Cathedrals

Mearl wanted me to see a Cathedral in Strasbourg, France. We were in the town but our GPS wasn't being very kind to us so we went on to Switzerland.

We saw several cathedrals in the cities we were in. I almost put the churches and cathedral pictures together in one blog but then I decided not to.

Here are some of the ones we saw.

We start with the one in Bern. 

You can see some of the ornate work here.

    Many of the cathedrals we saw had parks around them. This one was no exception. They usually had walls around them and most were near the water. I didn't ask why that was.

This river was beautiful.

The river, Aare.

  This is an interesting sign, it's a sign for those that are thinking of suicide. You can see the wall here, and on the other side of the wall was a very steep bank, and quite a ways down.

This sign was giving information to make the people think about what they are doing. There is a telephone number for them to call and a hand that signifies there's help available.

Paul told us of a story of a young man and a horse. The young man jumped from a high place,  but didn't die. He realized that the Lord must have had His hand on him. He decided to become a pastor in the reformed church and pastored for 20 years.

On the left side of the park.

When we continued walking on around the church, there was an interesting garden. I wanted to take a picture of it to show you how they use the land they have. There was terraces here and looked like maybe hot houses. Trees also, as you can see.

When we got to the other side of the church, there were doors here. If you click on the picture, it'll open up in a larger screen. You'll see the art work around this door. Paul told us it was the popes that were depicted. Looked like gold overlay, very pretty. Paul is standing at the left of the picture.

  I think this is the church where Paul went as a boy. I'm not sure what religion it was. He used his hand to measure a small boy!!

It was very close to the above cathedral.

Cathedral in Basel

We didn't go into this cathedral. We walked on and I thought from our map, that we would see another cathedral. Mearl was getting ready to go back to the hotel but I convinced him we should go just a bit further. And we were glad we did.

This is what I saw when I went around the corner.

Again, the art work on these buildings.

The stained glass windows were gorgeous.

The  pulpit area as we'll see in the churches also.

This cathedral had different sections.

This is a close up of the halls, no glass, just open frames.

I sure wish I understood these blogs better. The pictures are giving me fits!!!! But I'll continue.

Mearl walks out to investigate!!

The Rhine river here! The picture to the left of Mearl, you can just about see the wall at the far end, this is the view from that wall.

Another view of the inside. It was a big church.

We went into another cathedral in Trier but I'll leave that one until I get to that story. I found these cathedrals very beautiful. There were people in these also, some people were sitting and meditating, others were walking around. I think I was in awe most of the time in these. Although, I think when I decided to leave the churches for another blog, it was because I felt much more at home and in touch with the churches. These were beautiful to look at and visit but I'm glad I'm much more at ease in the churches. Interesting, huh???

I wanted to show you some of the contrasts that we saw as well. I'm sure that the people that attend here are much more comfortable here than they would be in a smaller church. Just so many different perspectives in Switzerland.  

I'll continue on with the churches another time. 

Sharon (Grabill) McMillan

Castle - Trachselwald, Switzerland

Castles, wonder what they are like? We saw several castles in the hills, on the banks of the Rhine, some were in pretty bad shape, others were well taken care of.

We were close to one and it was recommended to us. I wanted to see it but Mearl wasn't sure about it. However, he gave in and said we could go to see one. We found it, now where to park and how to get up to see it. We see a path going up to the castle, let's park the car and walk! You can just see the top here.

 Mearl is walking up the path. We hear the church bells and is usually the case, we stop and listen.

You can tell we are getting higher and higher. It was a beautiful day and we seemed to be the only ones around here.

In the lower picture, you can see the garden of the home there. This looks pretty flat where the garden is, but sometimes they are not and this one is on a slope that's a little hard to tell here. The people really seem to take care of their gardens and they are well kept.

Castle at Trachselwald

 

 Some views from the first area of the castle. The castle has a garden in the front of it, with a pool and a fountain there. The leaves were just beginning to change color as you can see.

The scenery is beautiful.

A drawing of the castle.

A

An opening in the wall, there were several of them.

 I looked up castle on the internet, and they were mostly used or built for rich families. This one here was kind of eery in some spots. You'll see the shackles and some of the rooms that looked like prisoner rooms. I'm not sure if this is true or not, but it looked like that. Plus the openings here, almost looked like look-out places. If we could have read the German words, it might have told us, but we couldn't and I didn't check it.

The inside of the castle walls.

A lookout tower????

 This was one of the rooms on one floor. There were 3 - 4 floors, I didn't count them.

Mearl is inspecting one here.

 It may have been shackles, I'm not sure, your mind just kind of wanders and wanders. I don't even think Mearl and I talked about it, we each had our own thoughts.

I wanted to go up a flight when we first got inside, Mearl wasn't too keen on it, but he went up with me.  We went up one more floor, I wasn't sure if I wanted to go up more, but by this time, Mearl did, so up we went.

You'll see by this picture, the bed might have been comfortable but I'm sure glad I didn't have to sleep on it.

Now I'll show you some inside pictures. You'll also get an idea of how high this is from some of the photos.

A cement stairwell we went up.

This was the other stairs we climbed. They were pretty steep. I think there were two flights of these.

Another area of the top floor.

This was very near the top.

A ladder but we didn't go THERE!

Your imagination may be running wild as well. It was an interesting time here.

Views from the top window.

You'll see the height and the way the villages are laid out. And the fields!

There were cows also. One view had the cows on the right side and another herd of cows to the left with a distance between. The cow bells could be heard, almost in stereo. It was really nice hearing them on both sides.

Mearl & Angie

Mearl & I at the steps to the castle.

                                                                   

We called this the castle cat!
 We didn't see him the first time,
we took Angie back and he was there!

You could almost reach out and touch the clouds!

See the clouds in the trees!

Mearl & I were here on a beautiful sunny day, when we took Angie back to show her, it was rainy and dreary but the scenery was still very pretty, we thought. The clouds were really interesting here in the hills/and higher hills. I wanted you to see both versions of the scenery here. We saw this scene quite a few times and we thought it was pretty even though it was dreary sometimes.

One other story about the castle! We didn't see anyone the first day we were there. However, when we got there with Angie, we saw this gal and her son. They live in the other part of the castle. She said they would be living there until about December and then they would be moving.

Someone told us that Mearl could probably buy the castle for $1.00! We thought that was very interesting. Our thoughts wandered at that point, how much would it cost to heat it? Wouldn't that be very interesting to live in a castle?

Hope you've enjoyed this trip to a castle! It was fun!

Sharon (Grabill) McMillan