Lucerne
Lucerne was the most commercial/touristy but also had the widest variety of Swissness things: beautiful lake, restaurants along the water, quaint shops, German food, mountains in the distance, etc. It was small but was a nice mini-Switzerland overview. You could spend a couple of days in Lucerne and feel as though you got a real Swiss experience.

Wengen
The scenery throughout Switzerland was beautiful but Wengen took the prize for most beautiful. The Bernese Oberland mountain range was more impressive than anything I’ve seen in my lifetime and I know the photos couldn’t do it justice. Wengen itself was the perfect little Swiss village and fulfilled every stereotype of the Swiss countryside I could imagine. I loved the cows with the bells, the random kitties running down the road, the friendly people eager to meet foreigners, etc. The hiking trails were plentiful and although the town was small, there was plenty of outdoor activities to be had by all. Took a bit of an adventure to get there (train train cogwheel, cogwheel…) but it was all worth it in the end.

Bern
I believe all cities have personalities and I always love to visit a city in any country or state we visit. Bern had a quaint personality – polite, a little quirky, mild mannered… Much like everywhere we visited in Switzerland, the city shut down around 6pm and there wasn’t much nightlife to be found. But that was okay with us, it was just more tame than we are use to experiencing! I’m glad we visited but I don’t think you could find unlimited activities for a long duration of time.

Vevey
Welcome to French speaking Vevey! We were definitely caught off guard by the lack of English spoken in this region and also once again by the lack of nightlife. Vevey is on the smaller side and although beautiful, it lacked in restaurants and entertainment options. By this point in the trip we were burning out a bit so the reduced activity choices didn’t harm us too much. The Swiss Riviera, as they call it, was beautiful and charming overall but if I wanted a lakeside destination, I wouldn’t necessarily return here.

Zurich
I can’t truly say much about Zurich since we were only there a ½ day but from what I could gather, it was a much more happening place than Bern, city-wise. Obviously it’s also much larger. Even walking through town with our luggage, we passed Chinese Restaurants, American Restaurants, Indian… Mexican, etc. You could tell right away we were in an international city. The shops were more eclectic as well and there was no shorter of the, uh-hum, adult shop varieties. They were everywhere! From what we saw of Zurich, it was a charming city and worth a visit to explore.

Other Stuff

• We never felt unsafe in any city at any point.
• Switzerland is remarkable clean and well taken care of.
• We had perfect weather – ranging from the mid 60s to 70s. Perfect for hiking.
• The Swiss train system was perfect – always on time and extremely easy to use.
• The food was great if you like Brats, Sauerkraut and other German food. We did have some French based food in Vevey as well. I liked the food in Italy better but then again, I wasn’t pregnant and fussy at that time either.
• The Swiss people overall were very friendly and eager to help, except for one woman who I referred to as Snotty Pants.
• Everybody smokes. Everybody. Children, pets, fish, mannequins. No really though – it was overwhelming.
• Switzerland is not cheap. When a small McDonalds fry cost $3.70, a place is expensive. A traditional, non-exciting steak was around $40.
• Accommodations were all very well kept and clean. No air conditioning in any of them however – wouldn’t want to be there in the summer!
• Would I recommend it to others? Yes! Definitely.

Till next time! Thanks for following.

Our trip to Zurich went well and we made it here without any issues. Any issues except me feeling terrible once again on the trains. I’ll be glad to be done with trains and planes for a while!

When we arrived in Zurich, it was raining but ended up stopping and being a nice day. We wandered around Old Town Zurich and then came back to rest. Zurich is a beautiful city – plenty of foliage and nifty old streets. Looks a bunch like every other place we’ve been but seems nice nonetheless.

For dinner, we decided to once again steer away from the Swiss food we’ve been having and went to a Mexican restaurant. We had a great time, had great food and a lovely traditional Mexican themed atmosphere. It was a nice way to transition us back to *normal* food!

Our first flight leaves tomorrow at 7am so we’ll be up around 4am to get ready and get out of here. It’s going to be another long travel day but hoepfully but 2pm tomorrow we’ll be safe and sound back in the US.

I’ll do a final overview at some point in the next couple of days but thanks again for those of you that have read, lurked, commented, etc. Made the trip that much more fun for us. So a big thanks.

Good Night!

I found a couple of dresses today, a new top and an earring/necklace set. I am pleased I will be able to bring back some items from this trip. I told Bill today that it’s a shame there aren’t more ‘Swiss’ like stores but at the same time it makes us appreciate that the locations we visited weren’t catering to tourists. They are *real* places where people live, work and shop. In that regard, it’s much appreciated!

We only took a couple of photos today but I’ll upload them in a little bit.

For dinner, we ate at the restaurant connected to our hotel which turned out to be really delicious. Bill had veal and mushrooms in a cream sauce and I had mushroom risotto. Both turned out great and we’re glad we decided not to venture out this evening. The salad dressing here is what they call French Sauce. It’s very creamy – very much like Ranch with a tiny hint of vinegar. It’s super thin and flavorful. I wish we could find something like that back home! Or I wish I could find out how to make it. I’ll have to look it up.

We’ve noticed that dogs are common place here and they tend to hang out by their owners without leashes. They are often seen in shops and we’ve seen several in restaurants. The funny thing is the dogs are of all sizes, so everything from pugs (lots of pugs) to full sized German Shepherds. This evening there was a smaller dog a couple of tables over, just sleeping and hanging out under the table. They all seem to be very well behaved!

Tomorrow we pack up and head out to Zurich in the morning for our final day in Switzerland. We’ve had such a great time and great weather – it was overall a wonderful vacation. That being said, I’m very much ready to be back home, in our own bed, hanging out on our own couches, eating our own food, hanging out with our friends… etc. And I’m ready to start enjoying our summer as well!

Doesn’t look like we’ll have wi-fi tomorrow so if there isn’t a post, you’ll know why!

Prêt à être de retour aux Etats-Unis!

We headed to the train station this morning to rent bikes, only to discover that it would cost us around $80 for the day. The person at the train station told us we could rent the exact same bikes for $12 if we went to the tourist station. The tourist station is by our hotel so we headed back down to our hotel. We visited the tourist station, filled out some paperwork, and then had to head back up to the train station to actually get the bikes. Once we got the bikes, we rode back to the water and by our hotel. Back and forth.. back and forth. Finally we were on our way!

It was a beautiful day for a bike ride and I was disappointed that the trail along the water didn’t last longer. For a majority of it we were in a bike lane on the main road and it was noisy and not as enjoyable. We also had some major hills to climb on bikes not really made for hills. Bill did fine and could have done it all day but I wasn’t loving it. We rode to a town called St. Saphorin, got a few photos of the vineyards and then headed back to ride our bikes along the water again. We returned the bikes just before lunch time.

We did another picnic for lunch today down by the water. We bought some fresh strawberries and some sandwich items and enjoyed the nice weather and scenery. Definitely beats the scenery in our offices during lunch every day.

I saw a beautiful pink top in the window the other day so we headed out to try and find it once again. I decided in my mind I was willing to spend a little bit more to get it – as it was beautiful and would fit for a while, even with a pregnant belly. We found it once again and when I spun the price tag it showed ‘$270.’ Really?! For what?! It was cute but not that cute. They had ragged dresses in there for $700. Let me state it wasn’t exactly a fancy store by any means. Yikes!

This evening we decided to find another classic Swiss-French restaurant so we wandered a bit and found a nice restaurant in town. Bill had fresh perch filets and I had a beef filet with bearnaise sauce. I sadly like our US version of bearnaise much better! How sad. This version tasted like a creamy mustard. Hum. Anyhow – I asked for the steak well done just to make sure I didn’t encounter any crazy bacteria or anything. We get the steak and most of it is medium and the middle is rare. The other day I ordered a steak medium and most of it was rare. We’re thinking you don’t really get “well done” steaks in Switzerland/France which I completely understand but we did find it funny. It’s like ‘we’ll cook it how we want to cook it – you’re welcome.”

We finally had some room (not really) for dessert so we each splurged and had something yummy. I took photos so you can see them as well. Bill got some vanilla chocolate concoction and I got the most delicious sorbet. It was passion fruit and mango, and lemon and lime. It was super tart and sour and absolutely perfect!

After dinner we took a walk down by the water where they’ve set up a beach/oasis area for evening entertainment. The place was happening with booming music and youngsters hanging about. I wish we had something like that around our place.

Tomorrow we are plans free for the most part. We need to pick up some things here and there to bring back and maybe do a little shopping. Other than that, we want it to be a low key day. We have a long couple of days ahead of us after that so we want to take it easy!

le temps de publier des photos

We first stopped off at a souvenir shop (finally) and I got a few things. I’ve still been disappointed in the lack of authentic Swiss stores though. Most are clothing stores and we’ve found very little houseware type stores. I was hoping to bring back a unique china plate or something hand painted but I haven’t found anything in my searches. At least I got a couple of things!

After shopping we took off to explore the rest of the city. We found a big cathedral overlooking the city but we couldn’t figure out how to get in. It was such a huge church but it looked as though it was in major need of repair so we guessed maybe it was unsafe to go inside anyhow.

From the church we hiked back down to some middle ground and stopped in at a cafe to get some food to take with us down to the waterfront. We each got a piece of quiche and a dessert (me an almond cookie, Bill a pastry with chocolate) and took off. While outside we realized we didn’t have forks and since the people in the shop didn’t speak English we were out of luck. McDonalds was right next door so I told Bill we could split a small fry and ask for 2 forks. The McDonalds was very nice and very clean. Nothing like the US! Then again I haven’t been in one in, ugh, about 10 years. Anyhow… we got our $3.50 small fries and $.20 ketchup and ate our lunch out on the patio. At that point we figured we should eat and keep exploring later on.

Our food was delicious and gave us the much needed energy to hike all the way down to the waterfront. The waterfront area was similar to Vevey/Montreux but was much larger with more greenery and public areas for relaxing. We wandered for a bit and then headed to the Olympic Museum – a museum dedicated to the Olympics.

We had a great time exploring the exhibits and enjoyed seeing the torches, medals and outfits from various years. I loved the variety of designs in the torches and medals. So vast and unique. Truly impressive. We weren’t allowed to take photos in the museum which was a shame.

The museum also had an interactive portion where you could test your athletic prowess (Bill’s words). One test was to compare your reaction time against that of Usain Bolt’s when starting out of the blocks for the 100m dash. Usain’s reaction time to the gun at the start of the race is 0.132 seconds. After trying 3 times, Bill was able to get his reaction time down to 0.158 seconds. Bill was quite proud of his time and probably would have kept at it had I not urged him to continue on with the museum! We did have a great time though and it was definitely worth visiting.

We voted to take the Metro back to the top of the city where we rode the train back to Vevey. I did a little shopping back in Vevey and then we rested for a while before dinner.

For dinner we took off to yet another Italian restaurant. We’re not necessarily seeking them out but they seem to be popular and plentiful around here. We’re hoping to find some more traditional food for our last couple of days. Anyhow – we both had gnocchi in a Gorgonzola cream sauce. Wow – was that ever rich and tasty! We were hoping to get some Swiss ice cream afterward but we were both too full. I’m hopeful for tomorrow!

If we have nice weather again tomorrow, we plan to rent bikes and head into St-Saphorin to explore the vineyard region. Apparently you can hike/bike into the hills and get a beautiful view of the green rolling terrain and vineyards that line the area.

Une très heureux Memorial Day à vous tous!

We took the bus to Montreux and wandered around the downtown area for a bit and then took the “5 minute walk” to the Castle. In fact, it took us an entire hour. We remembered that in Bolzano we were also told the Castle was ‘just around the corner.’ Both that trip and this trip reminded us that a European’s version of 5 minutes or just around the corner is our version of a half day excursion! I suppose they are much more use to traveling by foot or bike or maybe they enjoy sending the Americans off and telling them a trip is shorter than it is! The walk was truly beautiful though and I’m glad we had the extra hour to see the beautiful scenery. Especially while it wasn’t raining.

We spent most of the afternoon touring the Castle de Chillion, which dates from the 2nd century. It was extreamly well preserved and had plenty of rooms to explore. Bill enjoyed it a great deal and probably retained much more information than I did. He had the iPod audio guide and I pretty much just wandered beside him.

On a side note, I had forgotten how many Europeans smoke. Italy was packed with smokers and Switzerland is no exception. We’re on the 2nd floor above a restaurant and last night we had to keep the windows closed until about 3am because there were so many people smoking – even just walking by smoking. People have cigarettes hanging out of their mouths on the trains and buses and light up as soon as they step off – providing a big cloud of smoke for us to walk through. I can’t stand the smell of smoke and now with my heightened smell it’s so much worse. I won’t miss that part of the trip!

We came back and rested at the hotel and then took off for dinner. The stores normally close early so on a Sunday night we had very slim pickings. We found a cafe around the corner and had some non-great random food and then came back to a lovely dry hotel room. It’s been raining ever since.

Not sure what tomorrow will bring since we’re not sure what the weather will be like. Just have to see in the morning I guess!

Temps de se coucher

We had warm and sunny weather again today for our travels from Bern to Vevey. We arrived at our hotel around 1pm without any issues except the fact that I got very nauseous from the train ride today. I’m glad we won’t be doing a bunch more train rides. They seem to be worse than the planes for me as the movement is constant and the change of scenery messes with me. I spent most of the day fighting off that feeling and hopefully tomorrow it will be long gone.

Vevey is a beautiful town on Lake Geneva. It has a resort like, riviera feel to it with restaurants and a walking path lining the river. We can see how this place would be very popular in the summer. Not much beach (that we’ve found) to speak of but plenty of grassy areas to lay out and enjoy the sunshine.

We’ve noticed the language has switched from German to French and the German and English translations are long gone. We ran into two people today that spoke no English. I know about 20 words in French and added jambon (ham) today. So we’re getting by okay but it was an unexpected surprise/adventure!

As I mentioned earlier, we’re off tomorrow to Montreux so we’re looking forward to exploring that region. It’s about 10 minutes away by bus.

Nuit!

We had beautiful weather again today so it made walking around town much more enjoyable. That being said, I am looking forward to taking a shorter walk into town the next few days once we move on to Vevey. The huge downhill/uphill adventure we’ve taken every day has exhausted me. We’ve figured we’ve walked between 5-7 miles a day with hills. This would normally not be a huge issue but I’m requiring more sleep these days so I am definitely feeling each extra mile.

For lunch we found an authentic pizzeria to change things up a bit. We split a ham, cheese and mushroom pizza with tap water to drink, that turned into a ham and cheese pizza was sparkling water. Small translation issue apparently. That being said, it was delicious. Tasted just like the pizzas we had in Italy and was every bit as good. The change was welcomed.

We’ve been passing several chocolate shops a day but it’s usually just after we’ve eaten and we can’t eat anymore. Today however, we had some room left so we swung in to get a small bag. I also bought some type of vanilla icing cookie that was fantastic. I would like to figure out what exactly it was! Anyhow -the chocolate was superb and super creamy. Needless to say the small bag of chocolate cost nearly as much as our lunch. Ouch.

After our shopping we rested up a bit and then headed back out for dinner and candy. We keep passing these candy stores and this evening I thought we should try one out. Nothing was in English and their candy looked slightly different than our own. I got a selection of different sour type candy and all of it was very good but very different from my beloved Sour Patch kids!

For dinner we also decided to stray from the traditional Swiss food once again and went to another Italian restaurant for pasta. It was also a nice change and the food was delicious. I was craving a traditional plate of spaghetti so that’s exactly what I had, followed by some candy. Ahhh, that was great!

Tomorrow we head out to Vevey and we’ll be there for the next 5 nights. We’re looking forward to being on the water and the change of scenery. Everything we’ve seen so far in Switzerland has been beautiful so we’re looking forward to the next change of landscape.

bis morgen!

After taking care of our laundry, we headed out to explore more of the city. We did a little shopping and then headed to the Rosengarden to check out the view. The garden overlooks all of old town Bern and gave us a great view of the city. The flowers were beautiful as well although we think we were a little early for the roses. It rained on and off all throughout the morning but cleared up perfectly while we were in the garden – making for some good photos.

We have a slight change of plans for our trip, as the British Airways strike forced the cancellation of our original flight back to London. Instead, we’ll be leaving a day later and staying an extra night in Vevey. Hopefully the extra day will allow for some flexibility in our schedule if the weather doesn’t cooperate.

We came back to rest our weary legs this afternoon and then headed out to try some traditional Swiss fondue. We found a great quaint restaurant in the old town and gave it a try. Bill thought it was great and I loved it as well although I admit that of all the cheeses I love, Swiss is down there on the list. Has too much of a tang for me. Anyhow – it was a great experience and our bellies are now quite satisfied! The food overall has been great and I’ve ordered the Rosti a couple of times and Bill has been trying out the wurst and traditional Bearnese meats. I’ve loved our food so far but I’m looking forward to a change of pace. Maybe a good ‘ole pizza or something!

I don’t remember if I’ve already discussed this or not, but we are surprised at how very very few people we hear speaking English. In Italy we heard it much more frequently and people somewhat pegged us as speaking English. We’ve found that here, unless told otherwise, people will always assume you speak German. We’ve found every person we’ve encountered to be more than friendly however – even after realizing we sadly only speak one language.

Tomorrow we plan to do some more shopping and more wandering around in the city. We’re determined to find some great stores with everything we want to bring back but so far we haven’t had much luck.

Habt einen schönen Abend!