No, not Shady… well, possibly him too. Isn’t he always back? But that’s irrelevant here. Nope… it is I, your very own Confuzzled Bev who is back! After two weeks of gallivanting around Britain (well, England and one town in Scotland – but I’m counting it as a Britain trip for the sake of my 35 Before 35), drinking gallons of tea, consuming mountains of proper bacon, scones, pies and fish and chips, walking on beaches and climbing up mountains, I am now back at work.
I will tell you all about our trip eventually… when I can be bothered to sort and resize the dozens of photos I took. In the meantime, here are two photos of bees on flowers in Cornwall – because bees are cool and deserve to have their photos shared whenever possible!
Hello readers! As fun as travel always is, it’s good to be home.
It’s time for another entry in my series of “persuade everyone that Switzerland is worth visiting” posts 😉
Before I came to Switzerland, I joined a meetup group for Basel. We’ve been to a couple of the meet ups, but have yet to really “click” with anyone in a manner that would lead to further meetings outside of the group. However, last time we were there, one of the other members suggested Mariastein Abbey as a good place for an afternoon out. When we decided to get out of the flat for a bit yesterday evening, we remembered this advice and decided to check out, so we hopped on a number 10 tram and headed off to Flüh from where we walked the roughly half an hour to Mariastein (there’s also a bus if you don’t feel like the exercise). First, some photos from the walk up. Jan told me not to take the one of the garden full of gnomes, but how could I not?
A pretty building in Flüh
Making our way up the hill
Garden gnome land!!
Can I live here please?
The Flüh (= rock face), I presume
Landskron castle
St Anna’s Chapel
Apparently, the Mariastein Abbey is the second most important pilgrimage site in Switzerland. People come from far and wide to worship there. Obviously we couldn’t go into the actual abbey since it’s full of monks, but the basilica is open to the public and the inside is gorgeous! There were so many little details that I just couldn’t stop taking photos! Apologies in advance for picture overload…
The front of the basilica
Just inside the entrance
Ceiling
We decided to take a different route down, which took us into France. When we realised that the ruins of Landeskron castle – which we had seen a sign for on the way up – wouldn’t take us much out of our way, we decided to go there. The castle stands on the border between France and Switzerland and is owned by both countries. From the top, you can see Germany, France and Switzerland but don’t ask me which is where! The only thing I can reliably recognise is Basel (thanks to the Roche tower). The light was really too bright at the castle, so it was pretty much a case of keep changing settings, pointing, clicking and hoping for the best. I’m afraid I did rather a lot of clicking. What can I say… I love castle ruins! Again, I apologise for the number of photos. And believe me, this isn’t even all of them. I reluctantly narrowed them down for this post 😉
St Anna’s chapel
Looking back towards the abbey
Poppy!
A random field of corn… still in Switzerland, I think?
More abbey
I spy a pussy cat!
Somehwre in France… there’s the castle!
Basel, viewed from France
Somehwere in France… nice view!
Nearly there…
Aah, made it!
Lizard on the castle wall
Landskron castle
Basel!
View from Landskron castle
On the way back down from the top of the castle, I spotted some bees enjoying the flowers. Obviously I had to photograph them too!
A bee at Landskron castle
We then walked back down to Flüh via the woods, took a tram home and enjoyed a well deserved dinner!
There’s not a huge amount to do at either Mariastein or Landskron, but it was perfect for our requirements – a chance to stretch our legs and something interesting to look at along the way. The walk was fairly easy and I’d say most people could probably do it. There are a few restaurants next to the abbey where you could stop for something to eat or drink, or you could stop for refreshments in Flüh – it only took us about 15 minutes to get back down from Landskron.
And once again, I can’t believe such beauty is pretty much on my doorstep (although Flüh is in canton Solothurn, so slightly less on my doorstep than other places).
I’m linking this post up to Monday Escapes with My Travel Monkey and Packing My Suitcase. To see where everyone else’s travels are taken them this week and add your link, click the button below.
Almost every comment on the post I wrote about my bee-day party requested a picture of the dress. With so much demand, I thought I’d better oblige, so here I am covered in bees:
I’m covered in beeees!
I am aware that the above photo is next to useless for showing off the dress… let alone the pattern on it, so I took one of the dress without me in it just for you guys:
Bee dress, without filling
And here’s a close up so you can see the detail. Note the honeycomb pattern all over the dress. It’s pretty safe to say I am in love with this item of clothing:
Beeees (and honeycomb)
And those of you who didn’t understand the Eddie Izzard/covered in bees reference need to watch this video right now!!
Yesterday was an interesting day. First, I left my purse at home and only realised when I was sitting on the train ready to go to work. Luckily I was able to get back off the train just before the doors closed, then I power walked home, got my purse and took a tram back to the station in time for the 8 o’clock train… all within 24 minutes. Miraculously, I actually got a seat on the second train… I tend to avoid that one because I always end up standing in the corridor, which is not what I want that early in the morning. Then, after work, I arrived at the train station ready to go home only to find police on my platform and the Bahn personnel telling everyone to go away. I headed back up to the departures boards to wait for them to announce where my train would be arriving and decided to treat myself to a Magnum while I waited. To get to the new platform, I had to pass the steps leading up to my original platform, which I saw were now taped off with Deutsche Bahn employees standing at the bottom stopping anyone from getting up there. As soon as I got home, I googled to try and find out what was going on, but the Internet had no information. Nothing in the news this morning either… curious!
But that’s not really what I want to talk about today…
What I do want to do is finally tell you about my birthday party! But first, some background.
I like bees, and one of my nicknames used to be Bee (for the first letter of my name, but written out), so a few years ago, I mentioned to Jan that one day I would like to have a “bee-day” party. The idea was that I would get people to dress in either black, yellow or black and yellow (black and yellow stripes would, of course, be perfect), decorate the flat with bees and have bee-themed food and drinks. I then didn’t have a birthday party for a couple of years for various reasons (last year I went to Sweden the day after my birthday, for example) and kind of forgot about the idea… until I found bee glasses at Claire’s in Dublin. I bought them, saying “these would be perfect if I ever do decide to have a bee-day party!”, then found myself explaining my idea to the friends who were travelling with me.
Bee glasses
Fast forward to my 30th birthday… Jan’s gift to me was a dress with bees all over it. He made me try it on straight away to make sure it fit, then said he would like me to wear it at my birthday party that weekend. I had originally planned to wear a dress my mum bought me, but was easily persuaded to go for the bee dress instead (did I mention I like bees?!)
He was gone for quite a while, and my friend and I had started to joke that he’d run off leaving us to pay the bill, then he turned up with the group of friens I go to the quiz with. All of them (including Jan now) were wearing yellow and black striped T-shirts and my friend K (I really need to think of better pseudonyms for people…) was carrying a cake. This cake:
How adorable is that? Underneath the icing is chocolate Guinness cake… which is delicious! Don’t let the Guinness put you off – it really does taste good! They also had bee-themed gifts… despite the fact that I had already received my gifts from them on my actual birthday (a Tina Dico CD and a bunch of flowers, in case anyone’s wondering). I got some honey, a bee-shaped ballon and this:
My pillow pal
I’ve named him Johnny Bee (geddit?).
Jan had arranged with the bar owner that he would pay for everyone’s first cocktail plus crostini for everyone, and I had asked for everyone to be given a glass of Prosecco when they came in so we could do the glass-clinking thing. The crostini were really good – at least the tomato-mozzerella and the red pesto ones were. I didn’t try the others (the toppings contained things I don’t like) but they seemed to go down well… they disappeared quickly enough anyway! The cocktails were tasty too, and as far as I can tell everyone had a good time. I know I did!
Thank you to my amazing friends and boyfriend for arranging it all! ♥♥
And now I have to go cross stitch… my friend most inconsiderately went and gave birth and I’m not finished yet 😉
Confuzzledom 