Switzerland
Grüezi my friends - welcome to the land of beautiful scenery, fondue and CHOCOLATE!
Monday September 19th - "On the road again", we have packed up and are back on the bus. Watching Matt (our driver) navigate those tiny, twisting mountain roads out of Levanto on our big bus earned him a round of applause, that was impressive! Today was a long travel day but we like to pass the time listening to "General Europe" interviews on the Rick Steves' app and watching the scenery. Steve loved to look at all the interesting cars and would nudge me when he saw something really interesting. I liked to work on my daily journal - I don't want to forget anything from this special trip! By lunchtime we had made it to Switzerland and we got our first in person introduction to the country. The spot was cafeteria style so a little bit of everything was available. We were warned before we stopped that the cost of things in Switzerland would be more than any of our other countries, and that was spot on. Steve and I sat outside for lunch and enjoyed the fresh air and the cows in the pasture just behind us. I never pass up an opportunity to be around animals. Our next stop came at a vista in the mountains - our pictures don't do it justice, it was breathtaking! We finally arrived at Stechelberg Station where the bus could park and we got on our gondola up to Mürren, where our hotel was located. I was once again grateful we packed light since it was a trek up the mountain. We checked in and viewed some of our tour mate's rooms, those mountain view rooms were spectacular! Then we headed downstairs ready for dinner - bring on the cheese fondue!
Funny story - we had decided not to bring Swiss Francs with us since every other country we were visiting used Euros. Dimitri (our guide) told us on the bus that he would be leading optional experiences on our free day tomorrow that anyone could join but they had to be paid for in Francs. He then explained we would be stopping at a bank in Lauterbrunnen where we could do a money exchange if needed. So Steve and I got off the bus and must have not paid close enough attention to the computer screen when making our selections because we ended up with 150 CHF in coins! We turned that money changer into a slot machine! We gave Dimitri and Matt a good laugh when we got back on the bus.
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Mürren
The Jungfrau Region - we parked the bus and headed up to our perfect little traffic-free village
Tuesday September 20th - It is technically a free day but we opted in for the extra experiences. We started bright and early on our cable cars up to the Schilthorn. Once we got there it was awe-inspiringly beautiful and not nearly as cold as we had expected since the sun was out. We spent the majority of our time out on the observation deck just taking it all in. They also had a live feed camera that we told our family about back home to look for us...but it was around 2 AM their time when we were up on the mountain. We walked through the "Our Majesty's Secret Service" Walk of Fame and checked out the Spy World Cinema. Then it was on to the Thrill Walk, which was aptly named! We walked the tightrope, walked over the glass floor and then crawled through the chain-link tube! Next stop was the Trümmelbach Falls, a series of powerful waterfalls inside a mountain which we accessed via a funicular tunnel car. Then we were on our way to Lauterbrunnen to find lunch and shop for souvenirs, after all if you are going to have a Swiss Army Knife shouldn't it be hand picked in Switzerland?! Once we finished shopping, we met back up at our scheduled meeting time and were provided with two options on how to get back to our hotel whenever we were ready to go - a train or a hike that usually takes about an hour and a half. It was a no brainer, of course we chose the hike and we are so glad we did! Once back in Mürren we did a little local shopping and headed back to the hotel for dinner.
Switzerland was the surprise hit of the trip for us. Before this trip, Switzerland was not even on my list of countries I wanted to visit and now I cannot wait to go back. So in Swiss German we will say "uf widerluege" which means "until we see each other again" because we will be back!