April 2, 2010
This morning I hopped on a train bound for Liechtenstein. Liechtenstein is a tiny little country between Switzerland and Austria with a monarchy rule. The first stop was the visitor center for a map then it was on to Hofkellerei aka the Court Wine Cellar. WTG - I missed you guys on my wine tasting!!! Come visit! Hofkellerei specializes in 2 types of wine - Pinot Noir and Chardonnay. These grapes are all grown on site and processed on site. ALL GRAPES ARE HAND PICKED AND PROCESSED! This to me is amazing. Hofkellerei uses no machines to make their wine. And you can tell by the taste. Their production is 25,000 bottles per year. Unfortunately they were out of Chardonnay; it won't be finished for another month. Guess that means a trip back. The Pinot Noirs were amazing! These are both semi-dry wines, light, no bitter aftertaste. One was white and one was a Rose. I bought a bottler of each! They do produce other wines, but the grapes are imported from Austria. They also sell a plethora of wine from around the world. They have California, but no North Carolina on the list.
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| My friend the snail |
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| A fairytale forest |
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| There are flowers everywhere! |
Next I walked up the big hill to visit the Prince of Liechtenstein. He wasn’t home, so I took a few pictures of his fairytale house and walked back down. On the trail, there were many many snails. Big snails. The birds were chirping, the breeze is blowing, and I’m in a tank top soaking up some rays and looking at snowcapped mountains. This, folks, is why I moved to Switzerland. It is just amazing!
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| The Princely Catle |
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| I am in this picture |
I ate lunch outside, because most restaurants have “garten” seating. I ordered a coke and a margarita pizza. My glass came with ice in it! I love this! In most places in Europe, you don’t get ice. They drink barely cold everything. As I sat their enjoying the sun, a bird played in the shrub beside me. I found this amazingly relaxing.
Next stop was the Post museum, which is all about the mail in Liechtenstein. Then it was on to the Liechtenstein Museum. This was a very nice museum about the history of the country starting from the earliest discovered artifact in 4000 BC through today with exhibits on culture and the Princely family. They had a special exhibit on Easter Eggs. This spurred me to look into the history of the Easter egg. See Tangent below. I also visited the church and sat for a bit.
I jumped on the bus and went back to Buchs in Switzerland to catch my train. I decided while in Buchs that I should look around. I found Switzerlands "Tiniest Village" and a few other things.
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| Dad, look at all these trains you can see! |
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The real reason I'm in Switzerland:
To see blue elephants on top of buildings. |
Tangent of the week:
There is some debate over the origin of the Easter egg. Some say and some dispute it was a pagan ritual to celebrate spring and the egg symbolized the rebirth of the earth. Then Christians adopted the Easter egg to symbolize the resurrection of Christ. Jews also use the egg during Passover to symbolize Hashlamin. Evidence has shown that the Zoroastrians were uses the egg as long as 2500 years ago. As a Christian, I realize today that much of our rituals and holidays have their origins in the pagan religions. After all, Christmas was aligned with the Winter Solstice, but we have no idea when Christ was born. Early Christians had a habit of aligning “Christian ceremonies” with those of the pagans, because it was easier to convert people. Therefore, I’m laying my bet on the pagan origin or the Easter egg. As a child and up until today, I had no idea why we colored Easter eggs. I just thought it was fun. And now you know the rest of the story.
