Blogs from South-West, Switzerland, Europe - page 111

Breakfasted in Sion – felt rough – a bad nights sleep coughing and spluttering. My nose could give Rudolf a run for his money. Why is it you always feel far worse when you are away from home. Hankies in pocket, dosed up on Lemsip and Paracetamol went down for breakfast before leaving the French speaking side of Switzerland for Zermatt in the German speaking part. Zermatt is a famous skiing and mountaineering destination with chair lifts and cable cars climbing to the high mountains. It is also the terminus of the station from where the spectacular rack and pinion Gornergratbahn rises high above the town on its journey into the mountains. It is the highest open air railway in Europe. Everything in Switzerland runs like clockwork. The car park runs perfectly with perfectly parked cars ... read more

Why did we end up in the south east of France and then decided that we would drive right across the border into Switzerland.The Schengen agreement has made it easier to cross borders without the need to queue at the guard posts waiting for passports to be checked. With vignette fitted to the windscreen we headed out towards the mountains heading for Switzerland. It took some time to traverse the mountains, the roads wound up and back down into valleys taking what seemed like an age. We passed signs to Chambery and Albertville and snow started to build up on the mountaintops. All men of a certain age will have worked out by now why we were heading to Geneva to see the lake and the famous Jet d'Eau. Switzerland is one of the those places ... read more

When Pam and I returned from our trip, I had three days left in Geneva. We made the most of it, visiting the quaint French town of Annecy that Becky had also taken my mom to, touring the Castle de Chillon on the other side of Lake Geneva, and on my last full day, taking a boat cruise on Lake Geneva. Of course, I did all these things while sick. I caught something at the end of our backpacking trip and was nauseous for days. It might have been food poisoning, I don't know, but it was a big pain because I'd be exhausted after a few hours. Thankfully, after our excursions I could crawl back into Becky's car and sleep on the way home (no trains thank god). It was hard leaving Geneva because I, ... read more

Geneva would be my ideal place for a honeymoon. Lake Geneva is the most beautiful body of water I've seen. The mountains, while only foothills of the Alps, are breathtaking. The weather was sunny and in the 70's: much warmer than the cold rain we experienced in Ireland, England and France. We went to H&M to buy bathing suits and sun bathed on the concrete pier they call a beach. I could see to the lake's bottom through the crystal-clear mountain runoff. The city is as picturesque as its backdrop of mountains and le jet d'eau. A word of caution: there were hardly any Swiss there, that we could see. While Geneva is small, there are pockets filled with shady gangsters. I wouldn't walk around that city again without a male counterpart, because apparently everyone thought ... read more

Okay, so yes I know that that title is rather cheesy, but for those of you that know me that should come as no surprise. That is honestly the question I have been asking myself for the past few days. It all started when Blair, Alyssa and I arrived in Hallstatt, Austria--a small town of 960 people on the Hallstatt Lake in the middle of the Dachstein Mountains in the Salzkammergut National Forest. We arrived at our hostel which has a lawn that sits right on the Hallstatt Lake looking straight out to snow peaked mountains and fairy tale forests. Hallstatt has earned the status as a UNESCO World Heritage Site as a result of the strong presence of Austrian Culture and the pristine natural environment it is in. We spent our time hiking through forests ... read more