In September, Mr. CG and I traveled to Germany, Austria, and Switzerland. I wanted to explore this part of the world because of my family’s connections to it, and indeed I was excited to see my last name, which is so rare in the U.S., all over the place in Germany and Austria. At the same time, I’ve always been nervous about going to Germany, and in many ways it was difficult. In traveling to Cologne, Munich, and Vienna we were steeped in the history of Hitler and the Holocaust. We saw places where Hitler gave speeches and a beer hall where decorative flags have been painted over swastikas. We visited the concentration camp Mauthausen, which author Eva Eger writes about in her excellent memoir The Choice. We saw quite a few Holocaust memorials but my favorite one was in Vienna; it’s a square designed to look like bookshelves with the spines facing inward, representing the many minds that were lost (and also because Jews are known as The People of the Book).
Of course, it wasn’t all serious! Travel for me is about learning about different cultures and history, as well as seeing beautiful parts of the world, so this trip didn’t disappoint. My favorite place was Murren, Switzerland, in the Alps, which was one of the most beautiful places I’ve seen. We rode gondolas high into the alps, hiked among its peaks, ran into herds of cows, and climbed into a waterfall. I also enjoyed the beer culture of Bavaria, eating black forest cake, riding a luge, and exploring centuries-old homes in an outdoor museum.
This was our first Rick Steves’ tour — U.S. readers may be familiar with his travel books and TV shows. I enjoyed the tour maybe more than Mr. CG did. I liked having things planned for us, and I enjoyed getting to know the other people on the tour. The downside is we had no say in how long we wanted to spend in each place, and we moved around every day or two. If I’m visiting a place where I feel strongly about where I want to go and what I want to do, a tour wouldn’t be the best way to go. But for this part of the world, I was happy to have someone with lots more expertise plan my trip. We did have many afternoons on our own, but then you had to choose from a lot of options in a short amount of time. I loved that it was a very active trip, but we were pretty exhausted after two weeks (travel to seven cities). Planning “down time” turned out to be critical; some of our fellow travelers probably did a better job of just relaxing and taking in the scenery than we did.
Our trip was greatly enhanced by the glorious summer weather we had. While we packed for 60-degree weather, what we got most days was 80s instead. Almost no rain, no clouds – which is concerning from a climate change perspective, since we were walking around the Alps and actually had to buy shorts and tees so we wouldn’t faint from the heat. But it really made the trip so much nicer!
I read a lot while traveling, though for various reasons I haven’t been able to complete a book since I got home. Here’s what I read in September:
- Happiness Falls by Angie Kim
- Georgie, All Along by Kate Claybourn
- Chenneville by Paulette Jiles
- Heartstopper Vol. 3 by Alice Oseman
- The No-Show by Beth O’Leary
- Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin
My favorite reads:
It’s always a little challenging to get really absorbed in a book while traveling (so many distractions) so I don’t know that I was able to appreciate these books as much as I should have. My favorite was the third volume of Heartstopper – and I sort of watched and read simultaneously and was impressed by how much the show is consistent with the books. Happiness Falls and Chenneville were both really good (please see my reviews for more info).
I really enjoyed Tomorrow but I didn’t come away loving it the way many readers have. I did enjoy the in-depth look at the gaming world, and I appreciated the way gaming was always about building and telling a story, as those are the kinds of games I like best. Also the characters were really interesting (while also being really problematic), but their relationship was so frustrating. Would I have enjoyed this more if I hadn’t read most of it while sick and while on a plane? Probably.
Most disappointing read:
I had mixed feelings about The No-Show, as I often do with Beth O’Leary’s books. Here, I think she tried something that just didn’t fully work for me, and I never really bought into the romance.
On the blog:
I posted my 20 Books of Summer recap, and reviews of The House is on Fire, Happiness Falls and Chenneville.
What I’m reading now:
I’m reading T.C. Boyle’s Blue Skies — Boyle is a favorite of mine, and I always appreciate Boyle’s dark humor. I’m also reading Cinnamon and Gunpowder, a book about a female pirate captain who kidnaps a chef. For a book combining piracy and food it’s surprisingly dragging a bit.
What’s coming up:
Heading into the last three months of the year, I feel like I don’t want to plan out my reading too much, and thankfully I don’t have any ARCs to read in October. I want to make more headway on some of my challenges, but I also just want to read books I’ve been meaning to get to for a while. I’ll be posting more Tuesday about my plans for the rest of the year.
That’s my September wrap-up. Hope you’re enjoying the fall, whether its Oktoberfest, Halloween or pumpkin lattes. I’m enjoying the hot weather while we still have it. Hope you’re reading something good!
The Book Stop 
Those Alp photos are stunning! I’m sort of with you on planned tours: it’s nice to have an expert figure out where to go and what to see, but for a place I felt strongly about, I’d plan it myself. We did two day-long tours when we visited San Francisco back in February—one was a Napa Valley wine tour and the other was along the Pacific Coast highway to Carmel-by-the-Sea—and they encapsulated the “so pleased to have someone else in charge but wait I want to spend more time here” feeling.
Thanks Elle! I don’t mind day tours so much if they are part of a larger trip that you have more control over. We do a lot of wine tours but our preference is one where you have some say in the wineries you visit – which basically amounts to hiring a personal planner and driver for the day, which is lots more expensive. A nice splurge once in a while though! One thing about a group tour is I’m pretty sure we saved money because the tour got a lot of good deals, and RS is a big fan of not overspending, which I appreciated..
RS and I have that in common! I hate feeling like I’ve paid too much for something that could have been a better experience, which is a big part of the appeal of planned/group tourism.
Glad you had such a good trip. We hope to make it to the Alps for at least a few days during our vacation next week. I’ve always appreciated RS’s travel books and shows but I think I’d be frustrated with the lack of freedom on a tour. However, I love it when I don’t have to be the one making all the travel arrangements – when I visited my sister in Paris she did all that and it was great!
Thanks Lory! How far are you from that area? Murren was so beautiful! One thing I did appreciate about the tour was we had a lot of morning activities and then often had the afternoon to choose what we wanted to do, which meant we could join up with others or go our own way – the introvert in me really needed that time away from the group. But that format meant the afternoons were rushed, depending on what we wanted to do. I think the tour was ideal for people who really wanted to relax and get to know other people – or for couples where one person really needed that and the other person didn’t.
We can be in the Alps in a couple of hours – I’m not sure exactly where Murren is though, it might be further. I am attracted to some things about such group tours, but my husband would never agree to come along, so it would have to be a solo outing …
Wow! The landscape photos look like paintings. So beautiful.
Thanks Zezee! It was just ridiculously pretty. It was hard to choose a few photos!
I really need to get back to Switzerland again… I love the alps and the many places you can visit there. Looks like you had a truly lovely time.
What parts of Switzerland have you seen? I think we’d like to see Geneva or Zurich in the future, and my husband wanted to see Interlacken. I think we might skip Germany and Austria and just do Switzerland in the future.
Well, all over, actually, but Lucerne is a favorite, especially because of the lakes and the amazing mountains – the Rigi and the Pilatus. I was there twice before the famous wooden bridge burned down, but they replaced it with a replica. Once we took a bus from through the “three passes” and I was able, with a very old reflex camera, to get a shot of a waterfall with a rainbow! So much beauty!
What a lovely trip. And that’s the first kind of neutral review of Tomorrowx3 I’ve seen, most people seem to love it and a couple the opposite. We’re taking it on our holiday next month so I hope at least one of us loves it!
I hope you do love it! Most people have, but I was sick the last day of my trip and then read most of it on a plane, so not ideal. I did really like all the gaming stuff and the characters were well developed. I didn’t like AJ Fikry, I thought it was too cute, but this was very different.
I’m so behind on my emails, but your subject line pulled me in straight away. Loved reading about your travels, and I hadn’t heard about that particular Holocaust memorial – what a poignant image, of all the books (literal and metaphorical) that will never be.
Thanks Sally! It was a beautiful memorial. Vienna also had two Jewish museums that were quite interesting. One is basically an archaeological site where they uncovered a Middle Ages synagogue when they were planning for the Holocaust memorial.
Looks like a wonderful vacation. I have never been on a tour–mainly because I love to plan trips and wouldn’t want to miss that part of the fun–but sometimes, especially to a new area I can see how it makes sense. The memorial with the turned around books is so compelling–what a testament to what was lost. Your photos are incredible–I loved the German Alps when I visited in May.
Welcome back and happy Fall!
Thanks Jane! I definitely think we’ll plan our next trip, we love the planning too. It’s only that we tend to overplan, and this year with some family issues I didn’t feel up to it. I think it depends a lot on how easy a place is to get around, and Europe is pretty easy. We took a group tour in South America, and I definitely felt that was worth it. Happy fall to you too!
wow, thanks for sharing these gorgeous pictures!