Category: 2019 Europe Spring

Finally we got a good nights sleep and we woke up and it wasn’t raining!  We really wanted to go to Mt Titlis and walk across the highest suspension bridge in the world but when we checked the webcams it was all fogged in 😒.  So instead we decided to go down to Lake Como in Italy.  It was about a two and a half hour drive.

The road over the Gotthard pass is still closed due to snow so we went through the tunnel which is 10.5 miles long, quite an engineering feat. Here are pictures of what we went under on our ride through the tunnel.

We arrived in Como around lunch time.  We walked along the lake for awhile and then found a nice sidewalk cafe for lunch.  I had lasagna and Rick had risotto with fresh perch from the lake.  It was really very good.

After lunch we walked a little further around the lake, watching the hydrofoil boats and sea planes.  It was sunny and warm.  You can really see the affect the mountains have on the weather.  The clouds can’t pass over the mountains so they just get stuck in Switzerland. Here are some pictures from our day.

We returned to the car and drove back.  We hit some traffic at the tunnel and then took the wrong exit near Arth, but we made it home safely.

 

Just when we thought the weather couldn’t get any worst, we woke up and it had snowed.

If you have any plans to come to Switzerland, I don’t recommend the spring because every year we come in April or May and it is almost always cold and raining and sometimes snowing.  Oh well!  Today we had a couple of brief (5 mins) periods of sun but the rest of the time it was overcast, raining and/or snowing.

Today we had planned to either go to Lucerne or to go down to the Italian section but the Gottard pass which is on the route to the Italian section is closed because of snow.  So Lucerne it is.  Rick had done some research and found a museum for us to go to as well as a restaurant for lunch.

After parking we walked across Lucerne’s famous chapel bridge or Kapellbrücke, which is a covered wooden footbridge, diagonally spanning the River Reuss. The bridge was originally built in 1365 as part of Lucerne’s fortifications. It is unique because it contains a number of interior paintings dating back to the 17th century, although many of them were destroyed along with a larger part of the centuries-old bridge in a 1993 fire. Subsequently restored, the Kapellbrücke is the oldest wooden covered bridge in Europe, as well as the world’s oldest surviving truss bridge. 

Then we stopped at Starbucks to warm up.  Just to give you an idea of how expensive Switzerland is, a medium coffee and hot chocolate cost us about $15.

Here are some pictures for Lucerne, which is a charming and typical Swiss city.

Then we went to the Rosengart Collection.  Siegfried Rosengart and his daughter, Angela Rosengart,  were art dealers and good friends with several artists including Pablo Picasso, Marc Chagall, and Paul Klee.  The museum primarily contains work from these three artists.  It was very interesting and we really enjoyed it.

We had lunch in a Spanish restaurant.  Rick enjoyed his paella and I enjoyed tapas.

 

We came back to the apartment and took a nap because we are still adjusting to the time change.  We weren’t really hungry for dinner so we just snacked.  We were able to stay up until 10 so maybe we are getting over the jet lag.

We are still experiencing a bit of jet lag so we didn’t get started too early today.  The weather this morning started off with a mix of sun and clouds but got more and more overcast and eventually it started raining.  🌧

We took the scenic route to Brunnen.  It would have been a short 15 minute ride if we had taken the direct route, but our circuitous route took us about an hour through the beautiful Swiss countryside.  Here’s a map showing the two towns.

We had lunch at a small restaurant beside the lake. Then we walked a quarter of a mile to the Swiss Knife Valley Museum, which wasn’t much of a museum, it was really just a Victorinox store showing a movie or two and displaying knives, past and present. We watched a couple of the videos, one about the area and one about how they make the Swiss Army knives.  Interestingly there is a lot of labor in stacking and cleaning the knives and it’s all done in Switzerland, using expensive Swiss labor.   Rick bought two knives, one for sailing and the other one similar to a small pocket knife he inherited from his dad.  Here is a picture from the store so you can see how many Swiss Army knife models they have.

Here are some pictures of Brunnen.

We drove by Rick’s favorite kirsch manufacturer and discovered they were closed.  We learned later that the company had been purchased and it would no longer be making kirsch.  This area is famous for growing cherries (kirsch is made from fermented cherry stems and pits) and Rick remembered that there was another kirsch manufacturer  in the area.  So we looked it up and found Etter, the other major kirsch manufacturer.

The Etter showroom was open so we went there for a tasting (actually Rick tasted and I watched).  We ended up with two pretty special bottles of kirsch. Turns out, not surprisingly, that the weather each year has a significant impact on the flavor.  Everything came together in 2006 and it was very obvious.

Turns out Etter distills a number of different fruits, pears, plums, quince and cherries.  We bought a sampler pack so we could try a little of each.

We had planned to go to the caves in Baar, http://www.hoellgrotten.ch/en_index.php, but it was getting late, so we decide to head back to the apartment.

At our “house” two guys who live here and their friend were trying launch a dinghy with a large motor.  Rick went out in the rain to help them. They thanked him with a beer and he spent a little time communing with the locals.

By evening it got quite windy.  We had whitecaps on the lake and it even snowed a little.  Nice to be watching the action unfold from our warm little house!

After a good night sleep at Irene’s house, we headed to Lachen to visit Irene’s mother, Pia and sister, Sibylle.  Pia, is going to the Canary Islands and Sibylle is going to Italy, both leave tomorrow, so we made a beeline to to Lachen to see them.  Unfortunately we ended up going through Zurich and dealing with the Zurich traffic, oh well we made it to Lachen eventually…

After a nice visit with them we took the scenic route to our apartment in Arth.  The weather today isn’t so good.  It rained some and the rest of the time it was very overcast.  Our route took us through hillside with many picturesque villages, all very typically Swiss. Here are a couple of pictures from our scenic route. 

We arrived at our apartment. Here is a map showing where Arth is.

The apartment is right on the edge of the Zuggersee.  It’s a perfect retreat for us for the next 4 days (now if we could only get a break from the rain).  Here are pictures of our view and the apartment.

The mother of the house’s owner gave us a complete tour of the apartment.  After getting settled we went to the grocery store and provisioned.  That evening we had a bread, cheese, and cold cut picnic, our favorite.  As the weather cleared a little we even got a rainbow.

 

We are off on our next adventure,  I didn’t send out an email because it seems like I always get behind so I thought I’d send an email out at the end of our trip, but for those of you on our blog mailing list, you can follow our trip real time.

Last night we flew from Boston to Zürich.  We will spend two weeks in Switzerland and then go to Greece.  Rick and I will travel around Greece for two weeks, ending up in Athens where we will met up with friends, two other couples.  From there we will pick up a sailboat and sail around the Greek Islands for three weeks (not sure about our ability to blog while on the boat).  We return home on June 23.

Our flight was uneventful although neither of us got much sleep.  During most of our Switzerland visit we will be staying with Rick’s cousin, Irene, who lives in Mettendorf, about 1/2 hour from Zurich. We will borrow Irene’s car so we got the train from the airport to Mettendorf.  Irene had left her car at the train station so we arrived at her house without any problems.  We spent the rest of the day napping and then trying to stay awake so we could sleep that night.