the most beautiful of the alpine lakes we saw was the plansee in austria: a breathtaking rippling emerald, and mountains after interlocked mountains, summer-green now but still with whimsical brush strokes of past-year snows, rising sheer on either side.

and for one night we slept in a small pension on the lake shore of the forggensee. the terrace ran to the water's edge, and as we had dinner on it we could see the neuschwanstein and hohenschwangau castles directly across the lake, partly gilded by the setting sun. (nohrnberg says that in neuschwanstein one should think of the house of busirane and the home of the gods in das rheingold.) in the evening strolling by the shore sven made pebbles skip across the surface of the lake. (i can't make pebbles skip at all, they just plunge in with a despondent sound) and in the morning leaning from the small balcony of our room i could see the grey glass of the lake.