9/18/10, Saturday in Switzerland

Up and out, and on the road by car to Switzerland. Planned 1st stop is the city of Lucerne to see Mt. Pilatus which is a famous mountain overlooking Lucerne. We came into Switzerland through Basel, where we had to buy a pass for our car to drive in Switzerland for $40. We made our way to Lucerne with no delays where we found the spot to take the cable-car up to Mt. Pilatus. We struggled a bit with the parking before heading to the ticket booth. The parking all over Switzerland was very confusing. You had to buy a ticket to put in your car whenever you parked. Getting that ticket out of the machines is not as easy as one would think. First we could not read a word on the meters and every place we parked the ticket meters worked differently. We had to ask for help at most of the parking spots throughout Switzerland, but many people spoke English, thank goodness. We made our way to the ticket booth for Mt. Pilatus only to find that it was $64 per person. Yikes........we learned very quickly after entering Switzerland that this is a very expensive country for tourists. Between the entry fee, parking, gas and food which we did not buy much of it was a little too pricey. This did not stop us however from enjoying the countryside immensely. The country is so beautiful we thoroughly enjoyed our visit. We decided to skip the cable car at Mt. Pilatus, and the 4 hour walk to the top, and move on to the Alps where we could drive ourselves around a loop Eric had mapped out just in case.

This was a very wise decision. The day was a bit hazy so we were not sure what we would have seen at the top of Mt. Pilatus anyway. The loop down into Switzerland through the Alps was fabulous. We drove through tiny little villages where people had homes with the most awesome views you can imagine. Everywhere you looked there were mountains with homes, vineyards, and pastures of goats and cows scattered about. As we drove around there were beautiful lakes with water an indescribable color of bluish green.

I'm not typically one who does well sitting in a car or anywhere for very long, but the immense beauty of this country took over my restlessness and had me in awe.

We stopped along the way to breath in the views and  stretch our legs.

We found a little cafe in a tiny hillside village where we stopped for a late lunch with a view of the mountains. I had Spaetzle with vegetables and mushrooms. Oh my gosh, it was like a gourmet mac n cheese dish floating in butter. The ultimate in comfort food and deliciousness. Again, a bit pricey and we paid $12.50 for water without realizing it, so this was our only real meal in Switzerland, but it was fantastic.

As we were dining a cow parade of sorts came down the hillside all decorated with the Swiss flag, flowers, and heavy leather straps with giant loud ringing cowbells hanging from them. It all seemed so perfect and natural for our surroundings.

We continued on around our loop enjoying every minute along the way!

Our next stop was Interlaken, a little village with some nice little shops. A few were still open, so we popped in and Taylor got a gift for John and Eric bought himself a new swiss army knife.

As we were strolling the main street a wedding parade came through honking horns and throwing candy from their cars!! How fun.

Interlaken also had a beautiful seafoam green lake. The Alps were socked in  so we could not see the snow covered peaks but they were still a gorgeous backdrop to the lake.

We left Interlaken and headed out of our Alps loop for Basel where we had hotel  reservations for the night. Eric was a master of the road on this entire trip. Especially in the cities where driving was insane. I told him I would have just gotten out of the car in the middle of the city, hopped on the 1st bus to the nearest airport, and obtained a seat on the first flight back to GR.  He not only survived the city driving safely, but was able to spot every "cool" car along the way!

We arrived in Basel and found the street where our hotel was located with no problem. The city of Basel had more pedestrians, bicyclists and cars quickly flying in every direction than I've ever seen. I was amazed by this scene. Like some kind of fast speed orchestrated dance where everyone knew exactly where to be when so as not to cause a catastrophe. And here we were in the middle of it all trying to get down the street to our hotel which was blocked off at both ends due to a festival that was of course happening right now where our hotel was located. After driving in circles a bit we found a city parking ramp where we parked and walked to our hotel. We checked in and made our way to our room. We thought our flat was tiny. Whoa, talk about tight quarters, but clean and nice. We were all getting hungry so we made our way to the festival where there was live music and lots of booths with lots of brats, sausages and other festival fare. Eric had a brat and beer and Taylor a chocolate crepe, and that was dinner. We watched a little of the live music, never even knowing what the festival was for because none of us could read or understand anything of the Swiss language. We proceeded to wander away from the festival and through the little alleyways in the area looking in shop windows until we were ready to tuck in for the night. Wonderful day!