Girl’s Weekend

Girl’s trip to Poland for Pottery and Seiffen Germany for carved, wooden, painted treasures:  Tonia, Katherine, me and Amber!  Such a great weekend…. this hotel up above was awesome.  Located just outside of the Poland border, it only cost 60 euro for all of us!  A bargain for sure…. and the people were so nice!  Our GPS hijacked us on the way in at 11 pm through the scary forest, but other than that we loved staying here.  

 

Once we arrived in Poland, we quickly got to work finding pottery treasures…. back behind all of the stores you find the factories where everything is hand painted and made.  So cool to see the ladies at work. 

We all loved this red paisley pattern especially Katherine from San Diego (the surfer beach bum girl) who thought it reminded her of waves. 

   

It gets slightly overwhelming trying to find the perfect stuff: 

Lots of broken pieces from this factory have been tied to the tree out front for décor:

 

This thatched roof restaurant is awesome.  Amber has been to Poland lots of times and eaten here before.  We all got the mixed Perogi plate:  They are homemade ravioli’s stuffed with cheese, beef, or mushrooms.  So incredible! 

We spent the next two days in Seiffen Germany shopping for all the wooden German treasures and staying at our awesome Buntes Haus hotel.  We introduced Katherine to Doner Kebabs, which she loved, and bought some fun stuff.  We also spent the evenings talking about the new WARD split and boundaries and a lot of talking about raising kids!!  So much fun to get to know these gals so much better.  Unfortunately all of these ladies are now in the other ward (Ramstein 2 and we will be in Ramstein 1), growing pains are never fun in a ward filled with fun ladies!   I planned the whole trip and was glad that I had three takers to tag along.  Good times. 

This was my third trip to Seiffen, but first time in this particular store.  It was amazing.  They had a workshop right inside the shop so you could see the production line of nutcrackers and wooden figurines.  I loved seeing the process….

 

This trip I purchased lots of Kinderblumen kids for my SIL Colette, and a miner and angel which are the essential pieces to the history of Seiffen.  I also got a new Nutcracker….just because I couldn’t resist!  It’s the gray one from up above.  And to round things out I got a German old man smoker with a map, backpack, and pipe sitting on a wooden bench.  Ahhh Seiffen I LOVE visiting you! 

 

Lake Geneva and the Chillon Palace

Our last hurrah before heading all the way home to Germany was driving around the beautiful Lake Geneva and stopping for a visit at the Chateau de Chillon.  Before reaching the Chateau, we enjoyed the lake side views of the Alps and stopped to play at an amazing park along the way.  The weather was perfect!
   
The Château de Chillon is an island castle located on the shore of the eastern end of Lake Geneva in Switzerland. The oldest parts of the castle have not been definitively dated, but the first written record of the castle is in 1160 or 1005.   From the mid 12th century, the castle was home to the Counts of Savoy, and it was greatly expanded in the 13th century by Pietro II. The Castle was never taken in a siege, but did change hands through treaties.
It was made popular by Lord Byron, who wrote the poem The Prisoner Of Chillon (1816) about François de Bonivard, a Genevois monk and politician who was imprisoned there from 1530 to 1536; Byron also carved his name on a pillar of the dungeon.