Page 148 - Adobe Photoshop PDF
P. 148
In the restaurants in these hotels, they had fresh orange juice, which
was unavailable to Germans. The whole idea was that members of the
U.S. Armed Forces were encouraged to use special facilities maintained
by the Army in order not to compete with German civilians for scarce
goods.
Bob and Gladys took us on a daylong trip down the Rhine. It
was fascinating to see the old castles at every major turning point on
the river. We were told that in the olden days these castles were used
DV WROO FROOHFWLRQ VWDWLRQV ± \RX SDLG RU \RXU ERDW PLJKW EH ¿UHG XSRQ
from the heights. We stayed overnight at a lovely old hotel by the river
in Coblentz. It was a romantic spot you could hear the riverboats pass-
ing by beneath your window. The next day in Coblentz we bought the
Rosenthal china set in the Moss Rose pattern that Jean still has. Bob and
Gladys were kind and generous hosts.
We then went to Basel, Switzerland, where we met Gus Gerber,
our Swiss friend from earlier days in Saudi Arabia. Gus was now work-
ing for a Swiss travel company. He arranged for us to lease a German
Ford in a German city across the river from Basel. With Gus advice, we
then set out on a tour of Switzerland for a week. We especially loved In-
terlaken, which is beautifully situated in a valley near a lake surrounded
by steep mountains. While there, we rode the cog railroad to the top of
the Jungfrau. The last part of the trip up the mountain is through an icy
tunnel and we emerged at the peak at slightly over 13,000-foot eleva-
tion. The elevation didnt bother Jean, but my feet felt like they were
encased in concrete shoes. The view from the top looking across other
mountains in the Alps was beautiful, but it was disappointing that we
couldnt see the valley below as it was covered by dense clouds. As we
rode around in Switzerland we would call Gus Gerber each night and
receive advice as where to go the next day and what hotel would expect
us the next night. It was a great arrangement.
One quaint feature of the small Swiss towns was that each home
KDG D VWDEOH RQ WKH JURXQG ÀRRU ZKHUH WKH IDPLO\ FRZ ZDV NHSW :H
found that in the late afternoon the cows, which had been out in public
pasture during the day, would walk down the street to the center of town
144
