Stuttgart

It's been a long while since I last updated my blog. In the meantime, it's certainly NOT cold anymore - but very hot!!
We as family were traveling a lot back and forth between Geneva and Stuttgart (southern Germany). Beside our duties, we had fun discovering my home area in a new way. On Mother's Day we went to Stuttgart's hugest park: The beautiful "Schlossgarten".

We also walked through the city, beside the beautiful "Altes Schloss" (translates into "old castle")

and at the end of the day made a trip to Stuttgart's television tower "Fernsehturm".

Stuttgart is not only economically strong and home of big companies like Mercedes, Porsche and Bosch, but also became a very urban, modern big city over the last decades - with lots of culture and a high quality of life. It's surrounded by vineyards, forests and a lot of green space to spend leisure time.

PAUL

We got to know PAUL in the South of France ... a lovely bakery chain with delicious bread, cakes and all kinds of treats. It took us a while to find PAUL in our area.
But fortunately we found one in this mall in nearby France:
Centre Commercial Val Thoiry
We went there again during Christmas time and enjoyed delicious coffee, quiche and marvellous desserts. I had a praliné macaron which was the best macaron I've ever eaten (see second pic above)!
What we also like about PAUL is the interior design - it is like stepping back into good old times, with chandeliers, walls covered with old library cabinets with tiny drawers - and the waitresses/sales clerks are also dressed like in the first half of the 20th century!
You can check the website PAUL - they have shops/cafés not only in France, but also in around twenty other countries.

Summer Summary!

This is perhaps the perfect day for a summer review. Today, on October 7th, we had 27 degrees (Celcius!!) here in Geneva! Summer showed up again in early autumn. But the whole year was amazing what weather concerns. A beautiful spring, a really hot summer, and an incredible warm start into autumn - with many many cloudless, sunny days. What a blessing!


We started into the summer in June with our holiday in Camargue/France. It was a perfect time as it was already hot, but the crowds hadn’t yet shown up. A very special region with wine grown on sand (vin du sable), rice and wild horses!
Then, in mid July we headed to my hometown in Southern Germany to celebrate our little nephew’s/cousin’s baptism. It was a very nice family celebration. In this church, I was baptised as well, had my confirmation - and we celebrated our wedding there - ten years ago!

At the beginning of August we had the pleasure to spend a weekend at one of our favourite Swiss spots: Lake of Thun. It’s Switzerland at its best, postcards coming true, so to say…

Then, end of August, we spent one night at Lac de Joux, where friends had rented a beautiful chalet and we were invited to join in. We even swam in this rather cold, but very refreshing Lake. There are a number of well known watchmakers located in Vallée de Joux (which is in the middle of nowhere).

And finally, we had a nice holiday in Austria, in “Kleinwalsertal”, which is very close to the German border and the German ski village Oberstdorf.

Despite all those beautiful trips, we’ve spent most of July and August here in hot Geneva, especially enjoying Parc Bertrand!