Blogs from Lucerne, North-West, Switzerland, Europe

Its been a week since we left Sydney and so far we have had a great time. The first stop was Jakarta, we only had one day so we visited a large shopping emporium about 25 minutes by taxi from the hotel. We were also able to enjoy some nice indonesian food. The next real stop was London after transit stops in Dubai and Amsterdam. In London we did a tour of the city highlights, had a very nice lunch at Harrods and we were able to catch up with Charlie at Westminster Abbey. The European Cavalcade began on Wednesday. The first stop was Amsterdam after travelling through France and Belgium. Once in Amsterdam we headed straight to the red light district for some x-rated sightseeing and then enjoyed the canal cruise finishing the night off ... read more

After breakfast at the Trenitalia station in Milano Centrale, we boarded our train to Switzerland. We were headed for Luzern via Arth Goldau, where we had to alight from the very fast train and board another train to Luzern Bahnhof in the German-speaking north-central Switzerland. Train travel is wonderful - it's fast, quiet, clean and when travelling through Schweiz, is a wonderful scenic experience. What we saw through our train windows looked like Costiera Amalfitana, Lago di Garda and Venice put together!! There were maginficent snow capped mountains and cliffs - with buildings built throughout and beautiful alpine lakes. On arriving in Luzern, we rolled past Lake Luzern - "Vierwaldstättersee" - the fourth largest lake in Switzerland. Our first stop was for some traditional Swiss refreshments - Starbucks. Wifi and a coffee was required. AUD$38 later ... read more

Today was AMAZING!! My pics and description of the day just will not be able to do it justice! We started off the day catching the train to Lucerne (Luzern) and the weather was not good! Really heavy thick grey cloud covering the whole sky but we remained hopeful that it would clear up! The train took only an hour and we stepped out into Lucerne! So beautiful! Old like Berne with fountains everywhere but a huge lake surrounding us! The weather started improving and we wandered round Lucerne for a while, tried the amazing swiss maronni, fed the gianormous swans, walked the famous bridge that was burnt in 1992 so some of the paintings were ruined but its still pretty special, and sat in at the stage - the sun! and ate lunch! We then ... read more

Today started with us enjoying breakfast in our Hotel watching the sun rise over the French Riviera -not a bad way to kick things off! We then started our journey from Nice to Lucerne in Switzerland – soon we will have another country ticked off. FRENCH PERFUME Our first stop was Fragonard Perfume Factory outside of Nice. A small company that produces and markets its own products. 80% of the worlds perfume comes from France and this area is the centre of the industry. We had a brief tour of the factory with a guide who explained the process, one interesting fact was that it takes a tonne of flowers to produce 1 litre of scented oil. Then it was into the showroom so people could sample the perfumes and make purchases. Fortunately Jeanette couldn't find ... read more

Hello Family and Friends! Today's blog comes with some great pictures! Yesterday, July 22nd, was what we call Intersession...the day between the two sessions of camp when there are no students! Well I had been trying to find a way to see the new Harry Potter movie for the last two weeks and I got my chance yesterday! Chris and I invited some friends along to go to the nearest English theater in Lucerne. The movie was actually a bit of a disappointment, but the trip was not! We walked the famous wooden bridge, ate delicacies from Swiss-German bakeries, saw a lion carved into a cliff-side, walked to the top of an old tower, drank delicious beer, went to something called The Blue Balls Festival (I'm not kidding, that's what it was called*), and I even ... read more