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Published: August 17th 2011
At the station
Brett ready to catch the next trainSwitzerland has a lot going for it: beautiful 'Sound of Music' style countryside, the snow-capped Alps, Roger Federer, cool clocks, famous cheese and don't forget all that chocolate. It was exactly what we expected it to be and was a welcome change of pace after the slightly more tense travels in Russia.
The only draw back for us humble travellers was that Switzerland is expensive!
Really expensive. With one of the strongest currencies in the world and the highest average wealth per adult (2010. Australia is 3rd apparently!) it did seem painful at times to convert costs. Wanting to save our francs for the more essential items such as Toblerone and Lindt chocolate, we became experts at the self-catering deal and though I don't think either of us will want to see a cheese and salami baguette again in a while, the Swiss roll (jam and cream cake) will be missed.
We landed in Geneva and bought our 'Swiss Pass' at the airport. The 8 day travel pass gave us access to all the trains, buses and boats across Switzerland's transport system - and it was brilliant. The train system is fantastic, we had no problems choosing our destination
Geneva's Jet d'Eu
A safe distance from the city's biggest water attraction and just jumping on the next available train. We also made the most of the ferry's and boat cruises a couple of times for a bit of variety.
Geneva
It may be an unfair statement, but after the big name sights of Russia and even touring the castles in Scotland, Switzerland did feel a lot more low-key. Very few of the cities have 'must see' icons and as a tourist it seemed to be more about enjoying the general beauty of the towns and countryside. Luckily it is a very beautiful country to enjoy so it wasn't too hard for us to adjust the mind-set and make the most of it.
Geneva was our first taste of a Swiss city. In the top 5 of the world's most expensive cities, the streets were lined with top brand names of finance and fashion - and loads of Roger Federer posters. We walked the old town and along the waterfront of Lake Geneva to see the Jet d'Eau (that would be French for 'water-jet'. Most original.) one of the cities most famous landmarks. Visible throughout Geneva, the jet sends five hundred litres of water per second to an altitude of
Zermatt
The resort town of Zermatt at the base of the Alps 140 metres.
We had one night in Geneva then traveled via the 'Golden Pass' scenic train to the resort town of Zermatt in the Pennine Alps. Specially designed for maximum viewing, the carriages of the train had large windows that wrapped part of the roof. The Golden Pass is also known as the world's ''slowest express train'' taking its time to wind along the track into the mountains but making it perfect for us sightseeing tourists.
Zermatt
From the town of Zermatt we got our first view of the Matterhorn, one of the highest peaks in the Alps (4478m). We took the 'Gornergrat Bahn', Europe's highest open-air cog railway up to 3131m where we were surrounded by the mountain panorama of the Alps. Excited to see snow when everywhere else in the valley was green and flowering for summer, we took a suitable number of 'look at the snow' photos and then Brett decided we should enjoy the fresh country air and hike back down to Zermatt. (After much experience with this whole mountain hiking thing, Jo has come to the most definite conclusion that though it is painful, hard and sweaty going
up the mountain, coming
down Mountain Adventurers!
Obviously at a high point before starting the 5 hour descent.
We may not have climbed up it but we thought we'd do our best 'hard-core mountain adventurer' poses) is even more painful and hard, though sometimes less sweaty, and was therefore not a fan of this proposition. She was pursuaded though, mostly by the chocolate bar that Brett had the foresight to buy earlier in the gift shop.)
We spent 5 hours walking back to our hostel. Although we will admit that we were following a cartoon map, which was obviously not to scale and had maybe somewhat distorted our perception of how long the walk down would take. Luckily the chocolate bar was well rationed out to last.
Interlaken
Named for it's location between the two lakes, Brienz and Thun, Interlaken's main attraction is the Jungfrau mountain (4158m) The mountain has a railway that takes you to the summit where they have developed a hotel, two restaurants, an observatory, a research station, a small cinema, a ski school, and an "Ice Palace" with a collection of ice sculptures. It also gives you a view of the Altesch Glacier, the largest in the Alps.
This all sounded like a pretty decent day-trip to us until we asked about the ticket prices.
At £100 each (after our Swiss Pass discount) we thought it wasn't quite in
Harder Kulm lookout, Interlaken
The restaurant view point over the lakes of Interlaken after riding the Harderbahn. our, already stretching, Switzerland budget and opted for the much smaller but much cheaper Harder Kulm instead.
Harder Kulm mountain just above Interlaken is reached by a funicular rail, the Harderbahn. It takes a very-steep 8 minute ride to reach the lookout and restaurant but gives a lovely view of Interlaken and some of the other towns around the lakes edges in the valley below.
On our second day in Interlaken we headed to the village of Grindelwald. Famed more for its winter sports (and apparently a few film cameos), in summer there are plenty of hiking trails in the valley and surrounding mountains. In keeping with tradition, we took a nice steep-looking trail and sweated and panted our way up the path, under a gondola (the easy option) to a look-out on one of the mountains. It was worth the view and we think it made our salami & cheese baguettes and swiss roll taste that much better.
Lucerne
Lucerne was another beautiful city and much more popular with the tourists - it is one of Europe's most popular destinations with about 5million visitors each year! The 'old quarter' sits on the river banks with cobbled alleys,
The Lion Monument, Lucerne
The dying lion has been carved to commemorate the Swiss soldiers who died in the French Revolution clusters of frescoed buildings, medieval style squares and ornate fountains. If anything the place felt so typically European that at times we felt we could be in any of Switzerland's neighbouring countries - though the German style beer hall where we had dinner may have influenced that one.
Just around the corner from our hostel we found the Lion Monument, a stone carving of a dying lion to commemorate the hundreds of Swiss Guards who were massacred during the French Revolution in Paris. Back down in the city centre is Lucerne's most famous landmark, a long wooden bridge known as the Chapel Bridge that meets an octagonal Water Tower both built in the 1330's. Inside the bridge are a series of paintings from the 17th century depicting events from Luzern's history. Though the bridge was partly destroyed in a fire in 1993, it has been restored and many of the damaged paintings repaired.
We decided to break up the train travels and take a lake cruise to Mt Rigi. We took the boat to Viznau and then the Vitznau-Rigi-Bahn, the first mountain railway in Europe, to the peak of Rigi-Kulm (1797m)
The view over Lake Lucerne below was
Mt Rigi, Lucerne
More picture-book Swiss scenery beautiful but it did make us think the vista in winter, with all the mountains covered in snow, must be even more impressive. We found a spot with a great view and sat down to enjoy another delicious home made roll ... and maybe some toblerone. All we could hear through-out the valley was the ringing of the bells Swiss farmers tie to their cows necks. They look like pretty hefty things for the cows to carry around and I'm not sure about having to listen to it all day but the sound from a distance was nice.
Zurich
The final destination in our Switzerland adventure was the largest of the Swiss cities and another hub of international finance, Zurich. From the main train station we wandered the town, through the river-side park and old, narrow streets. We visited the two main Romanesque-style churches, Grossmunster: a church built over the graves of two local martyrs and Fraumunster: dating from the 850's as a church and convent for female members of the aristocracy of Europe.
After exploring the streets we utilised the Swiss Pass again and took a round-trip cruise to Rapperswil on the east side of Lake Zurich. Rapperswil
is a small medieval styled town with a beautiful 13th century castle and a small monastery perched on a rocky hill overlooking the bay below.
We had a great afternoon in the sun walking the streets and gardens then headed back to Zurich city for one last night in lovely Switzerland and, of course, to load up on some Lindt chocolate for our future travels
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