Friday in Konstanz

Friday was our first full day in Konstanz, a beautiful little city at the edge of the Bodensee, a large lake on the border with Switzerland. It's almost as far south in Germany as you can go, although most of our stops on this trip have been pretty far south.

The weather is still on the gray side, although there's no rain to speak of. Anyway, here's our hotel in Konstanz. Check out the bear on the right -The younger travelers are pretty much all worn out now...using the bus trips as a chance to catch up on sleep. Given that school is in session, most of them have brought homework to do while traveling and also are doing some writing about our trip. I'm not saying that's what keeps them awake, but it might be one of the things...
So, we started a sight-seeing tour of Konstanz in the morning and one of the sights is this fountain in the main thoroughfare. It has several emperors & kings carved on its sides, and some whimsy on the base...
Here's the whimsy...Here's a picture of Bob standing in that street
Konstanz completely escaped aerial bombardment during WWII, so most of its old structures are intact. Our tour guide said that this was because the city kept its lights on during the blackout, and was thus mistaken for its neighboring Swiss city and avoided. It means that buildings like this city hall are still intact. Here's the view from inside the courtyard,
and here's the view from the street. The painting on the face of the building is extremely elaborate and depicts key points in the town's history. By the way, from what I've been told by my family this is the general region where my mom's ancestors came from, and this is an important trading town -- it's likely some of my ancestors were at least visitors here at one time.
After lunch we traveled to the 'island' of Mainau, a garden destination with lots of plants. Well, I guess it's better than that lame description but I'm not much of a garden afficionado...one of the nicer attractions was a butterfly habitat, with thousands of exotic butterflies in a hothouse enclosure:
There are so many they land on people...This moth is about a foot in diameter, and very pretty...
Then it's back on the bus to the hotel. Here's the kids having fun in the back; this is what I saw almost every time I turned around --
At the hotel we managed to sneak into the restaurant ahead of a large party of local diners, but because it was a very small restaurant and a very large group we had a bit of a wait for our meals (which were delicious). Here's Jan, me, Jim, Tessa, Kristey, Carol, Don and Bob. Bob is getting tired...
and below is Carol & Don's son Jack, who helped out when the crowd got heavy by busing tables while Jim & Kristey's son Adam helped wash up in the kitchen. The chef/owner, Alex, was appreciative of the help. In fact, one of our party (Mike) spent the bulk of the evening waiting tables in exchange for beer (and also for the experience -- who else could say that they waited tables in a German restaurant during Oktoberfest for the fun of it?).
Tomorrow is supposed to be clear & warm, we'll see.

Later