Travelog for: Ray

It is Today...
Ray has decided to travel around this world with his strong wills realizing his dreams~
I wannna send him to the place he wants to go...
but now Ray seems to have no ideas about his destinations 
....If anyone who wants to adopt him just connect me by any way!
I am completely grateful for your kindness!
And I will send Ray to you soon!

Ray has savely arrived in Switzerland. He immediately took a look around and posed with Switzerland's main sights: the mountains.

Here with the Stanser Horn, a mountain of nearly 2000m.

Ray couldn't wait to see Lucerne, so he went there for a bit of shopping and sight-seeing. Here he is in front of the KKL (music hall) and art museum.


He also looked toward the other side of the lake and watched all the small and big boats on the lake and the swans and other water fowl.

It is hot and humid here at the moment, so Ray decided to go swimming in Lake Lucerne. There were lots of other poepl who had the same idea.

Lake Lucerne has a funny form with 4 main 'arms'. So when in one bay, one can usually only see a small part of the lake.

While the weather was still nice Ray was in Bouchs once again to get a little sun and swim a bit. While there a little insect took a great linking to him.


Unfortunately clouds pulled up and there were sudden outs of wind.


Even the ducks were looking for cover.

The morning started out cloudy but when the sun came out in the afternoon, Ray and Knopf wanted to go for a short walk into town.
Here he his with Mt. Pilatus in the background:

And here looking toward Stanstad and at a residential area.


Coming toward the center of town from a little up the mountain...

He soon found the church and village square.


Knopf esp. liked the church tower. Ray couldn’t decide.

Ray just wanted to show the other tvs here: Knopf, Annie, WillyW and some of the food he gets here like Ovomaltine (a malt/chocolate like powder to dissolve in milk), mint sirup and local produce.

There was a big article in the newspaper about hiking in Switzerland and how it has become very popular again. Ray wanted to join in. For a start he drove to Niederrickenbach and took the cableway up to Maria-Rickenbach.

There's a monastery of Benedictine nuns up there which is a place of pilgrimage. No road leads up, so the mail, groceries etc. are also brought up by cableway.

Maria-Rickenbach is a bit above 1000m high. His destination was the Brisenhaus at 1753m.

After walking a gravel road with some incline for a while, the way got really steep and was more a path through the cow pastures.

It got colder when Ray got closer to the tree border and the clouds were hanging low. The cows up here hadn't had their horns removed and some farmers we trying to collect them for milking.




On the way back down we had a look at the garden of the monastery. It was beautiful, very peaceful and had a great view.

To get some more pratice, Ray went hiking again, thus taking advantage of the (still) good weather here in Central Switzerland. This time he took a small ropeway from Oberrickenbach to the Bannalp, Chrüzhütte and walked from there over mountains calles Walenstöcke to Engelberg. It's called the 'Walenpath'

Zoomed in, these 2 cows made a very nice, symmetrical picture.

Here's the hiking path:


Ray was fascinated by how nature worked those very artistic lines into the rock. The way was very steep in this part and the drop to the side was scary:


The cows have a lot of freedom here and even when it's nearly silent otherwise, there's the sound of a cowbell from somewhere.


And here Ray is looking out over Oberdorf.

The higher of these two outcrops was the highest point of our tour.


After 2 more hours of walking, first down and then up again (how annoying!), Ray thought he deserved a rest along with the other tvs with a view of the Titlis glacier and Engelberg.


Ray enjoyed the barefoot path at Brunni and made the steep descent to Ristis, where he took a big cableway to Engelberg. He had to hurry to the station to catch out train back to the car.

The train switches to kind of a cog railway for the very steep passages. Ray was happy to get home and rest.

Ray posed with a favourite food here: cheese. In Switzerland you can eat cheese on bread, as raclette or cheese fondue, on potatoes or noodles and basically with every meal.

Saturday morning is spend grocery shopping. Here's Ray in the parking lot of the super market.



Then Ray drove on to Luzern. Here you can see some of the many bicycles parked outside the main station:


Ray made his way to the former bank building that now houses the Rosengart collection, a mudeum for Picasso, Klee and some other painters of the late 19th - early 20th century.


Ray wasn't allowed inside but he took some pics with the information and postcards of some of the paitings later on:



Here he is in front of the famous chapel bridge:


and the many swans.



And with some of the old houses along the Reuss river.

(the city hall)

(Gutsch castle in the background)

(the Jesuit church)

In the old town:

This is our goodbye-Switzerland dinner on the roof with lots of bread, cheese, fruit and veggies, a colorful cactus etc. We did have a great time here.

Look who I met today:


It's a shy little hedgehog. Hedgehogs (Igel in German) are under protection in Germany and may not be kept as pets. But this little one was found alone and hungry and too small to survive the winter on its own. In such cases, people are allowed to keep them inside for the winter. He sleeps in a little house filled with ripped up newspapers and eats cat-food.

He got more friendly and wanted to lick my face.


We stopped by a farm that's in the city to buy some eggs and bread and produce.

We are back in Germany an visited Düsseldorf today to go shopping.

Here's the art museum,

the court house,



At the promenade along the Rhine river

you can see that it's autumn now.

Some nice old houses are directly at the main roads. They are usaully used as offices now.

Here's a newly finished office building.


Here's one of the government buildings. Düsseldorf is the capital of Northrhine-Westfalia, one of the German states.


It has quite interesting door nobs.

The townhall and market place:




We came upon a band playing songs to lots of people drinking beer. The typical beer in this city is "Alt". Many people were sitting outside or stopping to watch the band, even though it raind on and off.



Düsseldorf is also a big carnival city. It starts on 11-11 at 11.11 o'clock, another high time is in the late winter. The processions are traditionally with a political message. Here's one of the shops selling costumes and accessories:

The people who partcipate in the carnival are called "Jecken".
And here's a legendary figure fo the Düsseldorfer Carnival, the Hoppeditz, who awakes on the aforementioned date to start up the "5th season" of the year.