 |
| Approaching the town of Gruyeres, Switzerland. |
|
 |
| Looking up the hill at Gruyeres. |
|
 |
| Sucking wind halfway up the hill at the border of Gruyeres. |
|
 |
| Sign in the hotel. I think it says, "Fire licks your butt." |
|
 |
| Our hotel in Gruyeres. Hostellerie Des Chevaliers |
|
 |
| View of the Alps from Gruyeres |
|
 |
| Another view of the Alps. Fall was just coming in, so the trees are starting to change. |
|
 |
| A picturesque beauty! |
|
 |
| The main (and only) street in Gruyeres, a medieval walled town dating from the 1300s. No cars allowed. |
|
 |
| Statue at the entrance to the Giger Museum. Most people come for the famous Gruyeres cheese. We came for the surrealistic biomechanical horror-art. Didn't care much for the cheese. |
|
 |
| Bat-creature over the entrance to the Giger Museum. If you decide to come here, leave the kids. The Museum is not kid-friendly. |
|
 |
| Sculpture outside the Museum. H. R. Giger grew up here. We can't decide if building his museum here is a gift to his home town, or vengence for some unspoken wrong. |
|
 |
| The bat-creature again. |
|
 |
| One of three full-size Alien scultures in the museum. Probably the tamest and most innocuous of Giger's art. This one normally hangs outside on the wall, but they had brought it, probably in prep for winter. |
|
 |
| B taking respite on an Alien-tail hand-rail. |
|
 |
| Why rub Buddha's tummy when you can rub Biomechanical Midget's head? |
|
 |
| Across the lane is the H. R. Giger Bar, the latest addition to Giger's gift-curse on the town. In here, we can take pictures. And drink. |
|
 |
| H. R. Giger Bar, waiting for me to get on with the ordering business. |
|
 |
| Ahh, nothing goes together like skeleton-chairs and lager. |
|
 |
| This is what you look like from outside the bar if you're sitting inside the bar. |
|
 |
| Sculpture on the wall of the bar. Do you think she's pretty? |
|
 |
| Double-headed Alien head light suspended over the banquet table. The light comes out of the tubes in the head. |
|
 |
| Tall slender sculpture amongst the glasses. |
|
 |
| Giger Captain's Chairs at the bar. I can only imagine the ship you would command from one of these. |
|
 |
| Arbitrary skull embedded in the wall of the bar. |
|
 |
| Chernobyl Babies wall sculpture. They look so peaceful and content. |
|
 |
| Now with ambient lighting! |
|
 |
| Let of the banquet table. Note that the floor is tiled in Giger patterns. |
|
 |
| Door the bathroom. Late in the evening, I walked across the street to the alcove where the bathroom was. The flourescent lights were on a motion detector, and this is what strobes into view as you walk in. |
|
 |
| View of the bar without the flash, for a more realistic view of the what the lighting was like. |
|
 |
| Gruyeres from the top of the main street. |
|
 |
| Gruyeres Castle. We didn't go in because we ran out of time that day. |
|
 |
| Swiss sheep. Baa. |
|
 |
| A view from the footpath next to the castle. |
|
 |
| Further along the footpath. |
|
 |
| Mist-laden alpine peaks. |
|
 |
| Off to Inverness, Scotland! Exterior of Cambeth Lodge in Inverness. |
|
 |
| This is the bedroom of the Cambeth Lodge B&B. |
|
|
 |
| At the Fox and the Boar pub in Inverness. The seat she is sitting on was upholstered with the clan tartan! |
|
 |
| Irish pint in a Scottish pub. I rectified it on the next one. |
|
 |
| Stairwell of the B&B. Was it haunted or was it just our imaginations? |
|
 |
| Entrance to Cambeth Lodge. |
|
 |
| View across the river Ness. "Inver" means "at the mouth off", ergo, Inverness. It's a very fast-moving river. |
|
 |
| Suspension foot-bridge across the river Ness. |
|
 |
| Inverness Castle/Municipal building. |
|
|
|
 |
| Expensive pidgeon perch. |
|
 |
| View of St. Andrews from the other side of the river Ness. |
|
