BMCC 2008 Switzerland Blog

Sunday, June 1, 2008

(Day 3: Tour Guide – Andiol DeLaRosa)

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Walking, Learning and Food in Chur….

Written by: Adrienne Kennick

Today (Sunday, June 1), we breakfasted at School, and then took the school van to the city of Chur. After strolling along some of the cobblestone and paved streets, and visiting the Church of St. Martin, we walked along the river to the train station. Almost all of the shops and restaurants are closed on Sundays (the exception was a little convenience mart in the train station).

By group consensus, we lunched at a Mexican restaurant. …The menu items were listed in Spanish, and the descriptions were in German. I ordered the spare ribs, mainly because I have never seen ribs on a Mexican menu, and I will say the food was tasty. The barbecue sauce was sweet and spicy (red pepper flakes, sugar and cumin, I think), the garnish was an orange slice, a radish cut into a flower shape, and a small purple blossom. The side dish appeared to be a small cup of sautéed vegetables, but turned out to be a mix of cold and lightly pickled vegetables. Definitely a local touch. After lunch we found the local bus service and returned to School, briefly meeting another School group heading further up the mountain for a weekend aiding the foresters and learning about the regional trees and wildlife.

Now it’s mid-afternoon (we’re six hours ahead of eastern standard time), and we’re back at School, sharing our pictures and writing about our trip – so far.

Our morning in Chur:

Our group in front of the fountain in Martinsplatz, just next to the Kirche St. Martin.

(Left to right, front row: Liliana, Gia, Sarah, Elliott, Adrienne, middle row: Mark, Adele, Prof. Blake-Neis, Katherine, Dr. Garely, back row: Curtis, Shevy, Andy, Sasha – Photo taken by: Asha Buton)

Inside the church (Kirche St. Martin) – it really wasn’t dark in there, but I couldn’t reconfigure the camera.

Walking down Reichsgasse

Chur’s architecture has lots of arches – from decorative portals to windowed hallway bridges:

(this is a view along Brotlaube)

(the Hotel Freieck has a pretty arch as well)

(the arch in the picture below crosses Bärenloch, which ends in a little courtyard with buildings and a garden)

The city of Chur and our School in the village of Passugg are both in the mountains at the edge of the Alps.

This is June, and yes – that’s snow. (The view is of the mountains beyond the square of Regierungsplatz).

and last of all, the door of 64 Reichsgasse (sorry, it’s a little fuzzy):

Picking up where my last non-illustrated post left off, after the afternoon blogging our entire group treked on foot to the next bus stop (possibly a stone’s throw down the mountain, and a five minutes’ careful walk along a steep dirt and gravel trail). The corner of the bus stop is actually the local restaurant Mùhle.

There we had salad (sunflower and pumpkin seeds with carrot, radish, cucumber, mixed greens and cream dressing) followed by perfectly cooked chicken breast in a brown gravy with green peppercorns, rice, and plain-cooked spinach.

Group dinner at Mùhle Restaurant

Then a slightly longer walk back up to school, and a few adventurous souls (myself, Katherine, Sasha, Mark, Andy, Elliott, Sarah, Asha, and Shevy) continued further up the road (and up the mountain) to see what we could see. We found road construction, and more stunning views (of the mountains, the river, and the sunset), and some friendly people who waved from their house above, and onto the next bus station. Due to some fears about certain horror movies having the potential to become real, the minority of intrepid explorers (myself, Katherine, Sasha and Asha) bowed to the majority of those wishing to return to campus.