Beautiful Switzerland

One of the best benefits being married to the physicist working for Oxford, are the opportunities for travel. Recently, Brian was invited to give a talk on his latest work at a conference being held  in the Swiss Alps. Oh rough. We knew Switzerland was a expensive country to go visit, so this was an opportune time to take advance of some travel freebies from the conference. As he'll get his flight, hotel and train tickets paid for, it's then more economical to just pay for me to come over as well.

Brian went on Wednesday, so he was there for the conference through Saturday (and had a trip to CERN particle accelerator - like kids in the candy store). I arrived on Friday and enjoyed Saturday on my own just relaxing and exploring.

We flew into Geneva, and took the train around Lake Geneva to a town called Aigle. The lake and it's views were magnificent. They call it the riviera of Switzerland or more like Tuscany. I had no idea, but this part of the country is a large wine making region, and there were wineries and grapes dotting the landscape along the lake, interspersed with Swiss chalets, with the mountains in the background. Just stunning scenes. White grapes for Chablis, seem to grow best in their climate - but they aren't exporters of the wine, they keep it to enjoy for themselves in Switzerland!

Upon arrival in Aigle, then it's a little cog train up the mountain to Leysin, which is a ski resort town. The weather now was sunny and warm, so no snow for skiing. And it's the shoulder season, so the tourists were fewer, but made it more enjoyable for us. Leysin also is home to a number of international schools, one American even, so there were Asian and American kids all over the little ski resort town as well. I just grabbed a good book, found a beautiful view, and enjoyed the sun and mountains for my afternoon!

  The food was pretty decent and hearty in Switzerland, although I wouldn't rave about it. But we had very good meals with meat and potatoes (well fish for Brian) with lots of yummy Swiss cheese (raclette, guryere, etc). This is our cute Swiss looking restaurant at our hotel (wood panels, red/white placemats, flowers, etc).

Leaving Leysin, and so Brian could actually take a few days vacation, we took one of the popular scenic train rides through the Alps to Interlaken Switzerland. We paid for first class in the Classic Golden Pass train - it was really neat with dark wood paneling, gold and fabric embellishments - just as you'd think of the Orient Express. Of course we were served drinks (beer/wine) and snacks along the route. It was so beautiful and relaxing. As it only took 3 hours, we arrived in Interlaken later in the afternoon and found our B&B called Hotel Rossli close to the station.

Now, hotels are not cheap in Switzerland. Our room was very nice, new and clean. But small and had the bathroom built into the corner of the room (rather than a separate room). And were were paying London hotel prices. It definitely did the trick, but again, not cheap or big. Food as well is not cheap. The hotels/B&Bs offer a nice yet standard cold breakfast buffet (muesli, croissants, toast, fruit, yogurt, sliced meat/cheese, boiled eggs, coffee, tea, juice.) We'd take extra food from breakfast or from the grocery store for picnic lunch, and then eat out at dinner.

Interlaken was familiar to me, as I was there with my college friend Beth Nelson Boyum during our senior year at GAC. So I was excited to be there again and show Brian. I recalled it being a charming, laid back Swiss village like town. Well, when we arrived, and walked down the main drag, it was full of touristy shops, bus loads of Asian and Indian tourists, and didn't feel local and charming at all! But I realised we were now in a completely different part of town than where I had been before. The Asian tourists weren't so much of a surprise to see, but the bus loads of Indian tourists were (I've just never seen them touring Europe before). Well, we learned it was because of Bollywood- many of the popular dance sequences in Bollywood movies are filmed in front of the Swiss Mountains (to represent the Kashmir mountains in India). So they all make the pilgrimage to see their fave movies scenes!

Our first full day, we hired bicycles to go around one of the two large lakes which Interlaken sits between. The weather was gorgeous sunny and upper 70s. We embarked on a 30 km trip which took us about 6 hours (including stops for views, pics, lunch, etc). I was pretty proud of myself for that long - although at hour 5 I was ready to be back and Brian sure heard about it! But it was probably my favorite day, the little Swiss villages we cycled through, views of the lake and mountains, an amazing waterfall, cows with their Swiss cowbells on, alpine flowers, blue sky, sun - oh, it was just spectacular. And a good workout!

Of course we had to try fondue at least one night - and found a good local place close to our hotel. They serve it in a fondue pot with a handle and along side comes a basket of bread chunks, pickled onion pearls, pickles, small tomatoes, small potatoes and pear pieces. Sounds random, but really yummy all together!

The next day, we took the train further up into the mountains, and stopped at the foot of Jungfrau Mountain, where we hiked back down 6 miles to the town called Wengen. We were literally able to touch a glacier as we were that high up in elevation. Luckily, the sun was still out, although the air was cooler due to the altitude. Brian was in heaven and I enjoyed the fact that we hiked down, rather than up! Although down gets really tough too on the knees and shins! My favorite stop of the day was a hidden away restaurant in Wengen waiting for the train. It had a wraparound outside porch overlooking the town and with the glorious mountains looming just further beyond. Brian could have a frosty beverage and write postcards, and I had their homemade muesli as an afternoon snack. It was served like an ice cream sundae, but was a healthy Swiss muesli, yogurt and fruit concoction. Yum!

I had to have a Sound of Music moment of course, in the Swiss Alps. Not really in Austria here, but same mountain range!

We enjoyed another Swiss meal close to our hotel that night, and then worked on packing things up for our return flight to the UK the next day. Another successful European adventure!