today is our 17th wedding anniversary! the idea is to get the 9:35 train to zurich, change to the 9:07 to romanshorn, take the 10:35 ferry to friedrichshafen, then the 11:25 boat to meersburg — hopefully the weather will concur, the last couple of days it’s been the prototypical april weather: rain, sleet, snow, sunshine…though, to be fair, it’s also been a rather interesting sort of weather: constantly changing, at times, when the sun was running interference with the rain clouds, also very dramatic! — and we are lucky: the sun breaks through in zurich and, alternatingly chasing the clouds and being chased by them, stays with us all day mostly.

to celebrate the day i’ve obtained first class train tickets and we travel in comfort and style to romanshorn…not a lot of people are on-board the train, so it’s nice and quiet. the landscape — as ever — is beautiful, rolling hills (not really what the swiss would consider mountains yet), and early blooming trees in full swing. the ferry in romanshorn is not yet there when we get there. while we are waiting the crowd grows and soon it’s not just a few (as, for example, on a friday afternoon) but a sizable group waiting to board the ferry. we are lucky in that we manage to obtain a table in the restaurant area of the ferry for a cup of coffee…but…very quickly the restaurant fills up completely (and still people arrive from the car deck to get a table) and we end up sharing the table with others — who are a bit ennerving as they are of the logorhea variety: yackity-yackity-yackity-yackity-yackity-yackity-yackity…but: the weather is fantastic, the view towards bregenz in the east has a very turner-esque quality to it (late turner): it’s a “rainbow” of whites spanning from the surface of lake constance up to the sky …(i take a couple of pictures , but i guess i should really get a good circular pol filter: also captured a couple of reflections from the windows).

in friedrichshafen we change from the ferry to the bsb boat to meersburg…it’s become quite windy and considerably colder now, so we stay inside. still the light is fantastic and we try a couple of photos from inside but face an uphill battle against the window reflections. oh well.

in meersburg the quay is chock full with people! somehow i hadn’t realized that for most people today is not a church holiday but just a plain holiday with not much to do — except sightseeing…we fight our way through the throng of people, up to the gutsschenke where we have reserved a table to celebrate our 17th anniversary…

all in all a very, very nice day!

p.s.: i have ordered a pmc circular pol filter since…