There has been so much to see and explore while in Switzerland! I’m not sure what I had expected to encounter, but I can tell you that it was just amazing to see the cities, countryside and mountains of this beautiful country! The history and architecture was just amazing to see and experience first hand. When you walk into a building that’s been around for 500, 1000 or more years, you are humbled by its test of time! The U.S has been around officially for some 247 years, well, that’s still considered to be an infant compared to nearly every building we visited on this trip!

We took the train from Zurich down to Lucerne one day to explore the many shops and restaurants that line the riverfront. Lucerne is known for it’s wooden bridges and the Chapel Bridge runs from the “New Town” part of Lucerne across the Reuss river to Rathausquai in the medieval “Old Town”. About half way across is a Water Tower that Chapel Bridge was built in the 14th Century and was originally a part of the city fortifications. Inside the bridge you find pictoral panels which were added in the 17th Century containing scenes of Swiss and Lucerne history.

The following day, we drove into Zurich to get our Covid tests before departure. Yep, back in 2022, we still had to prove we were negative for Covid before returning to the U.S.. The good news is that we pass with flying colors and were set for our departure.

For dinner that night, we drove out to a countryside restaurant where we sat outside and watched the sunset while enjoying another fantastic dinner. It started to sink in that our trip was coming to an end and we weren’t ready to leave after such an amazing time with our friends!

Sadly, we left for the airport the following day but before we boarded, we had to take pass thru the duty-free shop! Yep, we did some damage on some amazing Swiss chocolate and a few gifts for some friends back home. It was an overnight, 11 hour flight home so we relaxed in the lounge prior to departure reflecting on one of the most amazing trips that we’d ever experienced! We can’t thank Renata, Daniel and Peter enough for hosting us and sharing their beautiful county and culture with us!

Our flight was uneventful and we both got a little sleep but we were tired when we landed around 5 am. We took a short nap and when I woke up, I was starving! We found a cute little diner for breakfast before hitting the movie theater to catch the release of one of my favorite movies of all time – Top Gun – Maverick! It did not disappoint and I’ll confess that I might have gone a few more times to see it on the big screen!

With a 5:15 am alarm, we headed in to Zurich to catch our first train of the day to Visp where we caught a second train to Zermatt Switzerland! We were excited to see the countryside via train and just enjoy a nice train ride. As expected, we meandered our way through multiple villages set high in the Alps, each with their own character. Often, the tracks seemed to roll right thru the backyard’s of homes and then back into the mountains across deep gorges and along steep mountainsides and a few tunnels thru mountains!

The scenery was amazing with bright sunshine to highlight the tree covered mountains and blooming, spring flowers along the way. We also saw our second glacier of the trip on the way to Zermatt. While we took lots of pictures, they just can’t do the landscape justice. Maybe someday they’ll have a way to shoot 3D to give you a better feel for the scenery. At 11:30 am, our train rolled into Zermatt and our hotel (Schloss) was just about 100 yards from the station.

We checked our bags at the hotel and headed into the village of Zermatt to take in the sights and sounds. Zermatt does not allow auto’s on the streets so it was very pedestrian friendly. You did find several golf cards zipping around that the hotels used to fetch guests & luggage at the train station. We found a small cafe for a latte’ before continuing our exploration. Many of the shops were open even though it wasn’t ski season and the streets were bustling with people.

I’ll have to admit, I didn’t realize that Zermatt was a ski village sitting at the base of the famous Matterhorn! WOW, is all I can say to the views that we were treated to upon arrival of the stunning mountain top. Watching it all day, it created it’s own weather! One moment it sat in the sunshine and the next, it was cloaked in clouds and rain, only to change back to sunshine 30 minutes later!

The next day started with a 6:30 am wake up call as we had to catch a train to our next destination – St. Moritz! Now, this wasn’t just any train, this was the famous Glacier Express! This was an 8 hour train ride thru the towering Swiss Alps and views that overwhelmed our senses! We were treated to 1st class service aboard with lunch and libations! Now I’ll admit that I was pretty excited to spend the day on a train passing through the Swiss Alps to see sights we’ve never seen before.

What I came to also realize is that my level of excitement for this adventure probably peaked at about 4 hours into the trip! Don’t get me wrong, the scenery traveling thru the Alps was spectacular and something I’ll never forget but after about the 24 or 25th time of saying, oh look at that view, they were all very beautiful but they started to all look the same. Sorry, just being honest here!

The scenery to St. Moritz was just amazing with towering mountains, huge glaciers, tunnels and and several bridges, some towering hundreds of feet above a river. Each village that we went thru would be filled with small, family farms. You would see cattle grazing on the lush, green grass and people tending to their gardens.

After our 8 hour train ride thru the absolutely stunning Alps, we arrived in St. Moritz! Now, St. Moritz is like Aspen and Rodeo Drive rolled together and nestled next to a lake! It’s a ski resort town and unlike Zermatt, it is pretty sleepy in the summer time with most of the shops closed so we couldn’t go shopping for jewelry or a Bentley – haha! We trekked our luggage to the hotel, about a mile all up hill, and by this time, I’m getting a bit cranky after a long day on the train.

We freshen up quickly and head out to find some dinner only to find a couple of restaurants open and they were busy enough to have a 1 hour wait time. We continued our walk downhill and along the lake and ended up stumbling into an open restaurant called Veltlinerkeller, which is on the ground floor of a small hotel. They asked if we had reservation, which we did not and said we could eat, but had to be out by 8 pm – it was 6:30! Now, when we arrived, the place had 2 tables with people and couldn’t figure out why the rush to seat us, under the head of giant stuffed moose!

Well, by the time we finished, the place was packed and buzzing with people for dinner. The food was just amazing – Italian – and they had this grill/oven that was out in the middle of the restaurant where they would bring out the meat to cook and then serve at your table. It was obvious that this was a local’s hangout but we so enjoyed the food and atmosphere of this out of the way restaurant. We later learned that Veltlinerkeller is the longest, continuously run restaurant in St. Moritz and nearly impossible to get into during ski season – what a find!!

After dinner, we returned to our hotel exhausted but feeling quite full and thankful for the long walk back!

After a great nights sleep, we headed back to the train station to pick up the Bernina Express train to Tirano, Italy! It was “short”, 3 hour ride thru the Alps and we had the train car all to ourselves, literally! We stopped at the summit of Alp Grum for a photo op just below a glacier, which was spectacular to see in person.

Once in Tiano, we walked over to a small cafe’ for lunch and enjoyed truly Italian pizza! We were both hungry and devoured every last morsel before continuing our walk around town. It was a Sunday so town was very quiet but I did manage to find one, open Gelato shop and had to indulge – yuummm!

After our Gelato, it was back to the train station where we picked up a train that would take us to Chur, Switzerland where we then connected to another train back to Zurich to complete our weekend of adventure in the Swiss Alps!

That completes our weekend in the Swiss Alps! We thoroughly enjoyed exploring new towns in the Alps and seeing the beautiful sites via the Bernia & Glacier Express trains. It was truly a weekend to remember and I’d love to go back to Zermatt in the summer to do some hiking in the mountains… maybe on our next trip!

Now I’ll admit that after 10 days of up early, out late walking, exploring and eating, we were wore out! We took the next day off and it worked out as it rained off and on most of the day so we didn’t feel too guilty taking a break. I captured the video below looking down on the street light just below our window at the country house. If you turn the sound up, you might hear the rain drops gently falling and creating a wonderful sound to fall asleep to…

The trip to the Rhein Falls was spectacular! We were able to walk right up to the falls from the Swiss side. You could hear thundering roar in the background as we got out of the car. It became nearly deafening as we walked right up to the edge of the observation area. The spray and mist were all around as we got a first hand look at these beautiful Falls.

There is also a boat tour that will take you out to this rock in the middle of the falls! You can climb stairs to the top of the rock where you see the Swiss flag flying in this picture. In the gallery below, you can just make out the tour boat as it pulls up to the landing to offload passengers wanting to make the trek up to the top.

After the Rhein Falls, we were off to the charming town of Stein am Rhein for lunch. It was just beautiful with cobblestone streets, shops, bistro’s, & cafes’.

We had lunch at the hotel Rheinfels sitting out on the balcony overlooking the Rhein river. We were just up river from the falls and here, the river was this tranquil ribbon of water.

We were taken in by all of the church steeples we saw throughout the trip! In every town and city, you had these beautiful, spiraling steeples that stood out among the buildings and landscape. Our eyes were naturally drawn to them everywhere we went.

Thankfully, Peter was doing the driving cause the streets everywhere were so narrow! I couldn’t imagine most of the U.S. made cars fitting on the narrow, winding roads that we saw on our visit.

After lunch, we met up with Daniel back at the country house and were headed over to Friedrichshafen Germany. We took the ferry across Lake Constance to visit the Zeppelin museum and learn more about Friedrichshafen’s history.

We could have spent an entire day at the Zeppelin museum and Friederichshafen. The museum was filled with the detailed history on the beginnings & evolutions of airships in Germany. It went in to great detail on their construction and evolution over time and how they were also used as PR for the Nazi party around the World.

There was a mock up of what it would have been like to travel in an airship that included a lounge, sleeping area and bathrooms. Only the very wealthiest of individuals could have afforded to fly in one at that time. I was impressed with the layout and level of detail inside the museum. It was also interesting to see how they handled Germany’s involvement in WW II. I would say that they were factual and didn’t shy away from the negative side of it’s history.

On approach to Friedrichshafen, we saw the ZF transmission plant which is where the transmissions were made for Steppin’ Out! It was a great surprise to see the plant and had we known ahead of time, perhaps we could have gotten a tour. Next trip perhaps! Well, inside the museum, we learned that ZF provided transmissions for the airships. At the end of WW II, management of ZF feared that the allies would dismantle the company so they donated the assets of the company to the town of Friedrichshafen hoping to keep the company alive. Today, ZF is a global business with over 72,00 employee’s with 122 production facilities in 26 countries!

That’s it for Day 5! Our next installment includes trains, mountains, glaciers and more mountains!!

We rode the cable car about half way up the mountain, switched to Tram for the final push to the summit. The views along the way were stunning and you had these beautiful, green, lush pastures in the lower elevations working their way up the mountain to the snow and a glacier!

At the summit, we managed to stay out of the way of the skiers getting their final runs in for the season and walked out to an observation walkway. This walkway was connected to outcrops at the summit and you looked down thru the metal grates to several thousand feet below. It was windy, the bridge was swinging a bit and I have to admit, it was a bit uncomfortable making walking across!

After tempting fate walking across the sky bridge, we headed back inside the summit and were treated to a walk INSIDE of a glacier!! WHAT!!! Yep, never been inside of a glacier before and we were treated to a surreal maze of a tunnel that took us about 200 feet into an actual glacier at Mt. Titlis! It was very cold inside and the ice was so clear and smooth that you had to walk very carefully to avoid a fall. The lighting inside the glacier were these neon lights that did not get warm to keep the tunnel nice a cold!

After our walk thru the glacier, we were hungry and decided on lunch at the summit. Yep, you guessed it, I had a brat again and it was deeeelicious! You’ve probably picked up a pattern here and it continued the entire time we were in Switzerland! The views were spectacular as we sat out over a steep drop that looked down several thousand feet onto rocks and snow!

After a wonderful lunch, we loaded up and headed North to Einsiedeln Abbey to a famous Monastery that Peter once worked at for 2 weeks – more on that shortly. On our drive to the Einsiedeln, we kept noticing these concrete structures scattered across the landscape. Peter shared that those were tank barriers from WW I & II that remain today! They are also the inspiration for the popular Toblerone chocolate candy. If you’ve had a Toblerone, you know what I’m talking about!

So Peter decided that he wanted to learn to to drive a horse drawn cart and the Einsiedeln Abbey has such carts. He reached out to the Bishop and asked if he could work for free in the stables and learn to drive a horse drawn cart. The Bishop agreed after some back and forth and so for 2 weeks he went to work in the stable and was taught how to drive a cart with 1 & 2 horses. For his “final” exam, he was asked to take a cart into town for supplies and bring it back in one piece. After his successful trip to town, he was provided an actual license showing that he was trained to drive a horse drawn cart, which is a requirement in Switzerland if you intend to drive a horse drawn cart!

Now let’s talk about some history. This monastery was built in 948 making it over 1000 years old! Imagine the history that this beautiful structure has seen and survived during this time. Today, it contains it’s on stable of horses, a vineyard and winery on site.

Inside, you’ll find the “Black Madonna” which is an interesting story and I will add a link for it below. As soon as you enter the Abbey, you see a shrine dedicated to the Virgin Mary. The Black Madonna is made of lime wood and came to the chapel in 1466. https://www.touringswitzerland.com/a-quick-guide-to-einsiedeln-abbey-and-the-black-madonna/

The link below takes you to their Monastery’s web site with more information and pictures – https://www.swiss-castles.com/einsiedeln-monastery

At the end of a long, busy day we decided to stop at a little Italian restaurant in the small village of Rickenbach for something simple for dinner. It was the first test of our Swiss language skills and thank goodness for Google Translate! We were able to figure out the menu and place our order. The pizza was magnificent and we had a delightful waiter who spoke some English. We had to show him our Google Translate results on a couple of items but it all worked great.

At the end of dinner as we’re paying our bill, he asked if we were American’s. We answered yes, and he just lit up and become so excited! He started thanking us over and over and when we asked why, he shared that he was from Kosovo and that he was a refugee who escaped 20+ years ago during the war. He said he was so grateful for America coming to save his country and family during that time. It was very humbling to hear his story and see first hand how he had been impacted by the war. It gave us a first hand experience with someone who had been positively impacted by America’s intervention in a terrible situation over 20 years ago…

Next up – Day 3 and some amazing water falls!

The flight was uneventful and we both got a little bit of sleep but the time change difference (6 hours) definitely took it’s toll. Daniel was waiting for us at the airport were he whisked us out to a small village where they had a beautiful and charming country home. The home was actually built in 1824 and served as the villages’ school house up until the 1970’s. It had been converted from a schoolhouse but still maintained the original, herringbone wood floors that were just stunning. There was a long school bench where the kids would study along with a chalk board and class pictures on the wall from over the years. It was an absolutely stunning setting for what would turn out to be 2 amazing weeks in Switzerland!

On Sunday, we went to Lake Constance for a river cruise and brunch. It included seeing small towns along the Lake including Germany on the North side. Brunch included locally grown white asparagus, which is considered a delicacy when in season. I’m not 100% certain but it sure seemed like it was offered at nearly every meal over the next two weeks. I was a trooper and had my share but have to say that I prefer Swiss chocolate!

On Day 3, Renata took us into “Old Town” Zurich via a tram, cable car and train where we met up with her brother Peter, for a guided tour of the city! The public transportation here is very impressive and allows easy movement throughout the city. The history and architecture on Zurich and the entire country is just stunning! Seeing buildings that have stood for 100’s of years give you a new appreciation for European history and a sense of just how “young” the U.S. really is!

We learned that the church’s in Switzerland will have one of two objects at the top of their steeple. If it’s a rooster, then the church is Protestant and if it’s a cross or map, then it’s Catholic. Let me tell you that there are church’s everywhere in the country and most are at least 500 years old and older! We were able to tour many of them and the architecture inside is just incredible. While we were welcome to tour the interior of the church’s, photography was not allowed.

For lunch, we walked over to the Sternen Grill for their famous Brat’s! Now I’ll admit that I was looking forward to some grilled Bratwurst with some kraut but wow, was I surprised! First off, the Swiss Brat’s are all veal – very tasty and a different texture from what I’ve had before. Second, asking for Sauerkraut, I learned, would have created an International incident! Nope, here at Sternen, they hand you their Brat in some wax paper along with a homemade roll. You eat the Brat like a hot dog without the bun and it was absolutely delicious!

After a day of walking and exploring, we ended up at Sprungli for some Luxemburgli Macaroons and a Cappuccino to finish our day in Zurich. The city was just breathtaking and so easy to explore by just walking and the occasional train/tram. I continued to be struck with how old the buildings are, you realize again, just how “young” the U.S. is relative to Europe. The architecture was exquisite and I’m not sure the skills to build them like that even exist these days.

Our day finished back at Daniel & Renata’s flat where we met her Brother Tony and his beautiful shepard Meshee! They served the traditional dish of Raclette which is where we heated up different types of cheese on these little serving trays and then scrapped the gooey goodness onto a plate that included boiled potatoes, pickled onions, pickles and a few other vegetables that I can’t recall. Needless to say, it was delicious and a great way to end the day!

Day 4 – Renata took us East into the mountains to the beautiful little town of Kronberg. We rode the tram to the summit for some amazing views of the Swiss Alps, the valleys below and lunch overlooking all of it! Following a wonderful lunch, where I had brat’s again, we drove into Gonten, which is where Daniel & Renata were married, and stopped at a local bakery for some fresh pastry’s.

Next up was Appenzell to walk the charming shops and enjoy the sights, sounds and smells. Of course we ended up at a local cheese shop that had more different types of cheeses than I’ve seen in my entire life! It was overwhelming and the owner was so kind and patient with us as we studied the many selections of cheese’s available – WOW!

Coming up next – Part 2…