A breath of fresh air

We've already had a lot of Swiss chocolate - too much! Or not enough. Whichever. As for our embarrassing moments, we have so many over the last few days, we'll just include them in the blog. Sorry Karmel, no ice skating at the Tour Eiffel :( Glad to entertain you lot, thanks for the comments!

This blog is full of elegance and grace.

So at Sparrow's Fart (yes, very early aka 4:00am) we emerged bleary-eyed, to catch our flight to Zurich. Our first glimpse of the country was a blanket of white clouds with Zurich glimmering underneath and the sunrise lighting the mountains on fire. We had to bolt to catch the train and then drag the suitcases to our hotel, admiring the scenery as we went. It being 8:30am, we weren't able to check in until later. They held our bags till we came back from our day tour. Embarrassing moment - Belle got stuck in the revolving (automatic) door [I was waiting for Bek at the time - she was taking forever to put on her jacket]. Back to the train station an hour later to catch our tour bus.

One of the train stops along the way ----------->

Our Spanish guide, Willie (we named him because he never introduced himself), had a full bus of 7 passengers. 5 of which were Spanish. So the English translation was just for us :) Switzerland has to be the most stunning place yet. Absolutely breathtaking. Liechtenstein was the real highlight - we spent a whole 45 minutes in the country which is 24 km long, 4 km wide. Has a population of 35 000! Twice Nambour. We got our passport stamped - on request as there is no official border. We also saw Heidi's house which is used in the movies. Awesome book. The house is surrounded by the mountains that inspired the novel. We got back at 6 and enjoyed a very special Italian dinner - with my passable Italian. The beds were sooo comfortable! Both mattress and duvet were made of feathers. Very nice.

The next morning was a quick breakfast and pack then we headed off to Grindelwald via 3 trains. It was supposed to take a few hours, we took one more. We missed the 2nd train and so had to grab the next one half an hour later. This meant we missed our 3rd train and was delayed another half hour. The wait was worth it, though. Grindelwald (last syllable is pronounced 'veld') is incredible. The town is situated in the mountains, covered with snow. They are cute little wooden houses - like a gingerbread house, spread out on the mountainside. The pictures don't do it justice. You have to see it to believe it. By far the most stunning scenery so far. The air is so clear here. Very fresh.

<----- view from our hotel

After settling in to our very comfortable hotel, we explored the village and hired some toboggans for ten Swiss francs each. Quite reasonable, especially considering how expensive everything is here in Switzerland! It was so much fun :) We raced down the small hill. It went so fast - we got down the hill in like, 5 seconds. Half an hour climb back up the hill (with plenty of rest stops - to observe the view, of course) and then back down the slope. To apply brakes, you plant both feet into the snow and pray. As we weren't wearing snow pants, the snow went straight up the jeans and you had leg popsicles. We had a blast! So much fun. Belle discovered a small jump (quite by accident) as she raced me down the hill. All I saw was Belle go sailing past, minus a toboggan and almost face plant in the snow. I was laughing so hard I fell off as well. The snow was about a foot deep so Belle made me do a snow angel. Shame it doesn't really come out in the photos.

Worth mentioning is our dinner. We had a traditional cheese fondue with bread pieces (spelt bred in menu) and potatoes. It was very yummy! It had herbs and 'young cheese'. Plus a fruit salad for dessert. We were going to have the meat fondue but Belle would have had to give them her left lung. It cost 44 Swiss francs each person. That is approximately the same in Aussie dollars. As it was, the cheese one was 27 sf each. The only other option was steak at 38 sf. The hotel restaurant's saving grace was the fact the cheese was absolutely delicious. It tasted like a melted cheese sandwich. Mmmm.

Love,

Bek and Belle

P.s Embarrassing Moments (our favourites): During our Swiss/Liech tour, we decided to have lunch at an Italian place (we had free time for lunch). The menus were in Italian and of course, Belle didn't listen to me. We told the waiter we wanted pizza and then Belle pointed to a nice-looking tomato, cheese and basil insalata. He looked at us for a minute and then said "You want salad or pizza?". Insalata means salad. Which is really obvious when you look at it... Okay, okay. Next embarrassing moment.

In our haste to get on the train with our bags, I tried to enter the same time as Belle. Unfortunately, the door was only 1.9 backpacks wide. In otherwords, the bags stayed in place, I went flying. The onlookers were very impressed with my graceful entry.