article.

This is the overhead camera masquerading as an emirates jumbo jet.

We never saw a match played on a clay court live before. The clay and the white lines offers direct and immediate evidence where the ball landed – there is little need to rely on electronics.

The clay court was “ploughed” between games. According to Wikipedia:

Clay courts slow down the ball and produce a high bounce when compared to grass courts or hard courts. For this reason, clay courts take away some of the advantages of big servers and serve-and-volleyers, which makes it hard for these types of players to dominate on the surface. For example, Pete Sampras, known for his huge serve and who won 14 Grand Slam titles, never won the French Open – his best result was reaching the semi-finals in 1996. Many players who have won multiple Grand Slam events have never won the French Open, including John McEnroe, Venus Williams, Stefan Edberg, Boris Becker, Martina Hingis and Lindsay Davenport.

Water was sprayed onto the court presumably to keep it from being kicked up as dusts.

After the Serena match (see earlier post), we walked around the outside courts. Some other matches were still playing.

This is Monica Puig (#87) playing on Court 7.

Overall, it was fun and the atmosphere was great. Weather was not friendly however – it rained and was cold.

Serena Williams at Roland-Garros 2013

The French Open Tennis 2013 concluded today with Rafael Nadal winning the men’s final. Yesterday, Serena Williams beat Maria Sharapova to win the ladies’ final. Congratulations to both winning players who proved their longevity.

We had a chance to see the French Open in its first week (Day 4) and saw Serena Williams in her second round match at the main court  – Court Philippe Chatrier.

Our tickets were for the Court Philippe Chatrier where four matches were scheduled to play starting at 11 am. Intermission between games. We saw an earlier men’s match (see later post) before Serena’s.

When we arrived, the third match had already started and Serena’s match was the last of the day.

Serena warming up.

Serena of USA is ranked #1. Not much introduction about her is needed. Sue normally supports the underdog but she cheered for Serena there. Sue spotted a woman in the stand who we believed is Serena’s mom.

Serena’s opponent on the day was Caroline Garcia from France who is ranked #114 and only 19 years old!

A short clip from the Roland-Garros site about Caroline Garcia:

This year was her third in the main draw at the French Open. Two years ago she reached the same stage and was good enough to take Maria Sharapova to three sets. She has also played twice at the Australian Open, although has yet to visit either Wimbledon or Flushing Meadows. Her best win came earlier this year in Paris (indoors) when she beat the former French Open champion Francesca Schiavone, who at the time of their match held a ranking of No.53.

She put up a little fight against Serena and lost the match (1-6, 2-6), although the spectators were cheering for her. She was one of 11 French women in the draw.

After Caroline Garcia left the court, Serena spoke some French during the interview, much to the surprise and delight of the spectators. Serena won the French Open only once before in 2002.

These are some of the workers on the court. Ball girl.

Ball boy.

They are the “ramasseurs de balles” which in English translates literally as “gatherers of balls”.

More about Roland-Garros in our next post.

Baden-Baden, Germany, part 2

Continuing from an earlier post on Baden-Baden … Other than the spas, Baden-Baden is also famous for its casino (Kurhaus). In 1800’s, gambling was banned in some of the neighboring countries and as a result, the rich people of the surrounding states congregated here to try their luck.

I (Chris) was not wearing a tie and Sue was not in a skirt, nor were we in a gambling mood, so we skipped the casino and went to the coffee shop.

People were very well dressed even in the coffee shop which looks out onto an open plaza (Kurgarten) with small shops, a lawn and a bandstand.

A very pleasant and I might even say elegant place to have tea.

Here, we thought it appropriate to try the Schwarzwälder Kirschtorte, otherwise known as the Black Forest cake in the US or Black Forest gateau in the UK (don’t know why a french word is used here). It was good and one can definitely taste the alcohol. We later found out that the cake owed its name to the cherry liquer (Kirshwasser) that comes from the Black Forest.

Next to the casino is the pump house (Trinkhalle) that was built in the 1830’s to service the spas of the casino which is stunningly grand. It is now a tourist information center.

The arcade is richly decorated with murals.

The town center was dead quiet at night – it is too early in the year.

Very pedestrian friendly shopping streets. We did some minor damage to our wallets here. Since we had our car, size and weight was not a concern but we cannot deduct the sales tax.

This is the main drag – Lange strasse.

A restaurant across the street from the Gasthaus where we had dinner.