Slow Up! Tour de Schweiz

Nathan and I had a great time last weekend! On Saturday, we went to the cutest little town called Stein am Rhein - it looked straight out of Busch Gardens - I mean Germany! I half expected men in Lederhosen to come out of the shadows and offer us some beer:) The buildings were very well preserved and they all had the most beautiful paintings on them.

After touring around the town, we climbed up the "hill" to the Hohenklingen Castle. Great views of the city and Rhine River! On the way back down we walked through the vineyards - the grapes looked so good - but I thought the wine fairies were going to come out and get us after Nathan tried to pick some:) And NObody wants the fate of having bad wine (or worse - really bad wine hangovers) for the rest of their lives so the grape vines went unharmed - promise!

I love this photo - It looks like someone just photoshopped me in!:) But I was there - promise!

Don't do it!

On Sunday we finally were able to go to a Slow Up! Slow Up is a free event put on by Switzerland to promote good health amongst its citizens. So each week during the summer they pick a city/region and basically close down all the streets to motorized traffic and thousands of people come out to bike, roller blade, run or whatever. I really did feel like we were participating in the Tour de France Switzerland Style!:) The "course" is usually between 25 - 40 km depending on the area. NOTE: Most of the pics were taken while Nathan was riding his bike so they are a little fuzzy - but no one was harmed or run over (at least not that I know of:))!

Not sure what is up with my camera lens (do you see the squiggly things on the picture) - it hasn't been the same since I dropped it in the mud at the Zurich Street Parade:( I liked the blue sky against the sign though!

We finished (and I didn't complain once) Yeah!!!

This was actually the start of our bike ride

Miriam and I

The one we went to was near the Bodensee. It was a really beautiful ride and I glad we picked this area (although I'm sure I would have felt that way about all of them)!

The Bodensee

This area is a large fruit growing region in Switzerland so some of the apple orchards were passing out free apples - soooo good! And the Slow Up partners (Rivella and Ramseier) were also passing out samples along the way - I have to say the Ramseier Cactus/Apple Juice drink was amazing!!!! I'm definitely going to have to find this at the grocery store!

Sweet - is that beer!!! Apple Juice? Okay- I'll still take it:)

I'm pretty sure I got lapped by at least one 5 year old but that's okay - he has probably been doing stuff like this since he was days old! It really was cool though - we saw a ton of little kids riding their bikes the whole way - and it was like 20 miles! Such a great active lifestyle over here!

Said FIVE YEAR OLD (and his little brother) kicking my ass - I said I did it - not that I was fast:)

We saw tons of bikes and roller bladers but here were a few things I had never seen before!

Look at the wheels - they were only on the outside of the skate so I'm not sure how easy it was to stand up .....

I don't remember what they called these but people were running in them along the course!

This is a two person bike thing but you can't really tell from this photo

Now this is what I'm talkin' about!

Tomorrow we are off to Italy for 10 days with Nathan's Mom and Stepdad! I am so excited! Hopefully I will get to write some while we are away, but if not - look for a REALLY LOOOOOOOOONG post around the 14th!:)

Ciao,
Mandy

Photo album for Stein am Rhein

Photo album for the Slow Up! at the Bodensee