Switzerland – Cool Stuff We Did

15 September 201422 February 2015

— 1 Comment

Friday, 22nd August – 3G

1) Gruyeres

We had set our sights on a city called Gruyeres (of the cheese fame) and were heading for it when we saw an amazing walled city on a hill (as pictured in the last blog). Little did we know, that walled city was indeed Gruyeres.

The city itself is basically built around a castle – Saint-Germain Castle – and now houses many restaurants and other shops catering to tourists. It is a very cute little town and has spectacular views of the surrounding mountains.

Oh, yes, I may have forgotten that Saint-Germain Castle was acquired in 1998 by artist H.R. Giger and it currently houses an art gallery/museum of his work.

2) Giger

This was the real reason we were in Gruyeres – not for the cheese. 🙂

Next to the gallery there is also a coffee shop that has been fitted out in Giger inspired designs.

Once we got over the amazingness of Gruyeres and the Giger exhibition, we continued on to Geneva. On the way, we realised that Switzerland does in fact have an adequate amount of cowbell.

3) Geneva

Geneva was our last stop in Switzerland and a fantastic one. We have made it a rule to not drive at night, so we make sure we’ve checked in to our accommodation long before that. We pushed the envelope a little with Geneva and ended up getting back well after dark. Night time in Geneva does have some good points, though.

As we strolled around Geneva in the fading light, the sunset was amazing! We also found a square where some of the cobblestones had been replaced with illuminated ones with slogans on them in different languages. We also had dinner in the old town and strolled around the trendy part of town as well.

Although it was only a very short stay, our next move is on to Italy and some amazing places await us there!

2014 European Adventure Switzerland

11 September 201422 February 2015

— 3 Comments

Friday, 22nd August – Jungfraujoch

Up early and excited as today we would be driving amongst some of the most beautiful parts of Switzerland. Our first destination was Jungfraujoch via Grindelwald, a small town in the Swiss Alps where the view of the Jungfrau was noted as being one of the best vantage points.

We were not disappointed, the country side was absolutely breathtaking and the Swiss chalets just so story book. It truly was the most beautiful drive we’ve experienced so far.

We’d driven up some pretty steep mountains in Norway, but on the way to Grindelwald we set our record at 1510m above sea level. Jungfrau the mountain was super impressive as soon as we started to get first glimpses of it in the distance. The photos below are the pictures we took from Grindelwald/Jungfraujoch, pretty much as close as you can get to the mountain without actually taking the rail or ski lift up.

Once we’d had a coffee and taken a million photos we headed off to Lauterbrunnen to see the Staubbach Falls.

Switzerland was turning it on for us today, we saw parachuters, base jumpers and helicopters as we indulged in some Swiss Chocolate and a coffee in Lauterbrunnen overlooking the Falls 🙂

It’s hard to imagine but both Keith and I spent about half an hour sipping our coffee and not saying a word, what we were seeing and experiencing just didn’t seem real.

We tore ourselves away from our view and continued on our journey, making our way to Gruyeres. One of the lakes we drove around on the way, Lake Thun, was amazing, the water was crystal clear.

Such a strange day for us weather wise, as expected chilly in the mountains and as we made our way down we quickly did an outfit change to accommodate another gorgeous sunny warm day.

Very soon we came around a corner and saw something amazing in the distance! Here is a sneak peek of Gruyeres 🙂 We’ve broken up today into two posts as there is just so much to share.

2014 European Adventure Switzerland

10 September 201422 February 2015

— 1 Comment

Thursday, 21st August

Today our destination is Zurich, Switzerland but before leaving beautiful Triberg we went for a walk to check out their famous waterfall. It was incredible to be there so early with hardly anyone else around, so peaceful and so beautiful.

Triberg is such a beautiful part of Germany and a fitting end to our adventures in Germany, this was the last time we would touch this awesome country. However, we still had a great day ahead and left to drive through the Black Forest again.

Keith was pretty disappointed yesterday that he hadn’t found anywhere to experience Black Forest cake in the Black Forest. Thankfully we came across a restaurant that boasted the best original Black Forest cake in the region, “I’ll be the judge of that” Keith said after ordering haha.

Judging by the silence, bulging eyes and full mouth gestures of happiness I’d say he was impressed.

Bucket item ticked we continued onto Zurich, we reached our hotel, checked in and grabbed a bus back into the city.

With no particular schedule or list of things to see we enjoyed just meandering about for once with no destination, we loved the surprise of just ‘finding’ everything. We were even lucky enough to find a group of musicians busking that were incredible.

Zurich is a really lovely city, beautiful buildings on the banks of the Limmat River.

Unfortunately we were too late to visit inside the Great Church or Grossmunster but we enjoyed walking near the river and seeing it from the outside.

The Opera House in Zurich is really impressive, it was destroyed by fire in 1890 and was rebuilt in incredible haste reopening in 1891.