Art’s Travel Adventures

Last night Mike asked “what does Rick Steves suggest we do in Zermatt?” I’m pretty sure he suggested not to come here. I’m glad we ignored his advice this time. Our answer to “what do you do in Zermatt?” would be one word. MATTERHORN.

Yesterday was overcast and rainy. So no Matterhorn siting.

After a long jet laggy night we woke up at 6am to check the sky. Thick fog and clouds on the mountains, so we went back to bed. We headed down to breakfast at around 8am. Delicious breakfast buffet. We kind of stuffed ourselves. The whole time I watched the clouds move across the mountain hoping they’d clear so we’d get a glimpse of the Matterhorn.

After breakfast we walked over to the grocery store to grab some snacks then headed back to the room to wait for the clouds to clear. I napped. I woke up and Mike told me the sky was clearing so we headed out to see if we could see the famous mountain.

Spoiler alert:

We headed up the main drag to find a good view. When we glimpsed the peak for the first time Mike’s exclamation was something like. “Oh my god! OH MY GOD!!” I had to smile when I heard that. I tend to put a ton of pressure on myself to create a nice vacation for us and I’m always worried Mike won’t enjoy himself or think that it’s worth it. When I heard “Oh my God! OH MY GOD!!” I think I let out a small sigh of relief. This was worth it.

We kept moving closer and closer getting better and better pictures. We ended up at a little shaded spot just taking pictures and staring at this spectacular mountain peak. I took so many pictures I could fill this blog. Here’s a photo montage. Watch as much or as little as you’d like.

Rick Steves says Zermatt is hard to get to and extremely touristy compared to, say, the alps of the Lauterbrunnen Valley (one of my favorite places on the planet) and I’d agree. Plus, during the day there is non-stop construction noises and construction helicopters flying around making it not particularly peaceful. But seeing the Matterhorn was worth the crowds, travel and noise.

After 30-45 minutes of mountain gazing we strolled back through town in Matterhorn afterglow and headed to the train station. We had to figure out our long journey to our next stops tomorrow, Pisa and Lucca. The train attendant was very helpful in finding us a route and booking our tickets. Fortunately, Mike was checking out routes and things were looking tricky and crowded, thus our walk to the train station to get expert help.

Tickets in hand, we grabbed a couple of Bratwursts on the way back to the hotel.

The hotel staff (all charming and very helpful) suggested we eat in the breakfast room which had this view.

We headed up to the room and napped for a while and then I headed out to see the Matterhorn again while Mike worked on his blog. I found a little cemetery behind the church where mountain climbers who died while climbing the Matterhorn were buried and then strolled through a little park.

I wanted to get Mike out of the room one more time to see the mountain in different lighting so we headed back out and grabbed a few more pictures before grabbing dinner. (Burgers, nothing worth writing about.)

When we got back to the hotel we asked if we could go down into the lower dining room of the restaurant at the hotel. We wanted to see this.

It’s an old electric railcar that they placed here and then built the hotel around it. Neat! The restaurant is only open Wednesday through Sunday but the hotel clerk turned on the lights for us and let us get pictures.

On Zermatt

I think I would have been a little disappointed if we hadn’t seen the Matterhorn due to clouds but I would probably have thought, “No big deal. It’s just a mountain peak.” But now I know what a phenomenal beauty it is in person and I’m so grateful for this experience. I understand why Walt Disney wanted to bring this giant back home.

We wrapped the evening with some Swiss made chocolate from Laderach.

Thanks for following along!

I woke up very excited to be in Europe. We slept with the window open and a police car drive by with the siren on. The European siren with the Doppler effect fueled the excitement.

Out our window we could see a little funicular that come out of a building and went up the hill.

Mike was still sleeping so I went out to grab us breakfast and to scope out the route to the train station. (Didn’t want to learn how to get there while hauling luggage…)

It was overcast but the rain held off as we finished our breakfast and checked out of the hotel. We made the 5 minute walk to the train station and got a locker for our bags so we could hop a train to the Freitag Flagship Store and Tower. The store is actually made from old shipping containers, part of the Freitag ideal of giving things a second life.

I fell in love with Freitag merchandise when Mike and I first went to Gimmelwald. There was a small store in the village above us that sold really cute messenger bags that were made from recycled truck tarps, seatbelts and inner tubes. Freitag. I loved the idea of the recycling and I loved the look of the bags. We each got one. Cut to many years later and I’ve become a little obsessed with Freitag bags. I have…a few. Plus pencil holders, a notebook cover and my wallet, all Freitag. So why not visit the Flagship store when transiting through Zurich?

This was my second visit to the Flagship store and Mike’s first. I’ve had my eye on a certain backpack style since we booked this trip. Even followed a few on eBay. The really fun part is looking through all of the various bags they have on display. Since they are made from truck tarps no two are the same. For the backpack I was looking at I narrowed it down to three that I liked out of around 30-40 bags. I finally chose:

I thought for a minute that Mike might make it out without getting anything. I was wrong. I was paying for my purchase when I got a call from Mike. He was two stories/freight containers above me. I answered and said, intuiting, “you need help deciding?” Mike answered, rather desperately, “Yes, please.” It’s hard to choose!

Notice the little change purse looking thingy in Mike’s hand above. That was a little make-it-your-self Freitag business card/coin holder. There was a bunch of leftover scraps of truck tarp that one can chose from plus the silver button to make these.

The Freitag store isn’t in a bad neighborhood but it’s pretty representational of other parts of the city I’ve visited. There’s a bohemian grittiness to this place. It’s a European city that’s all tatted up.

It’s probably a very real and lovely place to live but when vacationing I like Fairytale Europe a bit more. So off to Zermatt.

We made it back to the main train station with just enough time to grab our baggage from the storage lockers, buy train tickets and get to our train with around 45 seconds to spare. The train was pretty full but we eventually found a seat after trekking through three or four cars. (To be fair the first few were first class and we booked 2nd. I just hopped on the first car I could so we wouldn’t miss the train.)

The journey was lovely and took us by Lake Thun. We’ve been on this part of the track before when headed to Interlaken. In Basel we switched direction and headed to Visp where we switched over to a regional train to Zermatt. The views were Swiss Alp lovely. I love the Swiss alps.

There’s a moment where you can see part of the Matterhorn toward the end of the video above. It’s mostly cover in clouds. (We really hope we get to see it cloud free in the couple of days we’re here.)

We checked into our beautiful room at Hotel Tennenhof and relaxed for a bit.

We were a little hungry so we headed out to explore a bit and find a bite to eat. We settled on sandwiches and some chocolate which we took back to the room and ate on the balcony.

We are currently attempting to hold our eyes open. Jet lag is chasing us both and we are trying to stay awake until at least 8:30pm…? 9pm? to help acclimate a little faster. Jet lag may win this round.

I’m grateful to be on this trip with my husband. Glad you’re following along.

The hotel in Vancouver was lovely. Mike and I watched a Lingo marathon hosted by Rue Paul. Ridiculous and yet entertaining. I had a great night’s sleep waking up around 5:25am to let the dog out. The dog, of course, is home.

We walked to the Starbucks to grab coffee and a little breakfast. We nearly got room service breakfast but figured we’d save a couple of bucks and get a little walk in.

I went for a swim to get a little exercise in and to try and exhaust myself a bit so I can sleep on the plane. Our flight to Istanbul leaves at 6:30pm so after a little dinner in the plane I hope to go to sleep for a good chunk of the flight.

We hung out in the lounge for a couple of hours eating lunch and relaxing.

This lounge is different from the other I’ve visited here at YVR, and so much better! Pork dumplings made to order. So yummy!

We watched our plane arrive, a 777-300ER.

The flight from YVR to Istanbul departed around 7pm and was a little under 12 hours. The hope was to have dinner on the plane and then sleep as much as possible. Dinner was good. Halibut (slightly overdone) with yummy breads and salads. Great little dessert sampler.

I fell a sleep after starting to watch a movie but then the cabin became a little too warm to comfortably sleep. I dozed a bit here and there through out the flight but nothing like I was hoping to.

We landed safely after a pretty darn smooth flight. Istanbul airport is HUGE. And beautiful.

While parts of the airport were Bazaar…the lounge was amazing. So many food choices. I had a Turkish bagel and Turkish coffee. Think slightly sweet espresso.

We were fed yet again on the flight to Zurich which was delayed by 1/2 an hour or so. I cannot fall asleep sitting up, I did, however, doze off dozens of times during this 2 hour 40 minute flight. Smooth flight, both of our bags arrived. (We tried packing for carry-on but Turkish Air had a pretty conservative weight limit on carryons.)

We taxied to our hotel, the Swiss Chocolate Hotel with decor to match the name.

After a long travel day brushing our teeth and bathing was luxurious. Mike worked on his blog for a bit and I crashed nearly right away.

Tomorrow Freitag Tower and Zermatt!

I flew to Paris from Zurich after a beautiful train ride. Switzerland is just beautiful.

I’d left my jacket on a train a few days ago and was hoping lost and found would have found it. No dice.

A quick 55 minute flight on Swiss Airlines (a great airline. They give you Swiss chocolate) to CDG. I stayed at the hotel airport since I had an early flight out the next morning. The room was nice and I was greeted with a little mini muffin, a bottle of apple juice and a little chocolate marshmallow thing. Yum.

The airport is clearly prepping for the Summer Olympics. This airport can be a bit confusing. I asked someone with an information vest on where I might find the hotel and his escorted me nearly the entire way there! Helpful!!

I had a solid night’s sleep, (I think I finally adjusted to the time…just in time to go home 🤣) and headed to the Air France lounge to have a bite before getting in the plane.

The flight boarded on time and began to taxi before heading back to the gate. There was a “technical problem” that needed to be fixed. Better safe than sorry. We were delayed for a little over an hour. They served us Perrier and little French snacks.

Soon after takeoff we had dinner. A small salad and some raw salmon (yuck, pass) was the starter and the main was a delicious beef dish with gnocchi. It was served with a very French mini baguette.

I slept through 3 movies, nearly 7 hours on and off. It was a lovely way to pass the time.

After the nearly 10 hour flight I grabbed a quick shower at the Vancouver airport lounge before waiting around for my flight to Seattle, then Sacramento.

It takes a long time to get to and from Europe from the west coast. (Trying to do it on the cheap added some time to this trip.) Whole on approach to Vancouver I saw some beautiful mountains which sparked this feeling that it was totally worth the time and expense to get to experience the kitsch of seeing the Willie Wonka filming sites and the beauty of the Berner Oberland.

It’s such a gift to get to do this. A book I read years ago suggested to live your retirement while you’re still young enough to enjoy it. The idea being to take the trips now. Do the bucket list stuff now. Don’t wait because who knows if we’ll have the energy to do it when we retire. I feel like I’ve done a pretty good job doing that over the last couple of decades with traveling and seeing concerts. It’s can be tricky, too, because trips like these need to be planned well in advance since the work calendar fills up 9-12 months in advance.

Speaking of planning ahead, I’m excited every time I open my phone.

Mike and I return to Europe in 71 days to visit Zermatt, Pisa, Lucca, the Cinque Terre and Brugge. Really looking forward to it!

Thanks for following along on this trip.

Another lovely day in Gimmelwald. With nothing on the agenda for the day other than dinner at 7pm, I headed out after writing up yesterday’s blog and making some breakfast.

I got to the gondola to go up the mountain for maybe a ride up further on the funicular. The gondola was departing just as I was arriving and I didn’t want to wait for the next one so I just walked the loop around Gimmelwald to grab some pictures.

My whole time here I’ve heard the rumbling of avalanches. I recorded a clip of one. Turn up the volume and you’ll hear what kind of sounds like running water. It’s not. It’s an avalanche.

This was happening so regularly. Tobias and his wife told me the lower sounding avalanches (they sounded like big low rumblings of thunder) were from the Shcilthorn peak on our side of the valley echoing off the other side of the valley. The avalanches higher in pitch, like the recording above, were from the opposite side of the valley. When the clouds weren’t in the way you could sometimes spot them.

This was happening so frequently, 3 or 4 every hour in the afternoon. It became like a game to try and spot them once I heard them.

Here’s some clips from my stroll.

Alp kitties were very friendly today. One (turns out his name is Speedy) decided to join me on the porch while I had coffee after a very long nap. He sat on my lap for a while and purred, then joined me on the seat next to mine as we watched the world go by. I miss my dog so I was glad to get an animal fix.

He should have been named Sheddy. Tobias, his wife and two kids showed up so I was able to give the little Folkmanis puppets I’d brought for them. Francheska (Tobias’s wife) noticed Speedy’s fur all over me. Turns out it’s their cat. She grabbed a lint roller and handed it to me. I showed them pictures of Lainey and said I was used to the shedding. Francheska just peeled off a layer of tape from the roller and handed it back to me. “You need it twice.” 🤣

They served me espresso while we chatted on the porch. It was a nice farewell visit before I had to head over for dinner.

While I walked across the street to eat I couldn’t stop from taking some final pictures before it got dark.

Dinner was Rosti, shredded potatoes with cheese, ham and egg. It was pretty good. (Hotel Edelweiss in Mürren has an amazing Rosti. This one was just ok.)

I chatted a bit with a couple from Indiana. We discussed where we’d been before we got to Gimmelwald. (The husband has been coming here regularly since 1998!) I mentioned Munich and the wife said she’d gone and visited some of the Willie Wonka sites, too! For just a moment I felt slightly less nerdy.

I headed back to the Guesthouse and got to video chat with Mike who was over at my parents house with their new puppy.

I’m looking forward to getting home and meeting her in person!

Tomorrow I begin the slow trek home. Here to Zurich, to Paris to Vancouver to Seattle to Sacramento. I’m ready to be home with my family.

Thanks for following along.

Today was about doing nothing. No obligation to have to see or do anything. Just have the day unfold and experience it. It was a good day.

I woke up around 3:30am and wrote up my blog for the previous day. After chatting with Mike for a bit while the dog squeaked her toy pickle in the background I got out of bed and headed up the gondola to Mürren.

I wanted to pick up some groceries so I could make breakfast and lunch while I’m here. Gimmelwald doesn’t have but one place to eat and it’s only open at night so you have to plan ahead a little.

Mürren is a super resorty place that I think about staying in every once in a while but Gimmelwald is so much more down to earth. I’m glad I decide to stay here.

Groceries in hand I walked around a bit before heading back down the gondola. It started to snow a little which was really pretty.

I caught this video (below) going down the gondola. In the beginning of the video, in the lower part of the screen, you can spot a suspension bridge you can cross on foot. Glup. No thanks…:) You can also see the gondola heading up from the valley floor.

I made some breakfast and finally had some coffee. Fresh egg, alp cheese and sausage, raspberries and a croissant. Yum.

After breakfast I watched the snow come down. So pretty.

I’d been up and hadn’t really slept enough so I crashed for a long nap. When I woke up the snow had stopped so I walked over to a little perch where you can sit and watch the mountains. I grabbed a couple of timelapse videos and chatted with an Indonesian couple from Melbourne, Australia. I got a little cocky with the cold and stayed out a little too long without enough layers. It took a while for me to warm up again. Lesson learned. From now on I’m putting on my long underwear if I’m going to be out for a while.

Honestly, I can spend hours watching the mountains.

As I was warming up in my room the owner of Esther’s Guesthouse, Tobias, knocked on my door and asked if I’d like to grab a beer later on to catch up.

Mike and I first met Tobias when we came here in 2019. His wife was pregnant and they had just bought the Guesthouse. They were so genuinely warm and welcoming. My subsequent trips back I’ve brought their kid little Folkmanis puppets of animals native to the western United States. (This trip I brought a skunk, river otter, jackrabbit and spotted owl.) Tobias had called me several weeks ago and offered to let me stay an additional night if I’d like since it’s a very slow season for them. Very kind of him.

Later than evening we headed over to Hotel Pension Gimmelwald, a B&B with a bar and Honesty shop. We sat by a warm fire and I, with my sparkling water, and Tobias with his beer caught up on life and business and everything. It was fun to see him chat with the locals and the owner of the Pension. She has a sharp wit and runs the place with a slightly chaotic “Mrs. Weasley” like air. The 100 year old chalet is crowded with fun artifacts mixed with her children’s toys around the main room. This is such a small community and Tobias’ son and the son of the Pension owner are about 9 months apart in age and are therefore good friends. This week their school was teaching the kids how to ski. Tobias was telling me how important it is for children to know how to ski since everyone who lives here skis so it’s a a real way to be part of the community. If you are the odd one out who isn’t going skiing that could feel particularly lonely according to Tobias who grew up in the alps.

We talked about the puppet business and the B&B business. I asked if it was hard to find staff to help out since it’s such a small community. This led to a lovely story of how a Ukrainian refugee and her daughter came to this area. Tobias and his wife were instrumental in finding them a place to live. According to Tobias, a farmer had forgotten they’d built an apartment 30 years ago. They’d been using it for storage so they cleared it out and rented it to her. It had never been lived in so everything in the apartment was 30 years old but brand new. New Vintage! How the heck do you forget you have an apartment?! Tobias guessed they built it with the idea of renting it out but then likely decided they didn’t really need the money and/or didn’t want to deal with the hassle. Either way it helped secure a safe and comfortable place for the refugee and her daughter who is learning German (the common language spoken here) and fitting it well with the other children. Tobias and his family are helping her become a citizen which isn’t easy in Switzerland.

I fielded questions about being a puppeteer and was surprised to learn there is a puppeteer in town who uses puppets in therapy and, just a week ago, a puppeteer from New York who now lives in Basel came through town. I’m used to hearing, “you’re the first puppeteer I’ve ever met” so this was particularly unusual for me. Neat!

I booked dinner for the tomorrow night before I left. The menu, salad, Rosti with ham and egg and a vanilla custard for dessert. Dinner is at 7pm. (Those who are late do not get fruitcup.) I’m looking forward to it.

During this trip I had a few people I’ve met here ask if I travel to find inspiration or recharge my creative batteries. I answered something quippy like, “not intentionally but it certainly can’t hurt.” But it got me to thinking about the book “The Artist’sWay” and Artist Dates. In brief, an Artist’s Date is a specific time to go and do something fun or that “feeds the creative soul” to refocus and recharge. It’s supposed to be done by yourself.

This can be a little tricky for me to prioritize at home. When you run your own home based business there’s never a feeling of clocking off and being done with work. There is always more to do and everything that needs to be done is just a few steps away. I’m talking mainly about the non-creative part of being a puppeteer. The emails, paperwork, and coordination game of who has the puppet. (Rachel and I play this game all the time. “Do you have the Three Billy Goats Gruff puppets or do I?” “Oh crap, I have Tommy’s Space Adventure tomorrow and you have the puppets!”) All of that work plus the daily chores of living can lead to me feeling guilty if I’m at home not “doing” something. Taking a break to “feed my creative soul”? That really doesn’t seem that important when I’m in the midst of “doing.” But I think it is important.

My plan today was to do nothing. I literally planned it. Do nothing. Unless I wanted to, but no obligation to do anything. My brain likes to tell me that I’m “wasting the trip” if I’m not “doing” something. (It shouted this a lot in Munich.) My brain likes to make up lots of stupid rules based on nothing real and then enforce the rules by shaming me if I’m not following them. The more I ignore it and listen to my gut the better I seem to enjoy life.

So, yeah, staring at the mountains, doing nothing is recharging my batteries and helping me connect with that quiet creative intuition.

I look forward to more of the same tomorrow.

Thanks for following along.

I had a nice final morning in Munich. Delicious breakfast at the hotel and a nice stroll to the train station in Marienplatz.

I accomplished what I’d set out to do with my time here. I’m very pleased I got to do all of the Willie Wonka stuff.

Munich is an interesting city. Its reputation as a place to go drink lots of beer makes for a a crowd and a nightlife that is absolutely not my taste. I’m really glad I visited and did what I did. I don’t feel like I have to ever go back.

A 55 minute flight, 3 hours on trains, a bus and a gondola and I was back in Gimmelwald, Switzerland. I left my coat on board one of the trains (I’ve since filled out a lost and found report and hopefully will pick it up when I fly out of Zurich in a few days) so I stopped in Interlaken and picked up a new coat, gloves and a hat. A hoodie and jeans would not have cut it.

It’s a brisk 28 degrees as I write this at 6:45am. That’s very cold for this California boy.

During the trip into the Lauterbrunnen Valley you’ll see some really beautiful mountains and think, “Hey! These are pretty mountains and pretty big, too.” and then you catch site of the mountains behind the mountains. The real behemoths. I’ve been here several times but I still let out a quiet stream of shocked awe struck obscenities when I saw the great peaks. Christ they are big.

Anyway, as I exited the gondola into Gimmelwald I felt a lot like I feel stepping off the plane in when we go to Maui. It’s a deep feeling of peace and feels like being home away from home in one of my favorite places on the planet. Do you have a place you feel that? I know I’ll be likely be ready to leave when it’s time and I’ll eventually get a little bored and be ready to be home with my family, but for now I’m eating it up.

My arrival time was near perfect to get some pictures and video right during sunset. Here’s a little video iMovie put together for me with some of my pics and videos.

And here’s a video from my 360 camera.

This valley is so beautiful and perched in a little village on one of its cliffs is a perfect place to enjoy it.

I stopped my favorite barn to grab some alp cheese, fresh eggs, and smoked sausage so I could make myself a little snack for dinner. This village has several self serve places where you can take what you want and leave the right amount of Swiss Francs. When in Interlaken I grabbed a chocolate bar so I couldn’t have a few squares of it for my dessert.

A few more items. I saw some sort of deer grazing and a few alp kitties during my sunset walk. I am the only one staying at Esther’s Guesthouse at the moment so I have the place to myself. In fact I don’t think any other tourists are staying in Gimmelwald. Not that there’s a lot of places to stay here, I’ve just never experienced this. I guess it’s the off season. I love it.

That’s it for now. That’s for following.

I’m eating dinner here while I write this.

This is Marienplatz. Think of it as the Times Square of Munich in that it is the primary tourist hub. Dinner in a touristy area is almost never a good idea if you want good food. But, a mediocre meal with a spectacular view was worth it in this case. Though a north wind started to blow and it got cold, so I ate quick and headed back to the hotel to finish writing.

I woke around 3:45am and couldn’t fall back to sleep so I watched a movie and just enjoyed the quiet morning.

I headed down for breakfast at 6:30am. I’d searched all over the day before for a restaurant with Weisswurst, a very Bavarian breakfast of white sausage and a pretzel. I would have just eaten at the hotel because:

Breakfast was delicious and filling. I would skip lunch today. There was no need.

Today I visited Bavaria Filmstadt, a big movie and TV studio, and the place they filmed the interior shots of Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory.

I had very low expectations for today. First, the tours are in German so I was likely to not understand much. Second, I’d read that the tour focused on popular German films and television shows, which I know little to nothing about. Third, other than the fact that the interior shots of the chocolate factory and Charlie Bucket’s home were shot there, there was no information I could find online about what sound stage they shot on or if it even was still standing. It was a pretty big crapshoot that I would get any Willie Wonka vibes at all. Worst case I’d be shown a bunch of stuff from movies and tv shows that wouldn’t resonate with me at all in a language I don’t understand. That could be fun…maybe…?

I had tickets for an 11am tour so I arrived around 10:30am. The guide, who quickly realized I didn’t speak German and pivoted seamlessly into English, said there was room for me in the 10:30am tour and let me in line. While I had her attention I told her I was a fan of the 1972 Wonka film and asked if she knew which soundstage it was shot on. She pointed to Soundstage 4/5 in the distance.

There it was. I snapped so many pictures of it as we were following the tour guide to the first stop of the tour that the Germans on the tour with me kept glancing at it, trying to spot what was so interesting about Soundstage 4/5. How do you say in German, “That’s where they shot some amazing scenes from one of my favorite childhood movies and I’m excited to be this close to it for some reason.”?

(In case you’re wondering, here’s how: Dort wurden einige tolle Szenen aus einem meiner Lieblingsfilme aus der Kindheit gedreht und ich freue mich aus irgendeinem Grund, so nah dran zu sein.)

I kept silent and followed the tour guide. The first stop was a “4D Ride” based on a German animated film or TV series based on Kipling’s The Jungle Book.

Mowgli and Bagheera are racing for some reason and we, the audience, are strapped into seats that move and bounce as the two race through the jungle and encounter other characters in the story. This ride was pretty lame though everyone seemed to be having fun so I did, too.

The tour took us through several interesting buildings where they have sets and props and pictures from various films and shows. I was so pleased to find a few bits of evidence from the Wonka film.

The tour guide eventually took us to the front of Soundstage 4/5 and talked (I assume?) about various films shot in this building. Das Boot was shot there in 1983 because it has the capacity to have lots of water in it, a need Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory has as well, with less submarines and more rivers of chocolate colored water.

I didn’t expect we’d go inside and we didn’t. I did run over and touch the building, because, you know, I’m not going to not touch the building…

I was thrilled with the little Willie Wonka breadcrumbs I’d gotten to experience here. They exceeded my expectations.

And the rest of the tour was pretty neat, too.

They were very proud of Das Boot. They had models and the submarine set that we got to climb through. Here’s a photo montage.

We were also taken on “The Munich Street” a film set built in 1986 that looks like…a Munich Street. A small film crew was using it with a bunch of kids shooting a commercial, maybe…? Here’s a clip of them shooting and some photos.

A few other interesting (to me) tidbits: The movie Cabaret with Liza Minelli was shot here as was the children’s movie The Never Ending Story.

Fun fact: I shot craps with Liza in Las Vegas many years ago. As one does.

Everything I’d read made it sound like the Filmstadt was pretty far outside on Munich so I took a taxi to get there rather than braving public transportation. It wasn’t nearly as far as I thought. To get home I decided to do public transit. It was super easy and took only around 45 minutes, one tram, and two subways. I grabbed a little pastry and espresso and headed back to the hotel where I crashed for a couple of hours.

When I woke up I hit my favorite Sunday morning Zoom meeting 8:30am there, 4/30pm here) and then chatted with Mike for a bit. Today is our 19th anniversary of our first date. I hid an Anniversary card for him before I left and when I was at the first airport lounge at the beginning of this trip I discovered he’d also hidden a card for me in my backpack. It said “don’t open until March 10th.”

I opened it first thing this morning. Turns out we got each other the same exact card which sweetly sums up our relationship. I have the best husband ever.

Tomorrow I’ll head to the Swiss Alps in the morning so I’ll spend a little time packing up and getting ready before calling it a night.

Thanks for following along.

I woke up around 5:30am. Remarkable, since past jet lag usually had me up around 2:30am. I chatted with Mike, showered and headed out the door. I had a really bad bout of sciatica a week ago. I couldn’t stand for me than 5 minutes without being in pretty bad pain. I was concerned it was going to affect this trip. The doc put me on a 5 day course of prednisone and today I was on my feet for hours and walked around 7 miles with no pain. YAY!!

All of that walking (and tramming and subwaying) took me to a few of the filming sites from the film Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. The first stop was the neighborhood where Bill’s Candy Shop (featured at the beginning of the film where a candy shop owner sings “The Candyman” while doling out candy) and Where Charlie finds the coin and buys the winning Wonka Bar.

It was a beautiful and chilly morning and walking through this quiet neighborhood where a childhood movie favorite of mine was filmed felt incredibly special. I just walked around and soaked it in for a bit.

A couple of trams and subways later and I arrived at my next spot. (Good lord, Munich is so easy to navigate with public transportation.)

Not knowing exactly where these sites are or whether I’d recognize them made it kind of like a treasure hunt. While hunting I saw this down an alley…

…I nearly squealed with delight.

At the beginning of Willie Wonka, children rush out of their school and to a candy shop. The film crew used St. Sylvester Catholic Parish as Charlie’s school. Here’s a clip from the movie.

And here’s some video I shot at the site.

I found a rentable electric scooter so I wrote it around the neighborhood a bit and then took it back to the subway station. (When I hit a cobbled street I stopped riding. Electric scooters on cobbled streets don’t really work well.) A subway and tram ride later…

…And I ended up at the Chocolate Factory. Well, technically it’s the Municipal Water Authority of Munich. I’m so glad I made it to this filming site. It looks like they might be getting ready to tear down this last little bit of what’s left of the wall keeping thieves like Slugworth out of the Chocolate Factory.

Getting to see and touch this little bit of filming history was very special to me. So much has changed (of course) in over 50 years but I could still recognize the arch and the circle hole window that’s left in scenes from the movie.

So glad I got to see it before it’s completely gone.

The change they are making looks like a good thing as it opens things up to a beautiful parkway through the government buildings where lots of people were out walking with their children and their dogs. By this time it was only around 11am. It was a very busy morning! I headed back to Marienplatz where I’d started my day and it was crowded. Super crowded!

I grabbed a Wurst for lunch and made my way back to the hotel.

I’d asked for a few extra pillows before leaving the hotel.

I took an hour long nap, then took another 1/2 hour nap (oh, jet lag) and then headed out to look for coffee. I somehow ended up at the Freitag Store. I managed not to buy anything and finally found a little coffee place to grab an espresso. I wanted to join an online Zoom meeting so I ended up grabbing an early quick dinner. And dessert.

This part of Munich is full of beer halls and they tend to spill out onto the streets. Last night navigating the drunks was enough for me plus I’m pretty wiped out from a wonderfully busy day. I’m calling it an early night.

Good night to you. Thanks for following along!