Rainy Ski Week-end in Germany

Knowing that our ski days are numbered (what with February rolling into March and -9 becoming somewhat alarmingly +9), we are cramming in as much ski time as humanly possible. This week-end after viewing the webcams and confirming that there is infact still snow on the mountains, we decided to head back to our traditional haunt - Arber.

During the night, the sound of very wet precipitation started to cause some alarm about the feasibily of actually skiing the following day and waking up, we confirmed our fears... it was raining cats and nearly dogs. There was the occassional snow flake in the flurry and then an attempt at something more solid when it showered down inches of hail stones. We decided to lay low for the morning, updating blogs while the girls caught up on some German lessons. I am sure that if they were to have watched as many cartoons in Czech as they have in German that their grasp of the czech language would be far more advanced...

We eventually managed to persuade to girls to leave the warmth and comfort of the TV and head for the blustery outdoors with the allure that lunch is only available outside of the apartment. We had planned to take a drive past Arber ski area to see what was happening, and then to drive through the forrests and generally just explore somewhere new. After looking at options on the GPS, we headed course for Deggendorf.

This was also the week-end that the world cup ski race was planned for Arber, so there were slopes all nicely marked out and TV cameras and vans all about, but no actual skiing on the go. The slopes were all looking decidedly slushy.

There was still much attention being paid to the race course - probably the disaster recovery team eventually consoling themselves to the fact that this was a non-recoverable disaster. I am sure that the snow groomers and cannons will be working this evening to try to recover for skiing tomorrow.

Driving through the forrest, the whole mountain was becoming one big waterfall. There were rivers cascading down every hill and all the rivers below were in full flood.
Not far from Arber, we came across a beautiful lake. I had seen it on the maps before, but we had never ventured this way. I was somewhat sad that we had never been this side of the mountain previously as I could very easily see myself skating up a veritable storm here (on a somewhat more frozen verion of the lake).

Seeing the melting layer of ice sheets, it reminded me of Ice Age 2 and I almost expected to see some giant prehistoric creature swim under the shallow ice..
Next stop was Deggendorf. The hunger mites were growling from the back seat of the car, so lunch was more of a priority than siteseeing at this stage. Nevertheless, we got a good stroll through the town square before finding a suitable restaurant.
And had enough time to pick the flowers en-route

After lunch, I couldn't help but point out the sign below to Colin, who promptly whipped out his camera:
Saturday evening, while still blustery, the rain had subsided long enough for our 2 adventurers to hit the great outdoors.
We all went to bed full of expectation for a sub zero night and zero precipitation for the next day. Unfortunately our prayers were not answered and we woke up to an equally sopping day as before. Today we decided to visit the glass factory in Bodenmais, the neighboring town to Arber. We were in luck to have the girls try their hand at glass blowing once more. Sarah has repeatedly asked for us to visit the glass factories with her fond memories of her previous glass blowing experience (Sarah the Glassblower, April 2007). This time, Amber got to have a turn as well. The results of their blowings were beautiful plant watering balls.
Sarah also having a turn:
So, you fill them with water, stick them into the pot, and then they slowly feed the plant with water as the soil dries up. This very gladly replaced the wonderful invention of Colin's, which was an old milk bottle that was filled with water and turned upside down in the pot...
Aparently it is supposed to get cold again this week and slip below zero again by the week-end - here's holding thumbs!!!

Rural Germany & Sarah the Glass Blower

On Monday Morning, after the now customary coffee on an old-town-square, while the girls chase pigeons or sticks around the fountain, we headed off into rural Germany in search of a glass factory near the Czech border. After we got off the main freeway, the breath taking views were around every corner. This area of Bavaria, pretty much from Regensburg to the border is known as Beyerischer Wald (Bavarian Forrests).


Throughout the whole area, there are castles scattered about as well as traditional glass blowing factories. We picked the biggest one that was on the map and set course for it, arriving somewhere close to lunch time. According to the tourist pamphlet that we picked up at the hotel, there was supposed to be some live demos of the traditional glass blowing crafts here and it took us a really long time to find it. It turned out to be tucked in some old wooden hut at the far corner of this "glass factory town". There was a kiln in the middle of the room and a bench along the wall with all the tourists watching eagerly from the edge.

(Let me deviate for a while ... The whole trip, our two girls have been a complete hit. They have been given gifts by passing locals on whim just because they look so cute.) So, on entering the little wooden hut, I could see the glass maker noticing Amber & Sarah, pulling faces at them occasionaly, getting great reactions from them on-cue. So, when the time was right, he requested that Sarah be his little helper for his demo. After the German didn't work so well on her, he switched to a very basic version of English and was delighted to extract from her that he had such an exotic a helper as one from South Africa (of all places). Well, Sarah did us all very proud. She navigated the glass blowing sticks like a natural!

She even managed to blow into the pipe on cue.

In case you are wondering, the finished product of her labour was a large glass ball and as reward for her efforts, she came home with a glass horse which has a very proud place on her bedside table.

A Week-end in Regensburg, Germany

Check out our web album for the week-end photies - the blog to follow shortly.