Category: 2021: Paris & Switzerland

Europe travel adventures during a pandemic!

Europe 2021: Going Home & Final Thoughts
As I start this entry, It’s about 1pm Finland time. I’m sitting in a lounge in the Helsinki airport, done with the first leg of my journey home and relaxing comfortably with free coffee, snacks, and easy access to an electrical outlet. Gotta love that.

Test caption

They fed me on the first leg of the flight which was desperately needed. I’d been up 6 hours at this point and hadn’t eaten a thing. It was a nice lunch (it was like 11:30am local time at this point) of chicken, mashed potatoes, Brussel sprouts, perfectly cooked carrots, some fresh fish I couldn’t identify but was good, and a cookie.

I got into the Aspire Lounge since Ash added me to this Priority Pass membership. Thanks, Ash! It was pretty crowded as you can see.

The source of free coffee. I love the coffee in Europe, I said to Ash the day before I’m going to miss it. I took advantage of it for the hour or so I was here.

I took my spot at a seat overlooking the rest of the airport.

As Ash and I were walking around Zurich Thursday afternoon, I started making notes on my phone about what I wanted to include in this, my traditional final entry of every trip. I was surprised how the thoughts kept coming as the day went on so this could be pretty long! I’ll go by how they come to me so in no particular order:

Swiss Infrastructure

This was my first time to Switzerland and it was interesting to experience what an impressive country they’ve built. Things just seem to work well here. A couple of things really stood out:
1. Tunnels: They are literally a part of the Swiss identity. They take a lot of pride in the fact that that have the most in the world – 1300 – and most of the longest (China has the actual longest). We first encountered them on the Glacier Express – the train ride through the Alps – 91 of them of in fact. Never batted an eye about it because, well, it doesn’t seem all that unusual to tunnel through mountains. But I was surprised at how many we went through just driving to/from Zurich and Interlaken. Some are short and some are miles long.
2. Cell phone connection: it didn’t seem to matter where we were, we were always connected, even at 11,500 feet, or riding in a gondola.
3. Two impressive (at least to me) examples of these 2 things colliding:
  - While on the Glacier Express, I received an email from American Airlines about a change in my itinerary and I needed to call them to discuss. I mentioned this in an earlier entry – having to leave Friday instead of Saturday because my flight out of Zurich on Saturday had been cancelled and there didn’t seem to be another way to get me to Heathrow to catch the other ones. At any rate, I called them while I was on the train using the train’s WiFi I assume. And just as the person put me on hold we went through a tunnel and I thought “damn it.” Both the hold time and the tunnel kept going – we were in that tunnel for 15-20 minutes, I was on hold the entire time and never lost the connection. Pretty impressive as far as I’m concerned.
  - Sitting on a train in a tunnel at Jungfraujoch and we get a text from Art. There’s no WiFi here, we’re deep in a tunnel at something like 10k feet and we get a text. Those are some powerful cell phone towers.
Unstructured Time

Never have I taken a trip this long with so little planned. Three days in Puerto Vallarta is one thing, but 2 weeks in Europe? Who does that? We do, and it was Awesome. My day-to-day life is so scheduled, especially during the week, that I crave unstructured time on the weekends. When I go back to work on Monday and think “wow, Friday afternoon seems like a long time ago” I know I’ve had a good weekend, and that only happens when it was pretty unstructured. This has been like that on steroids. I barely remember I have a job. Although I’m sure that will all come back to me Sunday evening. If we missed doing something because we didn’t research things or book stuff in advance well enough I’m not aware of it, and more to the point don’t care. I loved everything we did and that it was all so spontaneous, never thinking more than a day or two in advance, and often not more than an hour or two. Bliss.

Different but related, this was only possible because Ash appreciates the unstructured time as much as I do. I paid him the highest compliment I could pay anyone, as people who know me well can attest to: Traveling with Ash is at least as enjoyable as traveling alone, and probably more. Good thing. We see lots of it in our future.

“Google Knows”

A friend of mine asked me once how I manage to get around so easily when I travel. I was a little baffled at the question because the answer was so simple I assumed everyone knew: Google knows where you are and how to get you where you want to be, whether on foot, by car or by public transportation. And often in surprising ways, especially if you’re walking. I lost count of the number of times on this trip where I was following the map and Ash would go “this can’t be right, it doesn’t lead anywhere!” But you keep walking and come across some random hallway through a hotel or apartment building – this just happened to us again Thursday in Zurich while in search of a cheese shop – and you’re like “how does it know this?” I don’t know, but it does. Google knows. We must’ve said it a hundred times on this trip. (Ok, maybe a slight exaggeration…but we said it a bunch and it became a thing…)

Ice Cream

The Swiss are obsessed with ice cream. We didn’t eat that much of it for some reason, but it certainly wasn’t for lack of opportunity. There are little freezers of ice cream everywhere – more prevalent than vending machines for sodas and water. Even in the hallway at JungFrauJoch – where the average temperature outside is 20F – from the gondola to the outside where you can start your hikes if you like.

The rest of the way home

With the exception of the final entry, that was as far as I got in Helsinki before I had to board my flight for the 9 hour leg to Chicago.

This was my little hideaway for 9 hours.

Ash had found me a business class ticket using just 57,500 of my American Airlines miles so I only paid like $64 for this seat. Not bad, huh? They brought blueberry juice as soon as I sat down.

I was surprised I was hungry already but I was. Literally all I ate on this day was airline food. This was rainbow trout with potatoes and Brussel sprouts, a yummy sauce, some cold shrimp and cheese.

A lovely currant mousse and coffee for dessert, with come chocolates.

Like the plane to Copenhagen on the way out, this plane had outside cameras, too, but this one also had a “down” option, where the prior one was just “forward.” Since the sun was out the entire leg this provided some really nice images to meditate to which I took advantage of quite a bit.

About an hour before landing in Chicago we got pasta and fruit.

The rest of the trip was uneventful like you want it to be. Chicago customs was pretty easy – no line – just had to take bus to catch my Sacramento flight because International is a completely different one maybe a mile down the road. You sort of had to figure that out on your own so some additional signage would have been helpful, but I made it.

I’m usually pretty wired at the end of the long trip – that was a 33 hour day for me when you add in the time I picked up – and last night was no exception. I unpacked completely and, starving again, ate a hearty pastry I’d gotten at the cheese place in Zurich which I’d forgotten about completely. Was very happy it was there. I was in bed after midnight. (And very happy to discover when I weighed myself for the first time this morning since I left that I weighed exactly the same – to the ounce – that I weighed then. Thrilled about that considering what I managed to eat on this trip! All the walking helps.)

I woke up around 5:30am which is pretty normal for me. I’m tired but, beyond a haircut at 10am, have nothing on the calendar today or tomorrow so of course I’m thrilled about that. I have a lot to do and am feeling like I’ll get it all done in a very relaxed way. It’s now approaching 8am, I’m finishing this entry on my balcony with some coffee. All is right with the world.

Gay Marriage Referendum

Everywhere we went, even remote villages in the Alps which we passed by train, we saw posters and flags with “Ja!” and the gay rainbow flag on them. Turns out there’s a national vote coming up on gay marriage at the end of the month. The Swiss legislature had made gay marriage legal in December, but a conservative group got enough signatures to get it on the ballot for a national vote. According to polls we found, over 80% of the people are in favor of it so as long as they get out and vote it should be fine.

The opera house in Zurich flying the gay flags, we presume in support of the national vote coming September 26 on gay marriage.

Still all these years after coming out in 1998, when you’re out and about there’s always a question of “where am I, am I safe?” We don’t worry about it too much at home – Ash lives in the gayest neighborhood on the planet, the Castro, and I live next to “Lavender Heights” in Sacramento. So it was nice to see such a public display of support everywhere we went. (In Paris, we were the the Marais which is also their gayborhood so never a problem there or anywhere in the city.)

Listening to our music while driving

Both of the cars we rented – an Audi for Giverny and a Fiat for Switzerland – had CarPlay, Apple’s app for autos. This made travel so easy and like at home – we got to listen to our music from my phone and plug in the navigation tool to move around. There was something oddly comforting and enjoyable about this little detail so many miles from home.

Blog Interaction

I haven’t been able to quite put my finger on how it was different, but all of you interacted with us differently on this trip, in ways that are of course very much welcomed. Maybe it was just y’all were as hungry for pandemic travel, even if just virtually, as we were.

When people have asked “isn’t it weird to travel alone?” I always say 1. No, my high introvert needs get satisfied and 2. I’m never really alone. I take all of you with me everywhere I go. I really felt this on this trip and it was nice. I think Ash got into it a little bit, too. As I say every time, I can no longer imagine traveling without the blog because it shapes how I experience the day as I go through it, paying attention to things in ways I wouldn’t have if I wasn’t coming back to you each day to share it. So for that I thank you.

Pandemic Travel

Speaking of pandemic travel, this certainly added a layer of complexity and stress to coming and going, but once we were there it was hardly a thing at all. There was also this underlying feeling of safety that set in because we knew that, everywhere we went, most everyone was vaccinated probably and everyone wore masks at all times. You knew that because you couldn’t get on the plane without a vaccine record and recent negative COVID test, and because, at least in Paris, we “got carded” everywhere we went – including restaurants where outside dining was the only option. Switzerland’s vaccination rate is over 90% and they didn’t seem to care as much. We never got carded anywhere, we guess because they just presume at this point that everyone is, knowing you couldn’t get into the country otherwise, so it was all very relaxing on that point – with 100% of the people still wearing masks indoors of course. it made all the fights we see back in the US on these topics look stupid and petty. (Which they are.)

My Favorite Day / Traveling with Ash

This was actually the 2nd thing on my list when I was jotting notes but I decided to hold it to the end.

When we met Art for dinner that one evening he asked me what my favorite day of the trip had been so far. I had to think about it for a moment and when it came to me the answer surprised me: it was that Wednesday in Paris when we shopped and went to the opera. Why? There was nothing about anything we did that day that I would have done on my own. I’m not a shopper and have very strategically always travelled light to avoid having to check bags (something I was vividly reminded of Friday morning at the airport, but I’ll leave all that out for now…). But I got some shirts and shoes that I’ll enjoy and, as Ash kept saying, I’ll have memories about them when I wear them. And of course the Paris opera is never something in a million years I would have thought to do on my own, yet it was quite an experience that I would do again. The next week, we did Jungfraujoch. Similar to the shopping, I was hesitant to do it because of the cost, but when we got to the top of the mountain and looked out I said to Ash “this would have been worth it even if we don’t come back tomorrow.” It was tremendous and worth every penny.

Between those experiences and the endless conversations Ash and I had about future travel possibilities, it’s clear to me there are a Lot of new adventures waiting. I hope you will all continue to come along for the ride, it’s been a joyous experience having you along.
September 10, 2021
2021 Europe: Day 12 – Zurich (and Lindt Chocolate)

I was up a little before 7am and Ash a little after. We’d been at the Interlaken apartment for 4 nights and had to get out there by 10am so we were really focused on packing and cleaning out the fridge.

So breakfast was whatever was left in the kitchen – in this case an egg each, some potatoes, chicken and bread. It worked.

We got on the road about 9:30am, headed to Zurich. We passed some lovely scenery on the way – as seen above. It even rained for a little while but by the time we got to Zurich it was gorgeous weather.

Our first stop was the Lindt chocolate factory. I was hoping for an actual factory tour but it was more museum. I’d been to a couple before – one in Cologne, one in Bruges, so can’t say I learned much. That fountain, by the way, was real chocolate: you could smell it. At least the part that flowed from the top and town over the first two waves. The big round platform was solid as was the pool.

But you got to taste quite a bit so that worked for us. In this room, you opened up a spout onto a spoon and let how much of the sample you wanted flow out: from left to right in this photo was white, milk and dark chocolate in a very smooth form.

The next section had 6 kinds of chocolate bars to taste, including orange and salted caramel.

This photo shows about half of the flavors of their round chocolate balls in the pretty foils which you could take freely. Not bad for a $15 entry fee.

And of course there was the store. I admit we bought a few things to bring home.

It was about 1:30pm when we were done and we were ready for lunch. Ash said “look for something on the lake” again, like in Geneva. And there was something practically across the street: Chez Fritz. That’s Lake Zurich if you were wondering. The city is essentially built around it.

We choose the daily specials and both got the gazpacho for starters: cold tomato soup.

Ash had the fish for his main…

…and I got the schweineschnitzel – pork cutlet – better even than the one I had in Zermatt.

A very small crème brulee like item for dessert.

We’d been sitting behind a couple of smokers so when this table cleared they let us move closer to the water so we could enjoy our coffee in peace. There was a lovely breeze blowing in perfect weather at 77F so it was a good move. We sat here for awhile just enjoying the view and doing nothing.

We made our way to a cheese place Ash wanted to seek out and did a little shopping, then made our way to where we’re staying. We have essentially our own floor in this guy’s 3 floor condo. It’s pretty nice; I completely forgot to take photos and ain’t stopping to do it now :)

We settled in for a bit then left to walk the town before dinner. We took a left out of the condo, hit the lake in a couple of blocks, turned right and headed into downtown. There were quite a few people out enjoying the great weather; see the sunbathers on the far right. Not what comes to mind when you think of Zurich, is it?

This whole area was beautiful, with a museum here and there in between some beautiful homes. As the center of banking for the world, Zurich has its share of super rich people.

A view of old town as we crossed a bridge. The bridge you see in the above photo is the bridge I’m on when I take the next few shots that follow somewhat later in the day after we’d walked around quite a bit.

Old town Zurich is very charming, as most of them are. This really reminded me of Ghent, Belgium: the buildings right on the river, several churches close to each other in the central area. Beautiful.

This was after 6pm at this point and everything was closed so we were just out for the views.

A panoramic show picking up two of the 4 churches down here.

The oldest church with some retail in front of it. Classic.

It was approaching 7 and we were ready for dinner. We made our way back to the condo and found this Italian place, Amalfi, a few blocks away in a cute neighborhood we noticed on our way in.

I’m glad I don’t look as tired as I felt. Or maybe I do?

They brought bread, olive oil and balsamic vinegar to start. We ordered the burrata special they had with prosciutto because burrata is just sort of our thing now – if it’s on the menu we’re likely to get it. And this was maybe the best I’d ever had, super fresh and creamy.

Ash had the risotto with shrimp at the top, I had veal and spaghetti with a lemon sauce that was spectacular – and I’m usually not that wild about lemon flavored things. But this was more savory than sweet or sour and it worked really well.

For dessert shared a chocolate tort with vanilla ice cream and raspberry sauce.

The point of the tort is the ooey gooey stuff on the inside.

We stopped for some milk for Ash on our way back. I took my COVID home test – negative – so I’m ready for tomorrow’s return home, then started the blog. Ash went to bed over an hour ago.

And that, my friends, ends mine and Ash’s first international trip together. Ash has a friend joining him tomorrow evening for another two weeks. They’re here for a couple more days then headed to Florence and who know where else. Ash will end up in Amsterdam as some point because that’s where he’s flying home from.

I leave tomorrow, flying from Zurich to Sacramento via Helsinki and Chicago. It will be a long day. Depending on how my layovers go, I may do my traditional “final thoughts” entry during them or it may wait until the weekend. My goal is always to be done with it all before I land in Sac but I’ve only accomplished that once or twice. So we’ll see you then whichever it is…

September 9, 2021
2021 Europe: Day 11 – A pretty lazy day in Grindelwald & Interlaken

We both got up about 7am. We discussed what our options were for the day while we drank coffee and Ash fixed some breakfast.

Scrambled eggs with cheese, chicken, cauliflower. The balcony was nice again.

We decided to head back to Grindelwald and head up to the Top of Europe again, just since today was the last day our pass would be good.

We got to the gondola stop before 10am and had to wait until the next train left for the top at 10:15am. This is the gondola car approaching the station at 7600 feet.

One of the things we hadn’t done at the top was the cinema room. All four walls are a movie screen with a variety of angles while a 4 minute movie plays a variety of mountain scenes. Some of it is quick sickening actually! If you have trouble with heights or feeling like you’re falling this might not be for you.

We went up to Sphinx again to take one last look around from the Top of Europe. We noticed the people down below this time; hadn’t noticed them a couple of days before, yet later that day we were down there. It was interesting seeing it from this perspective. There was another spot on the other side of the mountain where you could go outside and we wanted to find that since we didn’t the last time.

This view looked different to us as well because we could spot where we had lunch yesterday on our 10 mile hike. Just below center you see several roads intersecting around some buildings – that’s it.

The glacier still looks like a glacier…but I loved the clouds in the background that were actually lower than us. We’re at about 11,500 feet here.

The Sphinx building is a literal observatory and research lab, not just an observation deck. All kinds of weather data is collected in particular. The average temperature up here is about 20F.

We’d seen these folks from the Sphinx the other day, making this trek up to the peak called Monch. We missed it then but found it today. Still weren’t in the right shoes so passed this time. Next time we’ll be better prepared!

Ash kept wanting me to jump up….asked me to do it 3 times….

….the weird part is that I actually did it….

There was a bar there and to the far right you can see lounge chairs. Folks were just hanging out taking in the incredible views.

We went inside instead for different kinds of treat: hot drinks with whipped cream. Ash got a coffee, I had the hot chocolate which was Amazing.

We were ready for lunch and headed back down around 12:30pm. I took my last shot of Grindelwald valley. It’s been one of my favorite views on this whole trip.

We made our way back to Interlaken and parked in the centrum. We had no goal in mind other than to walk around some and find some lunch. We encountered a food truck in a little spot across from the park which has made an appearance in this blog twice now – once when paragliders were landing two days ago, and again yesterday from above when we were at Harder Kulm. Here’s that Ferris wheel again from a different angle. I love the mountains in the background just right of center.

This was my view of the park and mountains sitting across from Ash.

And the food truck!

Ash had a salmon salad with peaches and tomatoes. And bread with a lemon aioli.

I had the bratwurst with “loaded” fries, with lemon aioli, jalapenos, green onions, garlic, and grated parmesan. Packed a punch they did! And wow, that mustard with the sausage was hot like Chinese mustard is. I wasn’t expecting it At All and paid for it.

This was Ricardo, the food truck guy.

After we ate we were just kinda done and ready to be lazy, so headed back to the apartment. Above is a pretty church with a Japanese garden in front of it we passed on the way back to our car.

We sort of napped during Da Vince Code (we’d both seen it). When I got up I had this message from WordPress this afternoon and was pretty excited about it!

The original plan for dinner was Ash was going to cook, but in the end he didn’t feel like it and lord knows I wasn’t going to, so we went for the closest thing we could find.

Turns out the Barracuda Bar is ranked #1 out of 117 Interlaken restaurants on TripAdvisor and was .2 miles away. Perfect! We sat at that table on the far right of this photo.

Looking up the street one way. This was our neighborhood; the laundry place we used yesterday is just behind that first building there on the left.

The view to the right. That little orangish dot just above the hill line in the center is a paraglider.

We both got turkey wraps and they were delicious. Ash got a virgin mojito and I got a ginger beer. The reviews ranked this #1 because of the good feed at decent prices and friendly atmosphere. We agreed.

We noticed as we were sitting there that we could see Harder Kulm from there, where we were yesterday. That ledge sticking out of the top of the hills in the center is where we were yesterday.

Suddenly there were LOTS of paragliders out and about. Something very relaxing about watching them swirl around. Some of them were quite talented.

We stopped by the Coop on the way home for dessert: ice cream bars. We enjoyed them while watching The Fantastic Four, which I had never seen.

This is our last night here. Tomorrow we leave for Zurich. We were supposed to have 2 days there but my flights got changed and am not able to leave on Saturday as planned. They gave me options of Sunday or Friday so I picked Friday because I’m not one of those people who can come back from a trip like this and head to work the next day. So I’m going home on Friday.

Ash is staying for 2 weeks after me, with a friend joining him on Saturday. So let’s see what we come up with for our last day together.

September 8, 2021
Europe 2021: Day 10 – A 10 mile walk down a mountain, and the Top of Interlaken. And cows.

I slept good, still just about 6.5 hours. I’d gotten Monday’s blog up Monday night which is rare but was glad it was done. I had a teeny bit of work to do for my job so took care of that while Ash had his first cup of coffee. We went for a about a 1.5 mile walk first thing and then came back to the apartment for breakfast.

In the pan: eggs, potatoes, the Alp cheese we got from our visit to Gimmelwald with Art, and leftover chicken from the night before. And of course bread and butter. We ate on the balcony again.

We left after 9:30 to go pick up Art. We’d offered to pick him up at 10am from Stechelberg where he gets off at the gondola from Gimmelwald, and give him a ride to the Interlaken train station. His next stop is Lucerne. It was fun to meet up with him on this trip and, as our friend Jon said, have our blogs collide.

We decided to go back to Grindelwald and make good use of the passes we bought the day before, which are actually good for 3 days. While not only for that reason, we also decided to stay here an extra night, cutting out a quick trip we were going to do to Lugano – a recent add to the itinerary that I’m now very glad is gone. It would have been beautiful but would have added lots of extra driving. Our time here is so relaxing this is much better. Plus we can use the passes through tomorrow if we choose.

We took the gondola back up to the first stop at 7600 feet. Our big plan for the day was simple: walk back down the mountain. We’d packed water and food in our backpack and were ready to go. The sign said it would take 3.5 hours but we knew we’d be slower (we were) due to photos and stuff. Plus we just weren’t in a hurry.

This is the valley you see coming out of the railway center where the gondola drops you off to catch the trains up to the “top of Europe” if you wish. We walked down to that little hut left of center just to look into the valley.

Walking this mountain is apparently a popular activity around here. We saw quite a few people out and about – a few of them actually coming up the mountain! – and there are plenty of signs to keep you well oriented.

That’s the back of the peak called Monch we think, maybe Eiger, but the point of this photo is the cows grazing in the meadows at the bottom.

Here’s a closer shot just so you can see there were quite a few of them. We could hear the cowbells from where we were way up the hill. In fact, we heard cowbells for most of the day.

A clearer shot of that back valley. There’s a little town on that center cliff, I haven’t figure out yet what it is for sure.

From there we took a right and started the trek down. About an hour into it we came to our first and only big stop, those buildings that Ash is looking towards. He’s actually probably looking at the train coming in from the left. Before we left after lunch we had a quick chance to rethink our plan and take the train instead but we were committed. How many people get to say they walked down a mountain? Neither of us had done it before for sure.

We sat outside the train depot at one of those picnic tables.

We had water we’d bought the other day, and stopped at the Coop in the gondola terminal to get the sandwhiches and chips. Ash had chicken on baguette, I had roast beef on a very rustic seedy wheat.

I just love the look of this valley and enjoyed looking at it for the at-least 10 mile trek down.

This is Eiger, specifically the north face of Eiger, apparently a climber’s dream challenge. It was first climbed in 1938 and took that party 3 days to get to the top. Experienced climbers do it today in 2.5 hours.

More cows grazing in front of a ski lift.

The cowbells they wear are Huge and pretty loud – no wonder you could hear them all over the mountain. I had to take this video several times. Ash kept messing with the cows and apparently at one point one was about to charge at me! (Too bad my back was turned, THAT would have been a fun video…)

There’s that valley again, with the town just a little bit closer. It was right at 2pm here.

Eiger again, with a covered railway running alongside it.

The blue line shows the trail climbers use to scale this.

This is 3:23pm. We started about 11am. I’m pretty tired. Ash is practically skipping down the mountain. (He finally felt it later this evening.) And emphasis on down: that’s what made it so tiring. It’s 10 miles of downhill slope easily 95% of the time. Some flat here and there but not much, and a fair amount of it is pretty steep. Ash kept saying he wants to do this again tomorrow but uphill. I told him he was welcome to do that and I’d be sitting at the restaurant at the top waiting for him….

Last cow pic I promise. But aren’t they pretty? Today took my concept of “pastoral” to a whole different level.

We were finally down the mountain around 4:20pm. We had one more thing we wanted to do, which was also on the pass, and it was back in Interlaken, so we got in the car and made our way to that direction.

We still haven’t explored much of the town itself and I’m hoping to do that tomorrow. This is the first time I’ve seen the river, Aare, which is the longest river in the Swiss Alps. Here is connects the two lakes on either side of the town, Thunersee to the west nd Brienzersee to the east.

We had to go up in a funicular for our next stop – a very slanted railcar that’s able to climb steep slopes. That’s the track below us just after we started. And it’s high – over 4200 feet.

The place is called Harder Kulm. Essentially it’s a restaurant and an observation deck and that’s about it. But it was definitely worth the stop.

Yesterday we were at the Top of Europe, today merely the Top of Interlaken! But all part of the great system they’ve put together here for enjoying what’s referred to as the Jungfrau region, named for the highest peak in the area.

From this angle you can clearly see Interlaken is in a valley just like Grindelwald was.

The observation deck jets out over a cliff from the restaurant.

Lake Thunersee – the sun was 5:32pm so the sun made it a bit murky but you get the idea. If you look closely you can see a yellow parasail left of center.

Lake Brienzersee on the east side.

And the center of town. That field is the same you saw yesterday where the parasailers were landing.

A better view of the restaurant, etc. There’s also more of s snack bar outside, which is where we chose to sit, under those red umbrellas on the left. We didn’t want dinner but shared a coke and fries and that hit the spot.

We were so ready to be done by this point. We stopped by the Coop one more time (there’s one in the same building as our apartment so we only park once) to pick up some things for dinner. Ash suggested I share with the folks at home the cost of Ben & Jerry’s here. That’s $10.82 if you’re wondering.

Dinner was salmon, cauliflower and tomatoes. And a chocolate almond bar we shared while watching Billy Elliot.

Tomorrow is our last day in Interlaken. We’ll see what we come up with. I have a feeling that will be determined by how we feel after today’s hike!

September 7, 2021
2021 Europe: Day 9 – Jungfraujoch, the Top of Europe

I slept a nice 6.5 hours which is my norm, up a little before 6am. I finished the blog over coffee, as normal an early vacation morning as they come. Ash got up a little after 7 and we went for a walk before breakfast just to get a feel for the town of Interlaken which we pulled into early yesterday evening.

A house with interesting architecture we enjoyed in the center of town.

This was an open field in the centrum as well. The thing to notice in this photo are the two paragliders about to land: a yellow one left of center in the center of the photo, just above that hotel, and another one above that to the right against the blue sky. There were more lined up to land following them.

Ash fixed a simple breakfast of scrambled eggs with cheese, potatoes, toast from fresh bread we picked up this morning, and of course the fresh milk we got the night before. We ate on the balcony of the apartment and it was lovely.

We found a laundromat and were resigned to spend a few hours babysitting that task. The woman who ran the place lived upstairs and was very helpful. Ash tried charming her into doing it for us but “no, too stressed!” was her response. He again guessed that she spoke Spanish and attempted once more in that language, this time succeeding in getting her to do it for us for 10 Francs. The smallest bill we had was a 20. We started to walk away to get change and I thought: it’s silly to waste more time buying something to break the bill – let’s just give her the 20. So we walked back and when Ash announced that in Spanish she literally squealed with delight and her mother who’d been watching from the balcony clapped! We were just thrilled we got out of the work!

That out of the way, we decided to go to Grindelwald, another town on the mountain that we heard was worth checking out with a couple of decent gondola rides. We headed out initially in the same direction as the night before, but with clearer sky you could see 3 distinct mountain ridges this time.

We made it to Grindelwald in about 20 minutes and perfect weather. After much discussion we finally decided to go for it and purchased the big ticket item: Jungfraujoch – Top of Europe. And we are very glad we did.

“What the heck is that” you’re probably wondering. We’ll explain as we go along!

The first part was a gondola ride up to about 7600 feet. The cars run close together so there’s essentially no waiting, or at least the line would move pretty fast if there was. They easily hold 30 people.

There was just one other couple with us so we had a whole side to ourselves. And what a view we got of the Grindelwald valley as we went up.

Here’s a little video to give you a better idea of that.

The gondola stops at the Eiger Glacier Railway station which is at 7600 feet. It only takes about 15 minutes to get there. We had about 15 minutes before the next train came to take you into the mountain (yes, you read that right) so we walked around and got a few photos. From here on out, remember the phrase “the photo doesn’t do it justice.” This day was made for that.

I was pretty excited.

Somehow Ash manages to take these photos of me that I don’t think look anything like me; a similar shot occurred in Alaska. I guess I really look like that….

Like I said, the photo doesn’t do it justice. But note the little village dead center.

One our way into the mountain and up to the top. This railway was first completed in 1912. Hard to imagine. Everything about this experience was impressive, especially how well designed it is to move A Lot of people rather quickly.

We made it. Jungfrau translates into “maiden virgin” but is also the name of the highest peak in this ridge. “Joch” is saddle which refers to the stretch of land between the Jungfrau peak and another called Monch. The train ride was actually longer than the gondola, and by the time we got here we were ready for lunch.

It’s a huge complex at the top of the mountain, with 2 restaurants, shopping, lots of things to see and do. We decided on the nicer restaurant of course, because why not?

This was the view outside my window at lunch time.

Ash had a salad….

…and tomato soup.

I’d been wanting to get fondue since we crossed the Swiss border. So when the menu had “classic Swiss fondue” on it I decided eating it here was the Swissest thing I could do! And it was as good as I’d hoped: swiss and gruyere cheese melted with some white wine, served with bread, pickles, pickled onions, and potatoes.

Ash helped some and as we got to the bottom the cheese got really thick and was even better. Ash couldn’t resist catching a video of me trying to get it all….

It was a pretty big place and packed.

We left the restaurant and decided to just follow the “Tour” signs to see where they led us. We were not disappointed.

After another elevator ride up, we entered the Sphinx, on observation deck at the very top: 11,782 feet. It’s referred to as the Top of Europe because it’s the highest railway station on the continent. A couple offered to take our photo and Ash returned the favor.

That peak on the left is Monch. Here’s the point of this photo: see that curvy line in the snow that goes from bottom center over the right then up towards the top? And those little dots in it? Those dots are people and there’s a lot of them, walking up to the top of the mountain. We considered it seriously for a moment but decided we didn’t have the right shoes. And boy was my vertigo kicking in.

That building is the Sphinx, the observation building that this deck is attached to.

Looking back into the Grindelwald valley.

We took the elevator down and walked down another hallway, again just following the signs.

Eventually it led us to an outdoor space we felt we could get away with in our regular ole walking shoes.

This was on the other side of Sphinx and gave us this view of Jungfrau- that’s her in the middle, the highest peak. Doesn’t look like much from here because that’s only about 1500 more feet up at 13,642.

That building in the middle of the photo is the restaurant where we had lunch.

It’s probably around 2:30pm, we’re on the train going back to the Eiger station to take the gondola back to the car. Remember the train is in a tunnel. We’d noticed the whole time we were up here we were getting incredible cell phone service. We get a text from Art, checking to see if we were interested in coffee or something. Well of course we are! So we would make our way in that direction once we got off the mountain.

The view into Grindelwald looked different going down just because the sun was in a completely different place, but of course beautiful still.

I’ll skip the whole story of why it took us nearly 3 hours from that text to get to Art in the small town of Murren, which is next door to Gimmelwald where he’s staying – just a gondola ride away at any rate. But it included getting stuck behind a bus, and a gondola ride and a train ride for us. But worth it!

This was our view as we got off the train in Murren.

Art had an early dinner at the Edelweiss Hotel and was waiting for us to get there before he had dessert. When Ash said “but we can’t see your pretty eyes”…..

…I got this one!

Art had the better view from where he was sitting but we got to see it here!

Apple strudel with a vanilla sauce and some blueberries. It was just OK but I was pretty hungry at that point, too, so ate it all of course. Had an espresso as well. Ash just got mint tea.

It had started to rain a bit and we had to move to the covered portion of the patio, but we were blessed with a little rainbow after it passed.

And that was pretty much our day. We said goodbye to Art although we will see him one more before he leaves since we’re taking him to the train station. We got our laundry and made it back to the apartment around 7:15pm. We’d picked up some groceries earlier when we got the bread. Ash made a simple dinner of salad and chicken. We ate that and watched The Green Lantern, a DVD in the collection here. Ash sat with me while I loaded the photos and then went to bed. I was still a little wired for some reason so decided to get the blog up before I went to bed, something I haven’t done in awhile. So hopefully it still reads OK without the coffee fueling it!

Tomorrow, Tuesday, is our last full day in Interlaken and we have no idea what we’re doing yet although we do have dinner reservations. Beyond that, we’ll see. That strategy has worked well for us on this trip and I’ve thoroughly enjoyed all the spontaneity. There’s nothing like being in the moment from one to the next, makes it all last longer somehow.

Here’s one final photo for you, courtesy of the men’s room at the Edelweiss Hotel.

September 6, 2021
2021 Europe: Day 8 – St. Moritz to Interlaken, & an evening in Gimmelwald

I slept a good 7 hours, up a little after 5am. Ash got up about 6:30. I got Saturday’s blog posted and we went out in search of coffee. There aren’t patisseries on every corner here as we got used to in Paris and even Zermatt. Ash found something close that opened at 7:30 so we made our way out.

Hanselmann’s was just about a block away. While the name didn’t do anything for us, we recognized it immediately from our walk the evening before. The plan was just to go in for coffee since we were going to have leftover pizza for dessert. Somehow we forgot all about that by the time we walked in.

It had just opened and we were the only ones here, and that remained true for our whole stay. Ash got a cappuccino and I got a latte. I loved that they had this gold cup holder shown above for the glass without a handle. It always baffles me when places serve hot coffee in regular glasses without handles so I was impressed by this simple addition. (I mean, why not just use something with a handle? But it looks cool, don’t it?)

Ash ordered something called the Mountain Breakfast and I ordered muesli. They brought his first. When we saw it was a literal mountain of food we cancelled my cereal. This was more than enough for both of us.

Our waitress was lovely and had this very dry sense of humor that we enjoyed. Seems like almost everyone here speaks English, French and German so language isn’t a barrier. All public announcements (like on trains) are done in all 3 languages. The Swiss don’t have their own language. Italian is also common, and menus so far are all in multiple languages also (all on one menu).

Our view at breakfast.

Our train wasn’t until 10am so we got some steps in since we would be on the road most of the day.

We made our way back to the other side of town again (it’s a small town).

This river is crystal clear.

We went back for our luggage and made our way downhill to the train station. On our walk the evening before we discovered the easier ways the city had for navigating the hills, which we’d missed the day before.

The first part of our train ride took us back through the Alps region we’d been in the day before.

I couldn’t resists a couple of more shots. Focus on that lightly snow covered mountain in the distance and you’ll get a sense of how huge this valley is. And of course a little church just right of center.

It was 2 hours to Chur and then a train change to Zurich. This is a lake called Walensee. It’s pretty big and the train ran beside it for awhile. After about 90 minutes we had another train change in Zurich and in another 9 minutes were at the airport.

We’d made arrangements with Europcar for a rental. Meet Vanessa. She was lovely and listened to her co-worker’s suggestion to “give them the convertible” despite us asking for the cheapest thing they had. Our story is: the co-worker, not pictured, was gay and decided to do us a solid. That’s our story anyway. It continued our good luck with rentals – in Paris they’d upgraded us to an Audi because it was Ash’s birthday!

Here’s the cute Fiat convertible we got for the week. Due to construction, an accident, and a wrong turn, we had a terrible but hilarious time getting out of Zurich but were finally on our way. This was about 2 hours after we left the airport and stopped for a much needed break which included restroom, a sandwich we split and a Coke Zero.

We made it to our apartment in Interlaken by about 5:15pm. It’s wonderful.

We are here for 3 nights.

This is huge for a European apartment.

A lovely balcony; if it were warmer right now I’d be sitting there, currently 57. But it was 81 when we got here so I’m sure I’ll get a chance. By the way, it was 37 when we woke up in St. Moritz this morning. Very glad I found the hoody!

There are 2 bedrooms upstairs but this is the one we’re sleeping in. The other wasn’t made up so we’re using it essentially as a closet.

The view from our window.

There are 2 full bathrooms, this is the one upstairs.

The other view of the living room. By this time I’d gone around the corner to the Coop for a few groceries while Ash was showering, etc. so was enjoying a lazy moment.

We were back on the road by about 6:15pm, headed to Gimmelwald, a little town of about 130 people, at about 4500 feet on that mountain in front of you.

The views here are just breathtaking.

Just a random waterfall on our way to dinner.

We parked the car in a little town called Stechelberg. You can’t actually drive to Gimmelwald – the only way in is a gondola. Why dinner somewhere so remote? We were on a mission.

Those of you who’ve been following for a few years may remember the Europe trip I did by myself in 2018. I’d returned via New York City for a few nights. When sharing the plans of my trip with my friend Art, we discovered we were both going to be in NYC at the same time, and each had a full day with no plans. So we made them – and had a great day of Downtown Abbey, the Empire State Building, and a show, which you can read about here.

So a few months ago when Art and I were sharing upcoming travel adventures, we discovered that we were going to be roughly in the same part of Switzerland at the same time, so we decided to had to figure out a way to meet up. Originally we were just going to meet for lunch in Interlaken as he made his way from Gimmelwald to Lucerne. But the idea of dinner in Gimmelwald was much more appealing, so that lead to the change in travel plans I’d mentioned a few entries ago which resulted in only one night in St. Moritz (which was more than enough) and us renting a car so we’d have more flexibility. It all worked out great in the end.

Our ride up the gondola. These guys were talking about doing jumps off the mountain.

The view out the front of the gondola.

Art took a little video of us arriving. Gimmelwald is the first stop the gondola makes on its way up the mountain. What you’ll see in the video is how perfectly timed the cars are: we’re arriving from the bottom, and the car coming from Murren above is arriving at exactly the same time. When we were leaving that happened again, and the folks from Murren simply had to walk across the platform to quickly continue their journey down the mountain. Brilliant.

Art made dinner reservations at Pension Gimmelwald for 7pm.

Art was kind enough to let us have the seats with the view. What a view, eh?

We changed seats for this shot

Art described this place as “eating at someone’s house.” There was no menu, you got what they were serving. First course was a bean salad with barley.

No idea was this was called but it was delicious. Herbed rice with pork in a stroganoff sort of sauce with some spice tomato something on top. It was a wonderful mix of flavors.

Dessert was a simple brownie with some whipped cream.

There was a young couple from Albuquerque dining there as well and they took this photo. We’ve encountered a lot of Americans on this trip.

Art showed us around Gimmelwald a bit. We were able to get decent photos despite it being almost dark at 8:30pm.

You could hear that water flowing down that mountain from here.

We went to a barn that had a self-service refrigerator where you could buy fresh milk and cheese – the primary goods made here on the mountain. Art said you hear cowbells all throughout the day.

Said milk and cheese which we’ll have for breakfast this morning. I’ve never had milk this fresh before so looking forward to it.

We have 2 full days in Interlaken and not a thing planned which makes me terribly happy. “Interlaken” translates to “between 2 lakes” which it is, so I’m sure we’ll come up with something fun and beautiful.

September 5, 2021
2021 Europe: Day 7 – Zermatt to St. Moritz via the Glacier Express

For Saturday we really just had one thing on the agenda: a train to St. Moritz that would take most of the day. But this particular train is called the Glacier Express, and it takes you through the Swiss Alps in a beautiful way.

I was up about 4am and got Friday’s blog posted before Ash got up. And with that I was finally back on my regular schedule again. We packed what little we had unpacked just for 2 nights, had strawberries, cheese and bread for breakfast and made our way out about 8am.

A guy had asked us to take a photo of him and his wife so he returned the favor.

They equipped you with a map, information about the ride (291 bridges and 91 tunnels!) which is 181 miles long, and earphones to use with their sound system. You could plug them into your seat, select your language, and a gong would sound when there was some presentation about the area you were passing. It was well done (although after awhile I started to feel a little like Pavlov’s dog).

The main attraction was the view. This was our first glacier early in the trip and there were several. It’s actually pretty hard to get decent photos due to glare from the windows and how quickly things change. Despite it’s name, however, it’s not a high speed train. “Express” refers to the lack of stops it makes compared to a local train. The like to refer to it as “the slowest express train in the world.”

All luggage is stored at floor level because the train is designed for viewing. Originally our seats were with the two woman on the left one row up. But these 8 seats on the end were empty at the start, and the conductor verified that the section where Ash is now would be empty the whole time so we moved. It was perfect.

I pretty little river flowed next to us much of the way.

We left around 9am. These folks joined across the way around 11am. We joked at the end of the trip we should have counted how many churches we saw. Over

There was decent food available and they started serving lunch around 11:45am with the last course served around 1:30pm.

This is one of my favorite shots, I was able to get a decent perspective on an entire valley (there were hundreds like this) without any window glare.

This was a chicken stroganoff with rice and perfectly booked carrots. It was fine comfort food (and I mean that in the best way!).

A cheese course.

Apple cake and vanilla sauce.

A little bit of the river again. At some point the audio presentation said “we are now on the Rhine” and I couldn’t believe it. I looked at the map on my phone and sure enough it named the river Vorderrhein. As I followed it along it changed to just Rhine and snaked its way around and up to Germany along a path I’ve been several times from Mainz to Cologne. It blew my mind that it was the same river.

Ash looking seriously at something.

I zoomed in on this to try to omit some of the glare but clearly didn’t work! There’s a lovely little remote church thought.

I have to believe that waster is very cold.

The couple left around 3pm I think and the guy by himself changed sides because after last stopped we changed directions. The train back tracks a little before taking a turn to head to St. Moritz. Ash moved to next to me as well so that he wasn’t riding backwards. But that view out the window is pretty representative of what we watched for 7.5 hours.

Another lovely village without too much glare.

They are very proud of this bridge, the Landwasser Viaduct, built between 1901 and 1902.

We arrived at the train station in St. Moritz on time.

Ash suggested a taxi but Google Maps indicated it was just a 12 minute walk so I wanted to do that since we’d literally been sitting all day. I didn’t know then it was 12 minutes uphill. Every step. That’s Ash on the left. Nice view though, huh?

Our room is small but we’re just here for one night. The original plan was two nights but that changed on the way to Zermatt. I’ll cover the details of what changed as we go through the rest of the trip.

And it’s good we’re only here one night given the size here and there doesn’t seem to be much to do when there’s no snow, but it’s beautiful.

This is the building our room is in. It’s a studio apartment.

We made reservations for dinner at an Italian place literally across the street from where we’re staying and walked around for about 90 minutes. We are staying in the sort of admin and shopping district of the town.

St. Moritz is a playground for the wealthy, especially during the winter, given its easy access to snow yet somehow has sun almost 300 days a year. Today wasn’t necessarily one of those days. It also hosted the winder Olympics in 1928 and 1948. You’ll see that church behind Ash again in a bit.

We made our way to the lake and walked by it to get to the older section of town which you see there center and left.

Pretty, no? It gets better.

The sky behind us was clearing up a bit and it made for a beautiful reflection on the water.

That’s the same church in the middle we’d walked by earlier.

Stunning if I do say so myself. This will go down as one of my favorite photos of the trip.

We’d made our way to the other side of town but decided when we got here that it was more interesting from a distance!, and made our way back to dinner.

But snapped a few more photos along the way.

We loved the architecture and gardens of this building. we think it’s apartments.

We went to La Stalla. I started with their signature salad which included prosciutto.

Ash had the tomato soup which was lovely.

We both got pizzas. Mine was spicy salami and gorgonzola.

Ash’s had black olives, mushrooms, artichokes, ham. We didn’t realize they would be this big and only ate half, the rest will be breakfast this morning.

As has been our experience because we eat early for these parts, it was empty when we got there at 7pm and packed when we left around 8:20pm.

We came back to our room. Ash watched a little TV while I uploaded the photos and we were in bed by 10pm. All that sitting in a train all day was exhausting!

Today will be another travel day: a train ride to Zurich, and then we’re renting a car to go to Interlaken. That was the big change we made while coming into Zermatt – getting a car. More on that as the trip continues….

September 4, 2021
2021 Europe: Day 6 – Zermatt

It is early Saturday morning and this is the post for Friday, September 3, so I’ll be all caught up assuming I get this posted before we head out for the day. Whew!

We each slept close to 8 hours, getting up after 7:30am.

Ash went to the bakery around the corner while I worked on the blog. He came back and made the perfect, simple European breakfast: scrambled eggs, croissant with great butter, a clean white cheese. Lovely.

We made our way out just before 10am. The weather was great so far, although when we went to bed last night rain was in the forecast for about this time. It had been pushed to 1pm so we were happy about that. This is just one of several random photos of the town you’ll see.

And you’ll probably get tired of this shot! But it will also show the weather as we go through the day.

The point of this photo is to notice the 2 parasailers way at the top!

The river is Matter Vispa. This stage of it which runs through the town is very controlled, fueling a hydroelectric power plant. Also to manage flooding I would imagine.

A less controlled version of the river further up the mountain.

We were headed to Gorner Gorge, created as the Gorner Glacier made its way down the mountain. This sign appeared at the end of our trail actually, I’d just forgotten to take a photo of the little cabin at the entrance where we paid our entrance fee of 5 Francs each.

One of many feeble attempts to capture the steepness of it all.

There were a decent number of people out.

Whenever I’m doing something like this at these heights I imagine the poor workers who built this. The engineering is amazing to me. How do you even start?

Another attempt at steepness.

The point of this photo is to capture how close you are to the mountain, that rock protruding inches away from my head.

Who can photoshop that face onto the photo above it?

There was a landing here with a bench that we sat on for 10 minutes probably just listening to the sound of the water flowing.

Here’s a little sample of the sound for you. It’s flowing at a pretty brisk pace, I thought, since it’s nothing but melted snow and already September. Gives you an idea of just now much snow this area gets.

Looking back down as we made our way out of the gorge.

A lovely shot of the town as we made our way back.

I swear I head Julie Andrews in my head as soon as we entered this clearing.

It’s now about 11:30am. The forecast has pushed the rain out to 3pm.

We ended up on the same walk we were on last night coming back from the restaurant.

We went back to the room to rest a bit and decide what to do next. The rain at this point had been pushed to 4pm so we definitely wanted to get out again. We’d gone to bed last night thinking we’d have to stay in most of the afternoon due to rain so were pleased that the weather was working in our favor.

Konditorei is the German word for patisserie. Fuchs is a little chain that apparently only exists in Zermatt, but there are 3 of them here! The one around the corner from us is where Ash got the croissants this morning. This is in another part of town and has a lovely place to sit outside so we did.

Coffee and treats. The vanilla crème inside that Napoleon was incredible. I’m blanking on the name of that item on the right, but it’s chocolate on the bottom with a crisp caramel and nut thing on top, very thin. Yummy.

Can you get more charming than a horse drawn carriage?

It’s about 2:30pm. The forecast has pushed the rain now to 6pm but you can see clouds forming. We went back to our room and just relaxed (or worked on the blog if you’re me!) and talked about travel plans for 2022.

We went out again about 6:30pm for dinner. The last photo of flower beds dripping off of buildings, I promise.

The place we had dinner at Thursday night was rated #2 on TripAdvisor. L’Atelier Grandsire was rated #1.

They seemed surprised that we preferred to sit outside. Yet prepared as the place the night before was with the furs on the chairs. She lit the heater for us as well but at this point it was only about 57 and didn’t feel that cold yet. It was 46 when we got up by the way.

She indicated the servings were all pretty small and suggested 3 courses plus dessert so that’s what we did. This was Ash’s first course and my second: tuna carpaccio, with a green pea sorbet. Delicious.

This was my first course and may have been the best bite of the whole trip so far: a very creamy burrata on top of tomatoes done 2 different ways in this amazing broth with olive oil and I don’t know what else. That crispy thing on top tasted exactly like tomato soup. I loved every spoonful.

Ash’s second course was a ravioli that was just as good, maybe better, than that burrata dish.

It took me longer than it should have to realize the butter for the bread was molded like the Matterhorn.

Ash’s 3rd course was a scallop with sweet potato and nuts.

Mine was a pork belly – cooked for 36 hours – and sweat potato. Terrific.

The waitress was very friendly and offered to take our photo which was very nice and turned out well.

Ash had tiramisu for dessert. Here it doesn’t have any alcohol in it.

This was 4 different kinds of berries, served warm in a great sauce, with a little bit of ice cream.

We both agreed this was the best meal of the trip so far.

It is coming up on 6:30am Saturday morning and once I post this I will be caught up. Sweet.

September 3, 2021
2021 Europe: Day 5 – Paris to Zermatt via Lausanne

This is for Thursday, September 2. I’ve started writing this around 9pm Switzerland time Friday, September 3. Hoping to finish this entry tonight and then will just be one day behind instead of two!

We were up later than usual after the opera Wednesday night, decided to do most of our packing when we got in. In bed after midnight and up just before 6am. We ate a light breakfast with some coffee, finished packing, and took an Uber to Gare de Lyon to catch our train to Lausanne, Switzerland.

I do love the train stations in Europe and was happy so much of the next legs of our trip would be centered around trains.

As you can see it was just after 7:30am, and our train left about 8am right on time.

There were plugs by the seats and free Wi-Fi so I was hoping I could get caught up on the blog and in fact made quite a bit of progress in the almost 4-hour train ride.

This was your standard train. Notice the lighting above the seats and luggage storage above that. The next one will look quite different.

I took this screen shot about 10am probably, about halfway there.

There was a lot of pretty farmland in between.

And lots of not much, too, except for this bridge!

We got to Lausanne on time just before Noon. We stored our luggage in lockers at the train station. While Ash was exchanging our Euros for Swiss Francs, he tasked me with finding a place for lunch someplace with a view of Lake Geneva. And I did. Note that at that time I didn’t know that one of Lausanne’s claims to fame is that it’s the home of the International Olympic Committee. It was about a 20 minute walk to lunch

Our first glimpse of Lake Geneva entering the top of a park from the road.

There’s an Olympic Museum here and lunch was in a restaurant on the second floor. (Which in America would be the third floor – in Europe the ground floor is 0.) These steps take you down to the lake and we went there after lunch.

Me looking back up at the Olympic museum, to find Ash taking a photo of me taking a photo of him.

There were some nice bronze sculptures of athletes throughout the park, as well as these fun ones.

This was our view for lunch. I did good, no?

The menu had, surprise!, an Olympic theme to it.

Ash had the tuna tzatziki bowl.

I got the burger because I figured the fries would be amazing. And they were. Double fried as they should be!

Ash had the “coffee gourmand” for dessert, which is coffee served with 4 pastry samples.

I had the strawberry tart, which was excellent.

We walked down the bottom of those steps to see Lake Geneva up close, and came across the official entrance into the museum. We’d come in the back way. As you can see from my dress, it was great weather – probably about 75 degrees, clear skies.

Ash wore the jacket just because he doesn’t like to get a lot of sun.

Looking directly out onto Lake Geneva, with the French Alps in the distance.

Looking up my left side.

Ash must’ve snuck this in as we started our walk back to the train station.

We boarded our next train at 3:20pm. Note the difference in the train car: no storage for baggage up top, just more windows. We were headed deep into the Swiss Alps and they’ve accommodated that with lots of viewing space.

Initially it was just vineyards….

…but adorable vineyards.

The train made several stops along the way, at places I couldn’t pronounce. At least this one was familiar. But zentrum typically means “central” or what we would call downtown. Could also be what they call the train stations in these parts – like bahnhoff in Germany. At any rate, it’s a cute name for a cute place.

I tried taking photos of some of the mountains as we passed but none of them came out, mostly because of the glare from the lighting of the train. So eventually gave up and just relaxed watching the lovely scenery. It was about a 3 hour train ride to Zermatt.

The street our place is on was just a few hundred meters from the train station. The blue sign on the right points you to the path we walked behind that white building to get to our entrance. Our balcony is one of those on the 2nd floor.

Although the sign says “Reception” the Airbnb instructions were clear not to enter there, but to go around back.

It’s a nice and comfortable room on the 2nd floor. There’s that balcony out there.

With a functional kitchen and a drip coffee maker. Cool. We went out for a few groceries at the market across from the train station, dropped them back off here, and made our way out to walk around town a bit before heading to dinner.

Zermatt is a very charming town with a population of about 6000. At an elevation of about 5500 feet, it’s well known for skiing and mountaineering. Note the lack of vehicles, again. There are no cars or buses allowed in the town. You can park on the edge of town but after that everything is walking or biking. They want to preserve the clean mountain air. There are little electric cabs used for taxis and hotel resorts and that’s about it. The people seem very nice, and very earthy – everyone walking about with trekking poles and thick legs. But it’s super laid back and casual which works for us. I wore the same yoga shorts and t-shirt I had on earlier, just added a hoody because it was getting chilly as the sun went down.

It’s biggest claim to fame is that Zermatt is at the base of the Matterhorn. This was our first sighting of it. And you thought it was just a ride at Disney! It’s height is 14,692 feet and straddles the border between Switzerland and Italy.

Many of the buildings here have these flower boxes hanging from several floors, adding to the charm.

We had dinner reservations for 7:30pm so started making our way in that direction.

Getting to dinner was a literal hike – about a mile to get there, and according to Apple, we climbed about 30 floors.

But great views along the way.

Dinner was the restaurant at a hotel and apartments called Sonnmatten. We didn’t think we’d ever get there, for a minute thought Google was fooling us. It was pretty far off the beaten path.

But what a view we had at dinner.

They brought bread and bacon with fresh horseradish just after we sat down.

We shared this delightful dish with very fresh mozzarella, grilled peaches, fennel and these tiny red peppers, with a teeny bit of mint as well. Packed with powerful flavors yet somehow refreshing.

Ash had their chicken which came with a nice salad.

The waitress said they had “the 3rd best Weiner schnitzel” in all of Switzerland – #s 1 and 2 being at German restaurants – making this the best for the Swiss. Well then I must have it. Wow. Thin, crispy, juicy. I ate every bite. Picked at the potato salad, which was warm and mustardy as German potato salad is, but didn’t want to fill up on that because that schnitzel was amazing.

Dessert was a coconut milk panna cotta with passion fruit that was also amazing. It was just a little jar of it and somehow I forgot to take a photo of it.

One final shot before we headed back down the mountain. It was pretty cold by then and I was terribly grateful bought that hoody in Paris. Although only 55 degrees, it felt much colder once the sun went down.

We stayed up a little bit, Ash watching some TV while I worked on the blog, but were in bed probably by 11pm.

I’ll get this posted about 10pm on Friday and will be very happy about that!

September 3, 2021
2021 Europe: Paris, Part 4 – Shopping & A Night at the Opera

This entry is for Wednesday, September 1. As I begin to write this it’s Friday about Noon Switzerland time. We’ll see when I finish!

We had no plans this day except for tickets for the opera in the evening, which was a pretty spontaneous decision. As we were standing in line at the Eiffel Tower, Ash discovered that opera was returning to Paris this week and he was able to snag tickets for opening night. He loves opera and had just introduced me to it a couple of weeks before when it re-opened in San Francisco and we went opening night there. Seemed like it was meant to be and he’d been really looking forward to this.

He’d been wanting to cook these shrimp we came across the other day but, other than that first day, we’d never been around when the shop was open again. Today was the day. We made our way back to Rue Rambuteau and stopped first at the gay-owned baker we’d seen. In the above photo, that’s about center with the pink awning. This was the first time we’d really been on this street when the sun was out and it looked different.

So many bakeries in this town….

…and all look amazing. That empty section is where the croissants were.

See those huge monsters on the left? That’s what we got. Shrimp from Madagascar. Plus some smaller ones to round it out.

These guys were super nice. Ash speaks about 5 languages and he has a knack for being able to correctly guess what language someone else speaks just by looking at them. He’ll approach them in that language and it seems to immediately make them warm up to him. In this case, Spanish. It’s a gift.

Their uncooked size after deveining and pealing. My hand for perspective. Yes, all that chopped garlic went in with them, along with butter.

Some pretty pasta with a jarred spicy sauce that was terrific.

The finished product. This was brunch and it pretty much held us through the rest of the day.

Oh, and we had the éclair and the plain bread roll, and saved the other two for breakfast the next day.

From there we just went walking through various shopping districts. For months before leaving, I would say to Ash “I need to get some new shirts” and he would say “wait until we go to Paris.” I was always suspect of this plan because I’ve never been much of a shopper period much less while traveling. Plus I tend to travel light and there wouldn’t be any room anyway. Ash not only prefers to check luggage because he hates carrying stuff around, he also packed an extra empty bag (which I squeezed into my backpack) for the purpose of filling up with new things. So off we went.

Without even trying, we stumbled across Cafe Coton, an upscale French men’s store that Ash favors and is primarily in Europe. And, they were having a heck of a sale, 60% off many things. I walked away with 4 shirts and Ash with 2, with the help of Richard, who was pleased to take a photo with us. He took his mask off for the photo but otherwise we were all masked the whole time.

We had perfect weather for staying out most of the day.

At this point it was about 3:30pm and we were ready for a break. We came across Laduree again, same place we’d had breakfast at on Monday but different location, and were able to fix our big mistake from that first visit: we forgot about the macaroons!

Cappuccinos and we asked them to pick the flavors for us which were: strawberry, pistachio, orange, and salted caramel.

After this we finally found some casual but classy black shoes I’d had in mind, then went back to the apartment to get ready for the big night out. We finished the leftover pasta and took showers. Ash realized the shirt he’d brought back didn’t fit – long story how that got mixed up – but we were able to quickly Uber back over to Cafe Coton to fix that just before it closed, Richard able to help us. We watched him lock the door as we left, then walked from there to the opera.

The Palais Garnier is the home of Paris opera and ballet. Construction began in 1861 and it opened in 1875. It’s spectacular, as you’ll see.

We made it just in time!

This night’s performance was a special presentation of a different kind of opera and not put on by the normal opera company. Still, there was tremendous excitement in the air, you could tell people were ready for the first big performance here since the pandemic. Pre-pandemic, this is the scene of about 380 performances of some kind a year – more than one a day.

It’s am amazing venue with a grand staircase leading up to the balcony seats.

That’s the bar on the left with folks having their last drink before the show starts.

This is the ceiling in the entrance over that staircase. I took the 3 photos above all standing from the same place.

To our right at the top of the stairs was this grand hall, which members can used for their own parties.

This is what was behind me from the photo above it.

The show was 7 Deaths of Maria Callas, a new work by a performer named Marina Abramovic. From the website: “At the crossroads of opera, performance art and video creation, 7 Deaths of Maria Callas includes arias from some of the Greek American soprano’s greatest roles, recalling the countless women sacrificed at the hands of 19th century composers.” Seven different sopranos sang arias from different operas – Ash recognized most of them, me only Carmen – while a short film of Marina plus Willem Dafoe (yes, that one) playing on full screen behind the singer depicting a wide variety of stories – each one ending with the death of the woman. And that’s the short version. It was creative for sure and we definitely liked some of the pieces more than others.

Like something out of a movie, right?

The ceiling above. The mural is by Chagall.

I don’t think I’ve ever seen that many balconies before.

A closeup of some of the intricate work.

Somehow, even though Ash just purchased tickets on Sunday, a few days before, he managed to get first row, first balcony. We couldn’t believe it. See the red velvet ledge to the right? And these were chairs, not just seats. Towards the end I literally pulled my chair up and rested my elbows on the ledge and watched from there. Again, like something out of a movie. (And let’s just say I paid more for my Broadway Hamilton ticket than we did for these seats!)

The woman in gold is Marina who was in all of the films and the final act which was done live, although she had no speaking or singing parts. The women in white were the 7 sopranos, and the others are the conductor and integral orchestra members.

I couldn’t resist asking Ash to take a photo of me sitting on that ledge. That’s one of the new shirts I bought.

I couldn’t decide which one I liked better so I included both!

The box area we sat in after everyone left. We were there on the left where those two women are. They were sitting behind us and waited for us to be done so they could take photos, too!

The mass exit. Notice that everyone is wearing masks. We all did during the entire performance as well, and your vaccination record was verified before you were allowed to enter.

We took the subway home.

We decided to find a bite to eat before heading home. We’d seen this on day one but it was nice to see it all lit up at night.

We found something that looked sort of reasonable. That’s Ash sitting in the right corner. One of the things about sitting outside in Europe, especially Paris, is you will encounter smokers nearly every time. And we did.

The place was Les Marrionners, and the guy standing on the right was out host – very friendly, as was the waiter.

Ash got an appetizer sampler and I got the onion soup. The sampler was sort of bad take on American food but the soup was pretty good.

Ash got salmon poke bowl.

I had steak tartare. The waiter was funny, wanting to make sure I knew it would be raw. Apparently many an American has been surprised by that (although I don’t see how since it’s clearly described on the menu) and then unhappy with the dish. But I knew what I was getting into. Licking the bowl when my mother made meatloaf was one of my favorite things! This was just like that.

We didn’t get to bed until midnight which was super late for us. But it was great last day in Paris.

I’m posting this on Friday, September 3rd, about 4:30pm Switzerland time.

September 3, 2021

Cookie	Duration	Description
cookielawinfo-checkbox-analytics	11 months	This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Analytics".
cookielawinfo-checkbox-functional	11 months	The cookie is set by GDPR cookie consent to record the user consent for the cookies in the category "Functional".
cookielawinfo-checkbox-necessary	11 months	This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookies is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Necessary".
cookielawinfo-checkbox-others	11 months	This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Other.
cookielawinfo-checkbox-performance	11 months	This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Performance".
viewed_cookie_policy	11 months	The cookie is set by the GDPR Cookie Consent plugin and is used to store whether or not user has consented to the use of cookies. It does not store any personal data.