9/19/10, Sunday in Switzerland

This day was a blast! We started with a wonderful breakfast that was included in our hotel stay. So much wonderful food, so we filled up and said good-bye to Basel, heading for Zurich.  We made our way through Zurich to Schaffhausen where you can see the Rhine Falls, which are considered to be the largest waterfalls in Europe. This was so cool to me. 

Again, I was overcome by the beauty of the water.

The water was so powerful.

The most colorful, awesome rainbow hung over the bottom of the falls.

We were able to get really close to the falls. There was a couple of platforms that had us right out where the falls were crashing down. It was amazing. I loved it!


We tore ourselves away from the falls after a freaky ride back to the top in a glass elevator! Scary.






As we were making our way out of Schaffhausen, we found ourselves on a small wine route. How convenient. We were able to find a wine cave that was just opening for the day so we stopped in. It was a little winery named Heidi-Wy in a tiny village. They barely spoke English, but we were able to talk wine! Like tasting, yes, and Riesling, yes. They were very generous with their tasting and we purchased a bottle of Riesling, very light but complex, a bottle of Kerner, which was like a Late Harvest Riesling, very sweet and yummy, and a bottle of their red, which was very different from any red I've ever tasted and was made from a grape called Blauburgunder, very tasty. From there we headed back through the vineyards and wonderful countryside to Zurich.
I didn't mention that the weather prediction for the this weekend was to be rainy almost all weekend. We had beautiful blue skies both days and Sunday was clear and warm all day!

Once back in Zurich we survived more deadly city traffic, and found an area called Bellevue where we could park and walk to Lake Promenade. People in this country seem to love their outdoors and with the beauty of this country how can you be any other way. The Promenade around this lake was jammed with people, strolling, sitting and enjoying the beautiful lake, people watching, and the entertainers every few hundred feet. It was really neat to see. We walked a bit and got ourselves some lunch at an outdoor vendor who was grilling up brats. I had the most delicious potato salad with a hard cider that was very very good. We walked a bit and took in some sun and decided before leaving Switzerland we needed to see the Alps once more. 

We headed for another loop towards Chur which was East of the loop we did on Saturday. As we drove through the country side we saw people out biking, hiking, running and walking everywhere. I love the outdoor spirit of this country.  We wandered a bit around Chur, Taylor had a hot chocolate to beat all hot chocolates. I was able to purchase several Swiss Chocolate bars for gifts and personal use (of course) and we hit the road back to France.

The sun was setting in the Alps as we made our way out of Switzerland. Our weekend was a huge success. Eric traveled us safely through some of the craziest city traffic I have ever seen, we saw the most beautiful lakes, falls, and countryside, purchased wine and chocolate, and enjoyed some very good food. How blessed are we!