Ande found this furry critter scurrying around on the floor of our tv room. I snatched her from the claws of certain death-by-goldendoodle, stuck her in a jar and photographed her. I used my two iPhone 4Seseses to dump as much light on her as I could, since I don’t have an off-camera flash. Once I got the shot, I released her outside. No arachnids were harmed in the making of this photo.

A cicada showed up in our driveway. My last encounter with a cicada was cool, but I was disappointed that I didn’t have a macro lens. I have a macro lens now so I didn’t want to miss this. I even used the gorilla pod and the remote trigger. I know, so serious, right?

I stuck a penny under his head, to give some perspective.

A mother and child take the toy dog for a stroll in Zermatt, Switzerland.

This might be my most favorite photograph, that has come out of my camera, to date.

a.k.a. Schloss Rapperswil, in the Swiss German, is a castle in the town of Rapperswil, where we spent the bulk of our time last month. It was built in the mid-13th century but since 1870, has been home to the Polish National Museum created by Polish emigrants, more specifically, the castle’s lessee and restorer, Count Wladyslaw Broel-Plater.

To a casual observer, such as myself, the collections inside the museum are not extensive and the layout seemed somewhat random, but I might be judging harshly because I didn’t understand much of what was written about the displays; even the stuff that was written in English. Still, just walking around in a nearly 800 year old building is pretty darn cool.

The view from the tower

After spending the night in Mürren, our plan was to visit the Jungfraujoch, but the mountains were shrouded in fog. No point in going to the top of a mountain when you can’t see your nose in front of your face. So, we began our journey to Rapperswil, where we’re spending the majority of our time in Switzerland.

On our way to Rapperswil, we made an unscheduled stop in the village of Thun. We noticed a castle there, on our way to Mürren, and figured it might be fun to see what that was about. This turned out to be one of the highlights of the trip so far. This town is so beautiful and picturesque; manicured nearly to perfection. I’m so jaded. It feels like every place of historical significance in the states has been taken over by Disney and there is so little of anything that’s authentic anymore. But Thun felt every bit as authentic as it was manicured.

So we walked from the train station up towards the castle, stopping along the way to snap photos here and there. That top photo is looking across the river, up towards the castle (on the left) and the adjacent church/clock tower (on the right).

We walked around in the castle a bit, which is full of cool old stuff, and goes into a lot of detail about the history of the town. You can also walk up into one of the towers and get a fantastic view of the valley and mountains across the lake.

The day after Sechseläuten, we retreated to the Bernese Alps and spent a night in the tiny mountain village of Mürren (elev. 1,638 m / 5,374 ft above sea level). Although the population of Mürren registers at only around 450 people, tourism is popular enough to support several hotels and resorts. Fortunately for us, we arrived between seasons, so it felt like we had the whole town to ourselves.

There are no roads leading to Mürren from the valley below. You get there by cable car and train. Below is an image of Lauterbrunnen, as viewed from the cable car that takes you to Grutschalp. And then from Grutschalp you take a two-car electric train to Mürren.

Unfortunately, we arrived too late in the day to attempt any serious hiking. And I don’t even know if any of the trails were open, due to record snowfalls this past winter. But we were able to go for a half mile or so walk to experience the spectacular views of the Jungfrau, Eiger and Mönch mountainsides.

Here’s an image overlooking Mürren.

As you can see in that photo, it wasn’t a particularly bright sunshiny day, but the setting sun did make an appearance. Both of these images were shot from the balcony of our room at the Hotel Alpenruh. Quite a treat!

Some more photos from walking in the “old” part of Zurich.