July 11-13th - (complete) Family Weekend at Bodensee (Lake Constance)
As Jared is here for two weeks and Carola is leaving for Taiwan in August, we thought it might be a good idea to use the rare occasion to go on a family weekend ...
After arrival at Bodensee (biggest lake in Europe), we immediately took a ferry across to the famous island of "Mainau", still privately owned but their park opened to the public ... here the castle ...
... and took the first group photo of the family ...
After long walks, we came back to the hotel and had dinner there ... on the terrace, watching the sun go down ... here Natasha, Jared and Cynthia ...
... we had to wait for nearly 1,5 hours for our dinner ... so the hotel is not to be recommended ... here Thomas, Carola and Claudia ...
... here the family at dinner with the lake in the background ...
... here some sun-down impressions, made that evening.
Sunday morning, we went to the Zeppelin museum (airships), which was very interesting and then took a car ferry (we were there with both cars) to Switzerland. Germany, Austria and Switzerland have shorelines at the Bodensee ... here all of us at the ferry having a coffee...
While driving through Switzerland, Jared saw a minigolf ground ... so we had a stop there ...
... here Jared and his mum ... he won at the end ...
... Thomas also trying ... but it was just trying ...
We then drove on towards Schaffhausen in Switzerland, where the famous Rhein falls are ... after flowing through the Bodensee, the river Rhein exits and some kilometres later you can see this picture ...
... here us at the falls ...
Sunday night - after driving back from Switzerland - we had a dinner in an Italian restaurant ... very nice ...
Monday our weekend finished ... we drove to Ueberlingen, where we hired a boat for an hour ...
... it was extremely fast ... if you tried that speed on a bicycle, you would fall over ...
... Jared and Natasha ...
and finally Cynthia, Jared and Carola
After driving back for 2,5 hours we came home ... and were tired! So the first - complete - family weekend was over.