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 Dwight Peck's personal website
Marlowe's
visit to Switzerland,
June 2003
Fribourg
Newly
graduated from high school, soon to be off to Uni, Marlowe visits the Old Dad
in Switzerland.
You
may not find this terribly rewarding unless you're included here, so this is a
good time for casual and random browsers to turn back before they get too caught
up in the sweep and majesty of the proceedings and can't let go.
Marlowe
Tyson Peck
Fribourg (Freiburg in German, which means "free city") is a charming small city of 33,000 inhabitants (2/3 Swiss
citizens and 1/3 happy, well-integrated foreigners) in the "plateau"
region of Switzerland; it lies right on the
"rösti curtain", named after tasty Swiss-German potato dishes,
which divides the German-speaking part of Switzerland from the French-speaking part to the south in the direction of Lausanne and
Geneva.
A
very up and down sort of historical city, with the University rather high up and
descending then to the central area around the cathedral (above) -- with the little
side-street café (left) that served a very acceptable Coca-Cola in June
2003.
Marlowe
admires the cathedral's artwork, rows of demented saints on the left and lost
souls being prodded off stage-right into the Black Pit . . .
and a
big red bishop presiding over all the carnage.
Nonetheless,
it seems to be a pretty worthy cathedral even now -- we can't speak for the inside
because a very long wedding was in progress. (The marriage may well end up being
shorter.)
From
the cathedral level, Marlowe's thinking of descending still further towards the
mighty Rhine-bound river La Sarine, where the original old town was clustered
about the bridges at the bottom of quite a large gorge or ravine.
The
view of the Sarine from Marlowe's bridge (above), with a very picturesque wooden
covered bridge below.
Trotting
along down to the picturesque wooden bridge.
The
narrator resting aging knees at the picturesque covered wooden bridge on the Sarine.
More
views at Sarine level
Marlowe
in front of the Auberge de L'Ange, appropriately
More
of the old town at river level (in what's probably two hours of sunlight a day).
(In summer.) (None at all in winter.)
Steeply
back up to the central city.
Marlowe
and a lost kitty
Back
to the cathedral area for another excellent Coca-Cola.
And then
striding back to the car park to go home again. And so Marlowe does, at the end
of a brief 10-day sojourn in the old country -- back to the USA for preparations
for college life in Canada.
Good luck, Marlowe.
A later visit to Fribourg, January 2018
 Feedback
and suggestions are welcome if positive, resented if negative,  .
All rights reserved, all wrongs avenged. Posted 21 September 2003, revised 8 March
2008, 27 October 2015.
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