Switzerland 9th - 18th June

Zurich, Rheinau & Rheinfall, Engadin, Hergiswil, Emmental, Burgdorf, Bern, Zurich
9th - 18th June

We spent these days traveling through Switzerland together with Sam and Katie.

Zurich
9th-10th June
The first two days we spent in Zurich, walking through the town on Saturday and catching up with Nati, Raffi and Tim at the lake and some of us managed to get a sunburned nose! In the evening we went to the "Opfelchammer" which is a fantastic restaurant in Switzerland. It's famous as it's already many years old, it exists since 1801 and has a timber beam that is just below the ceiling you can try to climb over, hang down and skull a glass of white wine hanging upside down! If successful, you can scratch your name anywhere into the timber in that room. We tried, but not all of us succeeded in the crawling up! The next day Sam, Katie and I went to Zurich's house hill "Uetliberg" and enjoyed the views. Silvan was supposed to pick up Silvan Spiess' second car to borrow, however managed to have a breakdown after 5min on the highway, so no car anymore!

Rheinau & Rheinfall
11th June
Without a car we headed by train to Rheinau to visit the winery "Zuercher Staatskellerei" - a winery for which Silvan's brother Alex makes labels. We learned a lot about making wine and seeing the winery and trying some in the end. Alex, thanks again for organising this and thanks to Werner for the interesting tour!
After this we were lucky enough to get a ride down the Rhein by boat to the Rheinfall which is always an impressive waterfall!

Engadin
12th - 13th June
On Monday night we were able to pick up Silvan's mothers car and drove to Engadin over the Albula Pass - it was dark, foggy and snow in the air! When we got up in the morning it had indeed snowed down till 100m above us, so it was beautiful to see all the mountains and pine trees covered in white! Sadly it rained where we were, so we had a quiet and easy day and drove to Scuol to go to the Thermal Spa to relax. On Wednesday we walked to the "Morteratsch Glacier" in sunshine and were amazed how much it had shrunk since we saw it 14 months ago! After this to St. Moritz for a coffee at the Yacht Club and later a yummy Raclette for dinner.

Engadin-Hergiswil-Emmental-Burgdorf
14th June
This was a big day: we left Engadin and drove towards Lucerne, stopped in Hergiswil at the glass production "Glasi Heriswil". Katie bought some beautiful things to take back and we were also able to observe the making of many items: bowls, vases and decorations! It was like honey taken out of the oven, cut off by scissors and formed into the desired item - amazing! After a coffee at "Vierwaldstaettersee" in the sun, we drove towards Emmental to visit a cheesefactory where the world famous Emmentaler cheese is made! We headed to Burgdorf after this and had dinner at the local beer brewery "Schuetzenhaus".

Schilthorn
15th June
A beautiful drive down south of Bern to Thun, Interlaken and to Lauterbrunnen-Stechelberg to take 4 cable cars over Muerren to Schilthorn where James Bond 007 nearly welcomed us! Amazing views to Eiger, Moench and Jungfrau and many other mountains and also lake Thun. After taking the cable cars down again we stopped at the Truemmelbach-falls, which are underground waterfalls of the melting glacier water from Eiger, Moench and Jungfrau. These were absolutely amazing! The evening we spent in Burgdorf at my mothers place with a lovely barbecue in the garden.

Bern
16th June
Walking through the city of Bern, doing shopping, seeing the parliament, the bear park, restaurant Tramdepot, walking along the river Aare and stopping at the "Schwellenmaetteli" - a hot and beautiful day! On our drive back towards Zurich we stopped at my sister Natalie's place as both my sisters and boyfriends were there having barbecue (yes, also Swiss people love barbecues)! Back in Zurich, we were quite exhausted and happy to be in bed before midnight.

Zurich
17th -18th June
We celebrated Felix's Birthday - Silvan's father - at the local swimming pool in Kindhausen. Another hot and sunny day, so we were happy to jump into the pool! It was nice to lay in the grass and catch up with everyone. After this we headed to the city and met up with Sam and Katie and walked along the Limmat river to the Letten bar and enjoyed a beer and caipirinha and watched the European Soccer championship on TV with lots of others!

On Monday it was time for Sam and Katie to fly to Dubai before going back to Sydney a couple of days later. So we had to say good bye after many great days, thanks again for visiting and spending all these days with us Sam and Katie!