I was up about 4 AM after not quite six hours of sleep so I figured that was as good as it was gonna get. Since that’s pretty much my normal wake up time at home maybe I have successfully navigated jet lag already. We will see; the second night is always my challenge.

This Marriott lounge is open 24 hours, with coffee available the entire time so that made it easy. I got the departure blog up and got caught up on all of my brain games and Duolingo. I went back to the room around 7 AM and Ash was just waking up.

Our room with dawn breaking outside.

Ash got some coffee to go from the lounge and we went out for a walk.

An interesting architectural design in the convention center across the street. 

It didn’t take us long to get to the Rhine River. We took the river path that you see there on the left.

It was a nice paved path with beautiful gardens and statues and various art pieces along the way. 

A dragon fountain.

The Cathedral across the river.

The towers that we saw coming in on the plane yesterday. 

A pedestrian bridge with a really interesting mural on the right. Every hundred feet or so it would change dramatically.

Showing a different part of the mural.

We made our way back to the hotel to meet Shaye about 9 AM.

Ash’s friend Ragul joined us for breakfast at the hotel. He is an ER doctor who lives here. We had a lovely visit over a nice meal.

After breakfast, we went to Avis to pick up the Rent-A-Car we will have for the week.

Once we had the car, we headed to an outlet mall about an hour away.

The point of this excursion was to find a Bally store. Why? When we were in Zürich in 2021, I bought a pair of shoes from there that very quickly became my favorite pair ever. A year later, I accidentally left them within reach of a four month old puppy named Zeus. Hence, no more favorite shoes. So Ash has been promising me ever since that the next time we make it to Switzerland, we will replace the shoes.

But apparently Bally has fallen under hard times here lately, and most of the stores have closed.

We figured: well, let’s go to the outlet mall anyway and see what else we find. The mall itself is housed in an old Bally factory.

We wandered into a shoe place that looked interesting called Baldinini. Italian of course with a name like that. Here’s what we learned:

• The same company that makes these shoes produced for Bally as well
• This store just opened about a month ago, in the same spot the Bally store was in (and why we had planned to come here several months ago)
• Each of the workers we met worked in that Bally store

That was as close as we were going to get. The shoes we tried on we loved.

We each got a pair of sneakers – which we wore out of the store – plus the blue loafer for me. Not exactly like the ones Zeus destroyed, but both pairs for me cost less than that pair so I can’t complain 😁

We walked around a bit more and did a little more shopping, and made it back to the hotel around 4:30. We made reservations for dinner and headed out again about 6:15.

Photo courtesy of Shaye. Ash mimicking a curtsy I sometimes do. My new shoes work great with this particular outfit!

We went to an Italian place across the river. There were a lot of people out enjoying the low water. They probably can’t do that when the river is full.

We had great weather all day today. Low of 51, high of 77.

A beautiful building on the main square. There was a lot of construction going on here that made it difficult to get nice shots. Oh well.

This was taken at the end but I will use it here. That’s Shaye and Ash pointing up because the restaurant, Trattoria Antichi Sapori, was all those windows above the store.

It was very much still daylight when we got there at 6:35 but dark when we left at 8pm. Cute place that was mostly empty upon arrival, but packed and loud at the end.

Crusty bread and a really nice olive oil to start.

Shaye started with a zucchini flan – taste of zucchini, texture of flan.

I had beef carpaccio which was classic and perfectly prepared

Ash had sea bass for his main, with mashed potatoes, summer squash, and cherry tomatoes.

Shaye had fettuccine.

I had braised veal cheek on a parsnip puree, with carrots and potatoes.

Everyone was very happy with their meal. And we even skipped dessert.

Above and below: a couple of shots on our way home.

And that was our whole day. Not much to it but it went by fast.