http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Switzerland/North-West/ Travel adventures in journals and photos from Europe , Switzerland , North West en-us Thu, 21 Aug 2008 09:03:21 BST Thu, 21 Aug 2008 09:03:21 BST So I woke up at like 4 in the morning and couldn't get anymore sleep cause of stupid snoring so I just listened to my mp3 player til daddy got up to take a shower then I slept some while he was doing that but then he went back to sleep and then I listened to my mp3 player some more then at 615 I woke Cindy up and we went to get some breakfast. And yeah we didn't do much until around 11 am... we http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Switzerland/North-West/Lucerne/blog-313038.html So with a lack of sleep we got breakfast early in the morning. It was a good breakfast buffet. Then we tried to figure out some stuff to do but decided to rest a bit more before doing something. After awhile of rest we got some ice cream at the gas station. I got Swiss Chocolate ice cream and it was yummy. Then the girl who was at the hotel desk since her shift was over and she was driving http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Switzerland/North-West/Lucerne/blog-313034.html You can live a lifetime and at the end of it know more about other people than you know about yourself. You learn to watch other people but you never watch yourself. Because you strive against loneliness. If you read a book or shuffle a desk of cards or care for a dog you are avoiding yourself. The abhorrence of loneliness is as natural as wanting to live at all.I belong to that category o http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Switzerland/North-West/Basel/blog-311311.html Well yesterday we went for a really lovely walk for 2 12 hours. Really nice and still surrounded by mountains and waterfalls.Then we were told that the van would be ready for collection in France at 4.00 so we set off lunchtime and got to the garage with 12 hour spare. BAD NEWS AGAIN.....they had ordered the wrong starter motor so it hadnt been done. All that driving for nothing. We got a http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Switzerland/North-West/Berne/blog-311138.html Well by Friday we'd had quite enough of France so we decided to drive down to Switzerland in the hire car for the dayWOW Berne was lovely the old town and then we went onto Interlaken amazingAA called to say Ollie was getting a new starter Motor on Monday so we decided to leave France for the weekend and find a place to stay in Interlaken.Saturday check out of France and go back to http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Switzerland/North-West/Berne/blog-310564.html We spent two nights in Bern the capital city of Switzerland. The city is a World Heritage Site because of its preservation. The city centre is actually really cool it has a canal now covered running under the main street. The main clock tower is pretty nice as well. But my highlight was the discovery of the existence of the Einstein Museum. I originally thought there only thing Einstein w http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Switzerland/North-West/Berne/blog-309438.html Cold as in blowing my nose like every 3 minutes. I think the people on the train were starting to get annoyed besides the old SwissGermanFrench you never can tell lady that kept smiling and talking to us even though we did nothing to respond other than nod our heads and smile... she was so cute. Actually all old people here are cute I'm a few days behind on the blog as we are leaving Sal http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Switzerland/North-West/Lucerne/blog-304991.html The train journey from Berlin to Basel went by relatively quickly despite its length and following that it was a short yet incredibly hot no air conditioning and noisy trip to Lucerne. It may have been very noisy but the scenery was pretty amazing. Switzerland looks a lot like the South Island of New Zealand with snow capped mountains lush green fields and sparkling blue lakes. Upon our arrival http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Switzerland/North-West/Lucerne/blog-304850.html July 7Tobias Toby gave us a map of Luzern. It is a fucking small city. He told us we could see the city in about 3 hours. And that was entirely true. We loved every minute of it though. The city has a huge lake named Lake Luzern weird I know and beautiful rolling green mountains all around it. Pair that with old bridges walls towers and buildings and you have a pretty fucking cool city http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Switzerland/North-West/Lucerne/blog-302346.html Picking up where we left off canyoning was a lot of fun although we had to cut the day short it was supposed to be 8 hrs total as it was raining and the water levels were getting too high we only got about 5hrs total. It was still pouring when we arrived back at Balmers completely exhausted where we had to make arrangements in order to reach our night's lodging in a town called Gimmelwald. http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Switzerland/North-West/Gimmelwald/blog-301533.html We arrived in Switzerland after having taken 4 trains 7 hours total from Munich to Stuttgart to Zurich to Bern to Interlaken it was an unintentionally fun day as we boarded the two best trains we have been on yet very luxurious and of course the scenery coming into Interlaken was something like we have never experienced. We stayed at the famous Balmers hostel where we found a ton of A http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Switzerland/North-West/Gimmelwald/blog-301175.html I can't decide what I am most impressed by in Switzerland whether it's the natural beauty the kindness of the people on an individual basis or the culturementality of country. All I know is that putting it all together makes for my favourite place of all time ... itrsquos hard to even imagine loving another country as much as here. But I guess we shall only see with time.As much as I felt http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Switzerland/North-West/Berne/blog-300486.html you can relax now...we made it to switzerland on saturday however there were times we didn't think we would make it to berne because when we first booked our ticket in france the man was out to lunch and told us there was no train to berne ok no big deal we will go as far as lausanne passed geneva. uh oh...our connection is going to be late from lyon to Genevahelliplyon for the night Tha http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Switzerland/North-West/Berne/blog-300477.html Tuesday 1st JulyToday is a complete blur as the antibiotics kicked in. Thankfully a travel day so spent most of the day dozing on the back seat of the bus. The guests headed into Locarno for 2 hours said it was nice but not unmissable going up the Madonna del Stresa gave a nice view over the Lake Headed over the Gotthard Pass which the guests now said was THE absolute highlight of the trip http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Switzerland/North-West/Lucerne/blog-297113.html Der 4. Juli 2008 der Tag von unserem Abschiedsfest. In 3 Wochen sind wir weg und weilen schon in Ecuador da wurde es Zeit von Euch allen Abschied zu nehmen. Wir haben uns sehr sehr gefreut dass Ihr so zahlreich gekommen seid. Da wir keine physischen Geschenke wollten die htten wir ja nur einpacken mssen haben wir ja viele gebeten doch etwas zum Essen mitzubringen. Ein grandiose Idee http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Switzerland/North-West/Berne/blog-296645.html We will be holidaying in switzerland and Paris from 26th July 2008 to 5th august 2008This is a tavelog of our tripOur first trip to europe. Of course I have travelled to france in april and I have uploaded a few of the pictures as a test case to see if it works http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Switzerland/North-West/Lucerne/blog-295374.html Rajesh woke me up at 7 am banging on my door and startling the other girls in my room who asked me if he was my boyfriend. He was showered and ready and gave me a half hour to meet him for breakfast in the dining room. I was so hungry that I ate everything they had for breakfast and even drank 2 cappuccinos. Thank god it was free else it would have been another ripoff RV was picking us up in f http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Switzerland/North-West/Lucerne/blog-294966.html 29. Juni 2008 mitten in der ersten Tiefschlafphase um 7 Uhr morgens klingelte der Wecker. Wieso auch sind wir am Samstag erst um 3 Uhr ins Bett. 4 Stunden Schlaf sind schon extrem wenig. Dabei war heute DER Tag. Mein erster Heliflug stand vor der Tr. Markus hatte mir zu meinem Geburtstag diesen Flug geschenkt. Ich wollte schon immer mal mit dem Heli fliegen und zwar ohne das es sein muss z. http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Switzerland/North-West/Berne/blog-293644.html June 21 22 2008BERN INTERLAKEN SwitzerlandOur first day in Bern was Sunday. A perfect day to visit downtown and all the shops. They are nearly all closed on Sundays We did a good walk about the old city center and visited the park where they keep the city mascots bears. Bern is a very nice city. Not a lot of real touristy things to do in the city but a very nice old city that has bee http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Switzerland/North-West/Berne/blog-292912.html Friday the 13th on the train from Paris in car number 13 departing at 1300. Despite the bad omen the train ride was beautiful and pleasent riding through the French and Swiss countryside up in 1st class no class to the back. Upon arriving we were greated by 300000 dutch people dressed in orange aka HollandNetherlands. Unknowingly we arrived to a host city for the Eurocup and Holland came http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Switzerland/North-West/Berne/blog-292148.html Thursday 29th MayWe were leaving Lucerne as early as possible but much later than we had originally planed as Owen had a 10am appointment with the dentist to deal with his errant wire. The dentist neatly and Owen informs me painlessly clipped a small piece of wire off blunted the new end he created and cleaned the tooth of dental cement.Before arriving at the station we had purchased some fi http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Switzerland/North-West/Lucerne/blog-291544.html Basel Switzerland... A day and a half later after 20 hours of car bus plane train and tram I landed in Switzerland awaiting fun football matches cobblestone city centres and foreign languages.My dear friend Dafnah was kind enough to put me up for the week in her apartment in Basel. There I slept cooked kicked back after long days and lowkeyed it and listened to chill music with her http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Switzerland/North-West/Basel/blog-291347.html Wednesday 28th MayA minor disaster this morning at breakfast.Owen has had quite extensive orthodontic work done during his teens. Although all the work has been completed he still has a wire running across the back of his teeth and needs to wear a retainer plate when sleeping a t night just to make sure his fangs don't remember where they used to be and attempt to move back into residence.Dur http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Switzerland/North-West/Lucerne/blog-291264.html Flew with Ryanair down to Frankfurt rental car to Basel 400 km with one night outside Karlsruhe. Basel was as you can see from the pictures totally filled with oranjefans. Great atmosphere and 30 degrees celsius and euro 2008 ohhhyah. Too bad there weren't so many Russians in town wonder how it would've been with GER NED.. The stadium was filled by approximately 40000 spectators but http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Switzerland/North-West/Basel/blog-290973.html Tuesday 27thThe package we purchased for Switzerland gives us hotel bookings for every night a booked ticket on the Glacier Express and 5 days of first class train travel on the Swiss domestic train network. This does not resemble the Melbourne network as none of the Swiss cities have an extensive sprawl of suburbs. The network has more in common with our country train network the stations ar http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Switzerland/North-West/Lucerne/blog-290951.html Back home againAm Mittwoch sind wir am Abend zuerst nach Armenia gefahren und haben dort ein Ticket fr den Nachtbus nach Bogota gebucht. Im Bussbahnhof haben wir uns bei Cola und Rum noch den Fussballmatch Argentinien gegen Brasilien angeschaut doch die Brasilianer waren vor allem am Foulen und der Match endete mit 00. Leider war der Bus nur ein 15Pltzer und wir konnten die Sitzlehne nicht ri http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Switzerland/North-West/blog-290713.html I repeat Lucerne is nowhere near as ldquoquaintrdquo as the guidebooks would have you believe. Once you get past that which took us a while itrsquos a fine city.We set out to see the ldquoold cityrdquo of Lucerne which is supposedly the finest instance of modern mixing with new. In reality itrsquos far more new than old but you can still find traces of the old with the city walls http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Switzerland/North-West/Lucerne/blog-286590.html Hi everyoneYes we made it. I'll try to catch you up...Left Sunday from McGuire on a C17. Boy was in awe of the accomodations on the plane Arrived in Ramstien on their Monday afternoon. Secured lodging at Landstuhl and picked up the rental car. Had some kind of scnitzel and beer for dinner and sacked out pretty early.Took off midday Tues for Triberg in the Black Forest. This is where we go http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Switzerland/North-West/Gimmelwald/blog-286282.html Wow so langsam wird es ernst Schon bald sitzen Markus und ich im Flieger nach Quito. In manchen Momenten wnschen wir uns dass die Zeit schneller vergeht. Wenn wir dann aber bedenken was noch alles zu tun ist......dann ist es eben einfach nicht mehr viel Zeit.Ein grosses Highlight hatten wir vor Anfang Juni als wir endlich fr unsere Wohnung einen Nachmieter finden konnten. Eine der grssten http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Switzerland/North-West/Berne/blog-284799.html Art Basel Anne's heaven. Ok a bit of an exaggeration. There would be more chocolate and fewer pretentious people in heaven. I've never been surrounded by so much wonderful modern and contemporary art I really enjoyed Art Unlimited which is the big exhibition of contemporary works. Then there are more gallery booths than I could have ever imagined each with some of the best works by their bes http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Switzerland/North-West/Basel/blog-284142.html