Blogs from Switzerland, Europe - page 254

Hey everyone, It has been quite an exciting few days for us here in Europe, but unfortunately it has also been a frustrating few days out in cyberspace. Many of you have let us know that you could no longer access the travelblog.org site to read our blog. In fact, travelblog.org itself was down from August 1-5. It's just come up today, and after reading the tech support forum, I can now tell you what has happened. Unfortunately, the story ain't pretty So apparently on the 1st, the one single (not backed-up) server that hosts the entire travelblog site got hit by a Denial-of-Service attack. The owner/admin of travelblog, in a state of panic, attempted to restart the mysql database. Unfortunately, he's not very good at mysql, used the wrong command and wiped out thousands of ... read more

Sunday 5th August Day Twenty, We started our morning chatting to more people from the Netherlands - we have found they are all really friendly and speak great English! We then drove north past Zurich to visit the Rhine falls -the largest falls in Europe. Their size is in their breadth and width, the white water and spray tumbling into the light blue-green water through sharp rocks. Unfortunately, we had a small accident on the way here. We bumped up a sharp curb that curved out into the road, slashing the tire. Luckily Ben did a quick and proficient wheel change! From the falls we visited a small village with a castle called 'Kilberg'. Passing the Lindt chocolate factory, we returned home for an evening of Schnitzel, beer and cards in the site's patio bar. ... read more

Saturday 4th August Day Nineteen, A nice lazy morning started our Saturday before setting off for Switzerland. We stopped on the way for our last taste of Italian coffee and a good few other times for comfort. There was some bad traffic so despite leaving at 11am we didn't arrive until 9pm! We stopped at a campsite a little further out from Zurich center than planned-tempted by its lights, concerned about arriving too late and preferring a quitter site. We were given a lovely spot by the river lining the site. In the cool mountain air we pitched up quickly and went to the bar's lounge for a quick beer and cards. ... read more

As the heat-wave in Southern Europe was now into its second week we were keen for some cooler weather so decided to head to Switzerland even though it had not been one of our original destinations. We therefore caught the train north from Como to Lucerne. The first thing we noticed when we got off the train at Lucerne station was that it was noticeably cooler (although it was still going to get quite hot later in the day), and the second thing we noticed was that people were now speaking German. If our Italian was limited our German was almost non-existent as all we knew were 'please' and 'thank you'. We spent one night in Lucerne and really enjoyed it. It is a very picturesque city, situated on Lake Lucerne. It has a lovely old ... read more

Today was the optional Mt. Titlus excursion. It was really fun! Quite a few of us went on this one. We were on the mountain all day. We had a snowball fight, walked through a glacier, and just relaxed. The ride up there was pretty amusing. I was in a cable car with Phil, James, and Paul. We had to go up several “steps” to make it to the top. We were in our cable car for the first couple, then the last one we were in a large rotating car. The boys were ready to spew in the first tiny cable car. They were much better suited in the larger, rotating car. I was really worried about keeping my shoes clean in the first couple of cars. Once we actually made it to the top, ... read more