A 20 Minute Walk in Stein am Rhine

As promised yesterday, I am still boycotting the end of Christmas!  We have a family dinner tonight with some relatives who just came in town… maybe we will drink some gluhwein and pretend the holiday has not passed us by!

I also promised yesterday that I was going to share some photos with you from my snowy afternoon trip to Stein am Rhine, Switzerland.  Here we go!

My Uncle decided a quick afternoon trip to Stein am Rhine would be a great thing for us to do… to fully understand my reservations about this day trip you must understand my Uncle.  Many times in my life he has said “Oh, it’s just a quick 20 minute walk” which, when translated from German to English, and Swiss-fit-Uncle to American-out of shape-Niece means the walk will take a minimum of 3 hours.

As we pulled out of their driveway it started to snow.  I’m not talking a little flurry here or there, I’m talking Swiss highways were being shut down!  We continued on with the intent of visiting this little town after driving up to a castle.  Key words being “driving UP.”  Thankfully, Uncle Urs decided it probably wasn’t the best idea for us to drive up a mountain to a castle, but instead just enjoy the downtown area of Stein am Rhine.

Did I mention it was freakin’ cold?!  And did I mention we had a sleepy Benjamin with us?  Again, the kid slept through our entire walk!  (Which was probably a good thing because none of us knew how to put the snow cover on the stroller properly!)

After walking through town we stopped to get some hot tea and cake.  Benjamin woke up and played with some other children that were in the cafe.  Then we bundled back up and headed home.  I will admit, I was not looking forward to this outing one bit… but looking back, it is such a nice memory.  I am just extremely grateful that I wasn’t the only one freezing, which meant the “20 minute walk” was not a 3 hour trek!