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Published: February 13th 2008
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Geneva
We left France and arrived in Switzerland with our first stop being Geneva, the "international" bit. We started off with a walk along the banks of Lake Geneva, admiring the Jet d'Eau which is a huge jet of water shooting up about 150m. We're not sure what it was for but it looked good. From there we walked through the city before heading to the Red Cross Museum. The museum was very interesting, showing all the wars and disasters that the Red Cross has assisted over the years as well as how the Red Cross came about. The next day we went to the United Nations to do a tour. Mick got busted at security as he had his leatherman on him, but the security guy seemed more worried about the camera tripod in his bag and let him through anyway. The tour showed us exactly what organisations make up the UN and then took us through some of the conference rooms and halls. It was a bit weird being in the rooms where heads of state and groups like the WHO hold meetings and some very important decisions get made.
Interlaken
From the UN we went
Cheese Fondue
We were a bit over cheese by the end to the train station to catch our train to Interlaken where we were hoping to have an easy couple of days after the past few busy weeks. The town was very pretty, situated in the heart of the swiss alps below the Mighty Jungfrau mountain, which we were hoping to get up to during our time here. Jungfraujoch station at the top is the highest train station in Europe and dubbed the 'Top of Europe'. To get to the 'Top of Europe' you have to shell out 170 Swiss Francs (Aus$200) for the tourist train up there but it is apparently worth it. From Jungfraujoch station you can get some of the best views in the world but clear weather is essential so we had our fingers crossed for that. On the first day there it was overcast in the morning so we decided not to go up and hope for better weather on day two. But day two was even worse when we woke to see it snowing outside so we had a chill out day and fondue for dinner. We decided that on our third and last day that we would go up the mountain regardless of the
weather so we could at least say we'd been there. We got the 7am train up which was 20 swiss francs cheaper and on the walk to the train station we could see stars in the dark sky so we were optimistic. As the sun started to rise our wishes were granted and there was nothing but blue sky. The train ride up is only 30-40km but takes about two and a half hours with a few changes along the way at some of the ski resorts. We were rewarded with some great views of the Jungfrau, Monch and Eiger mountains. When we got out onto the observation deck we were greeted with minus 16 degrees and wind hurtling ice which we weren't to keen on standing in for too long. So we got some pretty good photos and then when back inside to vist the Ice Palace that's set up with various ice sculptures. The money spent was well worth it and it was definately a highlight of our trip.
Bern
After our trip up the mountain we spent a night in the Swiss capital Bern. We visited some of the sights in the historic old town
Einstein
He came up with E=mc² here, I think that's him in front...... centre which included the house where Einstein came up with his theory of relativity. There were also some weird fountains around the city, one of them being of an ogre eating small children, not sure why they put that there. Mick made friends with some Korean guys at our hostel after the reception chick told them he was Austrian and they asked him for some advice as they were heading there next.
Zurich
We had only a short amount of time in Zurich on our way through to Germany but we didn't want to miss the home of secretive banking. We wandered along the river to the lake and checked out the few churches and other sights along the way before making our way back to the train station along the Bahnhofstrasse. This is the classy shopping street and underneath it is where all the gold and other loot is supposedly held in the impenetrable Swiss bank vaults.
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