So after spending time in Montreux and Interlaken, we figured we should stop off in the Capital City of Zurich.
All in all this post will be brief. It is not a skyscraper type city like NYC or Chicago. It has smaller, gothic looking buildings, even the big banks use these buildings. There is a huge shopping district, but it has the same stores you find everywhere (Prada, Gucci, blah blah). It was raining on and off all day, so we kept going into stores to steer clear of the weather. It was nice to walk around and see the capital, and if we had another day we would have went into the older part of town to see more architecture and museums.
We went out for dinner in Neiderdorf which is the part of Zurich that is known for its restaurants and nightlife. We went to the Hotel Adler's restaurant, the Swiss Chuchi. The food was just fine, we had meat fondue in broth instead of the cheese/bread fondue like we had in Interlaken.
The interesting part of the night was a couple in their late 60's sitting next to us from England. He is a retired marketing professional and she was a former flight attendant for 39 years on British Airways. They retired, and he is now teaching at the University in Perugia, Italy. They were a very nice (and drunk) couple sharing some life lessons and words of wisdom with us. They were kind enough to give us their contact information in case we make our way to Italy one day.
And that about sums it up. We left the next day to fly back home.
I am sure you have read enough, so it is time for me to "Ausfahrt".....
Sunday, July 12, 2009
Hold on Tight!
Monday's big activity was Rafting on the Lutschine River in Interlaken. This river feeds out into Lake Brienzer. We selected Alpin Rafting and they were great tour guides for the trip. They picked us up on time, we had a great trip and they provided free bread, brie cheese, beer and pastries for us after the trip. Our guide was Nic who was from New Zealand as were most of the other guides. We had about 45 kids in our group who were traveling through Europe with a Church youth group. They did several religious chants before and after the trip and the tour guides had a good laugh at their expense.
The area has experienced a lot of rain fall this year, so we really had solid Class III-IV rapids for most of the trip.
Here are some photos from our trip down the river:
After the trip we went back to the hotel to dry off and relax for a little bit. Based on the suggestion of the hotel Concierge, we went from Interlaken West to Interlaken East to eat at the Restaurant Baren. This was by far my favorite meal of the trip. I had the best lamb I have ever eaten in my life. No joke, I will go back to Interlaken one day just to have the lamb again. We also had another cheese fondue, and this one was much better than the one from the day before.
In the evening, we went back to our hotel bar, as it was open later than any other bar in town. Nils again hooked us up, this time with the house sommelier to help us select our wine, and then a free plate of chocolates and other desserts. Who else would get us a sommelier at midnight to pick out a wine in a bar? Go Nils!
The area has experienced a lot of rain fall this year, so we really had solid Class III-IV rapids for most of the trip.
Here are some photos from our trip down the river:
After the trip we went back to the hotel to dry off and relax for a little bit. Based on the suggestion of the hotel Concierge, we went from Interlaken West to Interlaken East to eat at the Restaurant Baren. This was by far my favorite meal of the trip. I had the best lamb I have ever eaten in my life. No joke, I will go back to Interlaken one day just to have the lamb again. We also had another cheese fondue, and this one was much better than the one from the day before.
In the evening, we went back to our hotel bar, as it was open later than any other bar in town. Nils again hooked us up, this time with the house sommelier to help us select our wine, and then a free plate of chocolates and other desserts. Who else would get us a sommelier at midnight to pick out a wine in a bar? Go Nils!
Off to Interlaken We Go...
We departed Montreux early on Sunday morning to head to Interlaken.
A quick lesson, Switzerland is divided, it is half French and half German. Montreux was obviously the French side of the country, Interlaken is on the German side of the country.
Back to the action...
So we drove about 1.5 hrs to get from Montreux to Interlaken. During our drive I was reading the highway signs and realized that "Ausfahrt" is German for exit. Enough said. I took some pictures to bring back home for all of you.
We both enjoyed Interlaken much more than Montreux. There were great restaurants everywhere, lots of random shopping, and the mountains looming behind you were just astonishing. I swear the people at Disney went to Interlaken when they designed the World Pavilion at Epcot! If it wasn't for the menus that were written in German I would have thought I was in Epcot for sure.
We stayed at the Victoria Jungfrau Hotel and Spa in Interlaken, set right at the foot of the Jungfrau Mountain. This is a really nice 5 star hotel, and we were able to get a great deal on the room rate which is why we took it, but no air conditioning in the rooms - ouch! They told us to open the windows, ha, like that did anything.
So here is where the fun food starts, as we got to the German side of the country, that is were the good beer, fondue and chocolate appear! For lunch we went to the Hotel Toscana and ate at the Trattoria Toscana. Though Italian by name, the place had a ton of Swiss food, so I got a sausage platter and we got a cheese fondue as an appetizer, yum! I also had my first of many Eichhof Beers. At this particular restaurant I had the lemon beer which was interesting (and refreshing) to say the least.
As we walked around Interlaken we started going into many of the chocolate shops. Our favorites were either Sprungli (home of the famous Luxemburgerli) or Laderach.
For dinner we went to a very "odd" place, Chez Pierre which was located in the Carlton Hotel. Everyone was sitting outside on the patio drinking and smoking, but no one was ordering food. When we asked for menus they seemed shocked but gave us menus. We both had fish dishes and I thought it was ok, and neither of us got sick thankfully. I had my first Rugenbrau, a local beer brewed in Interlaken. My second beer was from the Cardinal Brewery, also located in Switzerland.
That evening, we went back to the hotel and met our favorite person of the trip, and we shall call him Nils because we are not sure of his actual name. He is the bartender at the hotel's late night bar. Our first night he gave us a plate of 20 small pastries to go along with our wine selection for the evening. Yes, you are finding a theme, a lot of eating and drinking on this trip!
A quick lesson, Switzerland is divided, it is half French and half German. Montreux was obviously the French side of the country, Interlaken is on the German side of the country.
Back to the action...
So we drove about 1.5 hrs to get from Montreux to Interlaken. During our drive I was reading the highway signs and realized that "Ausfahrt" is German for exit. Enough said. I took some pictures to bring back home for all of you.
We both enjoyed Interlaken much more than Montreux. There were great restaurants everywhere, lots of random shopping, and the mountains looming behind you were just astonishing. I swear the people at Disney went to Interlaken when they designed the World Pavilion at Epcot! If it wasn't for the menus that were written in German I would have thought I was in Epcot for sure.
We stayed at the Victoria Jungfrau Hotel and Spa in Interlaken, set right at the foot of the Jungfrau Mountain. This is a really nice 5 star hotel, and we were able to get a great deal on the room rate which is why we took it, but no air conditioning in the rooms - ouch! They told us to open the windows, ha, like that did anything.
So here is where the fun food starts, as we got to the German side of the country, that is were the good beer, fondue and chocolate appear! For lunch we went to the Hotel Toscana and ate at the Trattoria Toscana. Though Italian by name, the place had a ton of Swiss food, so I got a sausage platter and we got a cheese fondue as an appetizer, yum! I also had my first of many Eichhof Beers. At this particular restaurant I had the lemon beer which was interesting (and refreshing) to say the least.
As we walked around Interlaken we started going into many of the chocolate shops. Our favorites were either Sprungli (home of the famous Luxemburgerli) or Laderach.
For dinner we went to a very "odd" place, Chez Pierre which was located in the Carlton Hotel. Everyone was sitting outside on the patio drinking and smoking, but no one was ordering food. When we asked for menus they seemed shocked but gave us menus. We both had fish dishes and I thought it was ok, and neither of us got sick thankfully. I had my first Rugenbrau, a local beer brewed in Interlaken. My second beer was from the Cardinal Brewery, also located in Switzerland.
That evening, we went back to the hotel and met our favorite person of the trip, and we shall call him Nils because we are not sure of his actual name. He is the bartender at the hotel's late night bar. Our first night he gave us a plate of 20 small pastries to go along with our wine selection for the evening. Yes, you are finding a theme, a lot of eating and drinking on this trip!
Showtime at the Jazz Festival
So for our first full day in Switzerland, we decide to sleep in a little bit as the day before we had a long flight, drive to Montreux and we were up rather late into the night. Jessica woke up by 11ish to go for her daily run. By about 2pm we left the hotel to walk around and see more of Montreux. I am sure its a lovely town, but with the Festival in town, it attracted a lot of odd people to say the least. We saw some small galleries, took pictures of some statues of famous musicians with ties to the festival (Freddie Mercury, BB King, Ray Charles, Ella Fitzgerald, Miles Davis).
We then got some street cart food for dinner. I guess kebab does not translate, as Jessica ordered the chicken kebab but got shaved chicken fat in a pita - oops!
We then went into the main venue to see Steely Dan and DMB. When we arrived, we found Dave Matthews playing Gravedigger solo for a radio interview in the lobby of the venue! That was a nice treat. We then got upstairs for the Steely Dan set. I enjoyed them, would I spend $200 to see them at the Beacon, no, but I may purchase an album or two after the show. I think I recognized 2-3 songs and they did not play the hits like "Rikki Don't Lose that Number" and "Reelin' in the Years".
DMB put on a solid 2 hour set obviously filled with new material but they did pull out #41, Two Step and Rapunzel. They are new to most European markets and they are pushing the new album overseas, so I figured we would get a set of mostly new material. The audience was strange, a song would start and they would get all worked up, but once Dave started to sing they all got super quiet and stood still, no dancing, no moving, etc. In between songs if someone yelled or something the audience would hush the person. The venue is mostly standing room only, and about 2,000-3,000 people max. Dave was very funny and humble, I think he won over the crowd.
We then got some street cart food for dinner. I guess kebab does not translate, as Jessica ordered the chicken kebab but got shaved chicken fat in a pita - oops!
We then went into the main venue to see Steely Dan and DMB. When we arrived, we found Dave Matthews playing Gravedigger solo for a radio interview in the lobby of the venue! That was a nice treat. We then got upstairs for the Steely Dan set. I enjoyed them, would I spend $200 to see them at the Beacon, no, but I may purchase an album or two after the show. I think I recognized 2-3 songs and they did not play the hits like "Rikki Don't Lose that Number" and "Reelin' in the Years".
DMB put on a solid 2 hour set obviously filled with new material but they did pull out #41, Two Step and Rapunzel. They are new to most European markets and they are pushing the new album overseas, so I figured we would get a set of mostly new material. The audience was strange, a song would start and they would get all worked up, but once Dave started to sing they all got super quiet and stood still, no dancing, no moving, etc. In between songs if someone yelled or something the audience would hush the person. The venue is mostly standing room only, and about 2,000-3,000 people max. Dave was very funny and humble, I think he won over the crowd.
Switzerland, here we come
So I took my first trip to the the mainland of Europe last week with Jessica. Of course we had to mix in a DMB concert along the way, but hey, we did plenty of sight seeing as well!
We took a red eye out there out of JFK direct to Zurich. I watched "He's Just Not That Into You" - possibly one of the worst movies I have seen in a few years. I was a big Justin Long fan, but now I lost a little faith in the man.
So we land and go to get our pimp rental car, an Opel Zafira. I am not sure if this was a mini van, cross over vehicle or what have you. Either way, Jessica and I spent 5 minutes trying to take off the emergency brake with no success. The attendant comes out, with one shot removes the brake, then puts it back on and in a rude way asks if we can put a car in drive, reverse, etc. She snickers and walks away, then it is our turn to take off the break and we have trouble again removing the emergency break. Jessica finally got the brake off, and we never put it on again through the trip.
The ride from Zurich to Montreux was very nice, the highways are clearly marked in Switzerland so no major problems with the 2 hour drive.
We finally got to Montreux around 5pm. Montreux is known as the Swiss Riveria. The scenery was gorgeous, huge ice-capped mountains and Lake Geneva set the backdrop for this small vacation town. We stayed at the Hotel Eden Palace au Lac. The hotel was fantastic, right on the Lake, a huge balcony with tables and chairs overlooking the lake and the mountains, what a view from our room! The big bonus, air conditioning in the rooms - why don't more Europeans believe in A/C?
We walked around town our first evening, it was the first night of the 43rd Annual Montreux Jazz Festival. The festival brings 100,000's of people from all over the world to Montreux for 15 days every July. They set up festival-like booths all along the water. It is the usual stuff you would see at any festival, vendors selling shirts, scarfs, odd rock creations, music, cartoon drawings, etc. They also had street cart vendors selling all kinds of ethnic foods from around the world. We figured for our first night we would go to a nice French restaurant called La Rouvenaz and we picked a nice local Swiss wines along with our meals and we enjoyed.
After dinner we took a quick trip to the Montreux Casino. This was the quietest casino I have ever seen in my life! The slot machines were on mute, people at the table games were not making any noise either. We got a drink and figured we'd walk around and survey the area, we saw how sad and pathetic it was so we left. There was $5 roulette and I did not play, that just goes to show you how desolate this place seemed to us!
We took a red eye out there out of JFK direct to Zurich. I watched "He's Just Not That Into You" - possibly one of the worst movies I have seen in a few years. I was a big Justin Long fan, but now I lost a little faith in the man.
So we land and go to get our pimp rental car, an Opel Zafira. I am not sure if this was a mini van, cross over vehicle or what have you. Either way, Jessica and I spent 5 minutes trying to take off the emergency brake with no success. The attendant comes out, with one shot removes the brake, then puts it back on and in a rude way asks if we can put a car in drive, reverse, etc. She snickers and walks away, then it is our turn to take off the break and we have trouble again removing the emergency break. Jessica finally got the brake off, and we never put it on again through the trip.
The ride from Zurich to Montreux was very nice, the highways are clearly marked in Switzerland so no major problems with the 2 hour drive.
We finally got to Montreux around 5pm. Montreux is known as the Swiss Riveria. The scenery was gorgeous, huge ice-capped mountains and Lake Geneva set the backdrop for this small vacation town. We stayed at the Hotel Eden Palace au Lac. The hotel was fantastic, right on the Lake, a huge balcony with tables and chairs overlooking the lake and the mountains, what a view from our room! The big bonus, air conditioning in the rooms - why don't more Europeans believe in A/C?
We walked around town our first evening, it was the first night of the 43rd Annual Montreux Jazz Festival. The festival brings 100,000's of people from all over the world to Montreux for 15 days every July. They set up festival-like booths all along the water. It is the usual stuff you would see at any festival, vendors selling shirts, scarfs, odd rock creations, music, cartoon drawings, etc. They also had street cart vendors selling all kinds of ethnic foods from around the world. We figured for our first night we would go to a nice French restaurant called La Rouvenaz and we picked a nice local Swiss wines along with our meals and we enjoyed.
After dinner we took a quick trip to the Montreux Casino. This was the quietest casino I have ever seen in my life! The slot machines were on mute, people at the table games were not making any noise either. We got a drink and figured we'd walk around and survey the area, we saw how sad and pathetic it was so we left. There was $5 roulette and I did not play, that just goes to show you how desolate this place seemed to us!
Saturday, April 18, 2009
Best of What's Around
So its that time of year again, DMB touring time. For a few reasons out of my control, I missed the entire 2007 tour. 2007 was the first year I had not seen any DMB / D&T / D&F etc type show since 1996 when I saw my first show at Jones Beach in June 1996. It was a strange tour to say the least with the passing of 'Roi and the additions of Timmy full time and Coffin replacing 'Roi. On top of these changes, there is a new album coming out this year. With all of these things in play, the 2009 tour dates were annouced and I thought I'd slowly get back into the groove and see a few shows here or there. Originally I was going to take it slow, but the dates and venues looked too good to be true. Turns out there are 9 shows on the Spring/Summer calendar for me! I already attened MSG and Izod, plus I have Vegas, Switzerland, Jones Beach (2x), Bethel, Chula Vista and Scranton all lined up.
Speaking of MSG and Izod, in general I was pleased with the shows. I think they did a bit too many repeats for back to back nights. But they dusted off some gems (Raven, Pig, The Maker) and played plenty of classics to keep a snob like me entertained. There certainly is a new sound for the band, Rashawn Ross is taking up more space with trumpet parts, Coffin is a totally different player than 'Roi, and Timmy is putting in lead guitar lines and solos. Going to DMB shows is always fun, and I think I've come to grips with the fact that this is not the DMB up to and including the BCTS days. There is a different sound, different direction in song writing, etc. I guess they have been around for 18 years, so it is ok to change things up and grow and mature as band. So there you have it, I may never be 100% satisifed with a DMB setlist or show, but I think I've come to grips with it, and regardless, its always a great time hanging out with friends and listening to (generally speaking) good music ;-)
Speaking of MSG and Izod, in general I was pleased with the shows. I think they did a bit too many repeats for back to back nights. But they dusted off some gems (Raven, Pig, The Maker) and played plenty of classics to keep a snob like me entertained. There certainly is a new sound for the band, Rashawn Ross is taking up more space with trumpet parts, Coffin is a totally different player than 'Roi, and Timmy is putting in lead guitar lines and solos. Going to DMB shows is always fun, and I think I've come to grips with the fact that this is not the DMB up to and including the BCTS days. There is a different sound, different direction in song writing, etc. I guess they have been around for 18 years, so it is ok to change things up and grow and mature as band. So there you have it, I may never be 100% satisifed with a DMB setlist or show, but I think I've come to grips with it, and regardless, its always a great time hanging out with friends and listening to (generally speaking) good music ;-)
Sunday, March 29, 2009
The Madness Continues
So as of my last entry I had my men's league team entering the Finals in our tournament, plus I had 1 ABB show down and a few more to go.
Well, for starters, the team won the championship! It was another battle, we were down 12 points at halftime, but fought back, got the game to OT and then pulled away in OT for a comfortable win. I have been in the league for 5 years, and the first 4 years we either lost in the semis to the eventual champion or we lost in the finals, so we finally got over the proverbial hump and it feels great!
My run with ABB at the Beacon continued as well. In all, they did 15 shows and I was lucky enough to catch 5 of them. Highlights for me:
Well, for starters, the team won the championship! It was another battle, we were down 12 points at halftime, but fought back, got the game to OT and then pulled away in OT for a comfortable win. I have been in the league for 5 years, and the first 4 years we either lost in the semis to the eventual champion or we lost in the finals, so we finally got over the proverbial hump and it feels great!
My run with ABB at the Beacon continued as well. In all, they did 15 shows and I was lucky enough to catch 5 of them. Highlights for me:
- Clapton - come on, Clapton with ABB doing Derek and the Dominoes stuff plus a few ABB tunes too? Really does not get any better or surreal. Trucks and Clapton playing together on Why Does Love Have So Sad and Layla was just unreal.
- Bruce Hornsby - Huge fan of his music, and he really added a nice dimension to the second set on the 21st when he sat in. The also had the Juke Horns at the show too, great mix. Derek also really tore up this show, one day I'll be an old fart saying "I saw Derek back in the day..."
- The 27th was Southern Rock night - Kid Rock came out for Soulshine and then the Marshall Tucker Band drummer came up and they all did "Can't You See" which was pretty cool. The second set started off with the intro to Freebird. The show also had some pretty rockin versions of the New Instrumental, Les Bres and No One Left To Run With Anymore.
- 28th - Last night of the run. The second set started off as a bad Grateful Dead cover band - you know I like the Dead, but Weir should stay out of the public eye, he looks and sounds awful. Lesh was playing the band leader role too much - man, its not your band, its Gregg's, back down, calm down! Sugaree didn't do it for me, I Know You Rider was a bit better and then they had Chuck Leavell come out for Franklin's Tower and that had some pop to it. In all, good show, but for the last night at the Beacon, half the 2nd set did not have to be uninspired versions of Dead tunes, it just did not click. Also, all other musicians that guested did their own stuff plus ABB stuff, why didn't Bobby and Phil do any ABB material??
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