The Little Women were impressed with the old town’s Baroque architecture, which includes a cathedral, churches and fountains.

Although the Little Women have seen a few White Christmases, this year was the first time they enjoyed a White Easter, with several centimeters of snow on the ground on Sunday morning.

Fortunately, the weather improved the next day, and they visited an open-air museum with buildings from rural areas near Salzburg.

Apparently the people there have a tradition of building fences without nails, because the museum included four or five different types of such fences.

Another highlight of the museum was its Austrian tractor exhibit.

The Little Women finished their time in Austria with a visit to Hellbrunn Palace, built 400 years ago by the prince-archbishop of Salzburg.

Hellbrunn Palace was not a residence (as our readers can see from its almost closet-like dimensions in the photo above), but a Lustschloss or “pleasure palace.”  It was a place where potentates could bring their friends for the day to forget about their cares (e.g., possibly breathing the same air as commoners) back in the city.  The palace is perhaps the only place in the world that features warning signs like this one:

Most readers will recall that this is the international sign forbidding the doing of jumping jacks in the presence of death-ray cross-fire.  However, at Hellbrunn it also means that visitors should not let their cameras get wet, because even in a garden scene as peaceful and elegant-looking as this

lurks di-hydrogen-oxide horror.  For example, there are fountains hidden in this dinner table and in the chairs (except for the host’s spot) — the perfect thing to wake up your guests who have had some wine and are dosing off.

In such a place, danger is everywhere, including in this fountain disguised as a deer head.

But at Hellbrunn Palace, water isn’t used only for nefarious purposes.  It also powers some clever moving figures:

At the end of their visit, the Little Women discovered that Hellbrunn also has a great park.  They agreed that any palace with a playground that has four types of swings is definitely a pleasure palace.

Fortunately, any effects of the bombs are long gone, and Schaffhausen’s old town has many buildings with lovely bay windows, like these:

The city also has a late-15th-century house with lovely murals, and some decorated fountains.

Barcelona to Subway Passengers in Wheelchairs (or with Strollers, or Crutches, or Luggage): Drop Dead

Upon arriving in Barcelona, the Little Women and their attendants soon learned that navigating the subway stations with anything on wheels is frustrating, at best. Even when there’s an elevator (if you can find it) that you can use (if it’s in service), that doesn’t mean there won’t be other stairways later on in the station.¹ As a result, traveling from the airport to the vacation apartment took longer than traveling from Switzerland to Spain.

Barcelona: This Is Not Your Father’s Architecture

The city being known for its Modernisme architecture, the first thing the Little Women wanted to see was the Sagrada Familia church, which has been under construction since 1882. The Swiss Misses quickly realized that this was unlike any other church they had ever visited (and they’ve visited many). After all, how many churches feature a tree with birds, fruit-like mosaic sculptures, and a magic square with a constant of 33? (And that’s just the outside of the building.)

The interior of the church has stained-glass windows that paint the walls with color.  The pillars resemble large trees.

The Little Women also visited Park Güell, which was designed by the main architect of the Sagrada Familia. However, since there was no playground, the Little Women decided that it couldn’t be a real “park.”

Later in the week, they visited Europe’s largest aquarium, which had a tunnel that let visitors walk through a large fish tank. This gave Clara and Nicolyn the chance to check out the many sharks in the tank and pick out their favorites.

Barcelona: In Spain, But Not of Spain

Barcelona, being the first city of Catalonia, seems to consider itself separate from the rest of Spain in some ways. But that doesn’t mean that you can’t see the rest of Spain in Barcelona! The Little Women visited Poble Espanyol, Barcelona’s open-air museum featuring reconstructed versions of buildings from all over the country. Although not as authentic as something like Ballenberg in Switzerland, it was still a fun time.

Barcelona to People Who Get Hungry Before 8PM: Drop Dead

Eventually, the Swiss Misses grew weary of sightseeing, so they stayed at the vacation apartment with Stephanie. They sent Jonathan and Jenelle outside so that the parents would be out of their hair. ²

Condemned to wander the streets of one of Europe’s biggest tourist destinations without their children, Jenelle and Jonathan visited the Picasso Museum, which showed early works from the artist’s life. Jonathan learned that Pablo started out producing more traditional work, and that cubism actually wasn’t an attempt to mask the artist’s lack of drawing ability.

They also checked out some Roman ruins, visited Barcelona’s cathedral, and saw some other Modernisme buildings. One of these was Palau Güell, a mansion that Antoni Gaudi (of Sagrada Familia fame) designed for the wealthy industrialist Mr. Güell.³

The only wrinkle in Jenelle and Jonathan’s time on the town (aside from getting the wrong train to visit a nearby city) was when they decided to have dinner one day at 5:30. It turned out that while you can eat lunch in Barcelona until 4 or 5, finding a traditional Catalan restaurant that will serve you dinner before 8 is apparently impossible.

The readers of this blog may be asking themselves, “What do Barcelonans do on a Saturday evening before the restaurants open?” Thanks to their careful research, Jonathan and Jenelle can answer this question: The locals attend public demonstrations. After resigning themselves to returning to the vacation apartment for dinner, Jenelle and Jonathan came across (in this order and in the space of 10 minutes):

• a parade of people beating drums and/or wearing chicken costumes;
• a religious procession coming out of a church; and
• two demonstrations in front of government buildings.

Hopefully none of the demonstrations ran into each other — that could have turned messy.

1. This explains why “subway riding” was an event at the Paralympic Games held here in 1992.
2. Speaking of hair, Jenelle and Stephanie went to an English-speaking hair salon. The hairdresser thought that Jenelle was Stephanie’s 22-year-old sister.
3. “Wealthy” is a little misleading. He was actually incredibly, fantastically wealthy. By one count, his fortune was worth 70 billion Euros in today’s currency, which would make him one of the 25 richest people in history.

• increasing the mandatory vacation for employees to six weeks per year;
• starting to give out letter grades in 2nd grade;
• limiting the building of vacation homes in Switzerland;
• setting a minimum price for books.

Each of the kindergarten classes made different styles of lanterns.

Older kids carried different things and/or wore different costumes.  Note the large cow bells that the boys in this next picture are carrying.  The bells are very loud, which explains why some of the students are wearing hearing protection.

The kids in the really crazy costumes were collecting money for something.

At the end of the evening, Annika walked home from the parade while munching on a Grittibänz, a little Swiss bread shaped like a Santa Claus.

The Vances are pleased to announce another round of their website’s Photo Caption Contest.  If you have a caption for the picture shown below, please enter it using the comments link for this post.  This round is open through February 8, 2012.  The winner will receive a wonderful Swiss prize (not a wheel of cheese, not a cow, not a mountain).

The quality of the cocoa powder is very important.  Valrhona and Callier both make excellent cocoas.  Good toppings include whipped cream, caramel sauce and marshmallows.³

Vanilla Bean Hot Cocoa

Ingredients

• 1 vanilla bean, split lengthwise
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
• 1/2 cup water
• Pinch of salt
• 3 cups whole milk
• 1 1/2 cups half-and-half
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Preparation

• Scrape the seeds from the vanilla bean and place them in a food processor or blender with the sugar.  Reserve bean pod.  Blend seeds and sugar until seeds are well mixed with the sugar.
• Place the sugar-vanilla mixture in a medium sauce pan with the cocoa powder.  Whisk in the 1/2 cup water until the mixture is smooth.
• Heat the mixture in the pan over medium heat just until it bubbles.
• Whisk in the whole milk and the half-and-half.  Add the vanilla bean pod.
• Bring the mixture to a simmer.  Remove from heat, whisk in the vanilla extract, and remove the bean pod.

1. This particular recipe is habit-forming and also known as ‘Hot Cocoa-caine’.
2. Note that this recipe is suspiciously similar to the one on the back of the vanilla bean package at Costco.
3. A good recipe for homemade marshmallows appears here.