From young I have been watching Bollywood movies, more specifically Yash Chopra's, that show rolling meadows dotted with pretty flowers, snow capped mountains in the background, healthy and cool cows grazing with their Swiss-style cowbells, clean air and cool breeze... Snapping back to reality, you wonder if that is indeed Switzerland or some place in heaven! After having spent just 5 days, I can vouch that it is indeed Switzerland!
Before we embarked on our Swiss adventure, we wanted to take a peek at Germany. Arriving at Basel, Germany was just a hop, skip, jump away. After looking at a few places, we finally decided to visit just one spot in the black forest as we didn't want to miss out much in Switzerland. Looking at both Freiburg and Triberg, I decided upon Triberg because it not only looked like a typical German village but had a large number of stores selling the famed black forest cuckoo clocks!! As a bonus there was also a waterfall!
Triberg im Schwarzwald - German Black Forest
Arriving at Basel airport that had exits for both France and Swiss sides, we picked up our rental car and drove down to Triberg im Schwarzwald passing the beautiful old town of Basel on our way. The scenery and climb up to Triberg was spectacular with black forest styled houses along our route. After parking our car at the car park close to the waterfalls we hiked up to the falls in sweltering afternoon heat. By the time we got to the first view of the falls, we were tired from all the traveling and decided against going further. Further, the option of shopping for a couple of cuckoo clocks was even more lucrative! Traveling downhill, we ended up at the House of 1000 clocks - Haus der 1000 Uhren.
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| Cuckoo clocks in Triberg in the Blackforest |
This place was absolute wow! It was covered with cuckoo clocks of varying sizes, designs, styles and of course prices. Even with a budget it wasn't easy to pick a couple. After much walking around and bothering the English speaking sales assistants with my constant flow of questions we finally found two to our liking and had them packed. Our next stop was at a cafe.. how could we leave the area without a spoonful, and a little more of the famous black forest cake? After biting into a slice of rich and heavenly blackforest cake and drowning that with some coffee, we returned to our car for our drive to Zürich.
We drove through the check point at the borders (Switzerland is not part of the EU) and through some Swiss towns with their symbolical church steeples to arrive at Holiday Inn Express Zurich Airport, our halt for the night. Just before the hotel we stopped at the supermarket Migros that was closing to pick up a few staples to keep us going through our trip. Dinner at subway gave us the first shock. About CHF25 for 2 foot-longs (roughly 17GBP)!
Zürich - Lucerne
After an uncomfortable night in an extremely warm room and a poorly serviced breakfast, we were out on the road again. After a futile attempt to locate Üetliberg for a bird's eye view of Zürich, we drove to the city center to view it from human's POV. We were lucky to find a parking spot near the Fraumünster. Took a short walk around the Limmat river, taking pictures of the various points of interest - The Grossmünster, Rathaus, the quay along the river and few interesting side streets and cafes. We got our first view of snow-capped mountains in the distance and were looking forward to see it closer. After the quick walk around we returned to our car and started our drive towards Lucerne.
Lucerne was a postcard picture city. A sprawling lake with the modern glass KKL on it's shores; connected to the old city by the picturesque Kapellbrücke (Chapel Bridge). Ample parking at the railway station made it easy for us to walk around. Lunch was at the fly-infested railway station. The food wasn't too bad. Shooing away the flies was, unfortunately. We took a walk around the railway station area, photographing the Kapellbrücke and the swans along the lake. After some ice cream and expensive souvenir shopping we returned to our car to start our drive to Lauterbrunnen, the most anticipated destination in this trip.
The sky was overcast and it soon started raining heavily. However the scenery was fantastic. Lovely sights of lakes and waterfalls. After driving along the shores of the Aquamarine Brienzersee, we reached Bernese Oberland. The air had turned much cooler here and there were snow-capped mountains much closer to us. We drove straight to the hotel we had booked for the next two days - Hotel Oberland. It was right along the main road and we had a room on the third floor whose windows opened to the amazing view of the waterfalls and the snow capped peaks of the region. It was a view that kept us enchanted through out our stay and a vision we will never forget for the rest of our lives. Since we had quite a long day, we did not venture out much and instead had a pizza at the restaurant and went to bed early.
Bernese Oberland - Lauterbrunnen - Mürren - Buchalpsee
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| The Lauterbrunnen valley at Stechelberg |
Day 3 of our trip started with heavy rains again and I was extremely disappointed. What a waste! But to our joy the sky soon cleared up and the sun was out nice and bright. After a good breakfast where no one hurried us, we spoke to the owner of the hotel for ideas. She told us about a fest happening in the village of Mürren and advised us of the route to take. We got into our car with our warm coats and hats and proceeded to Stechelberg to board a cable car up to Mürren.
Mürren was a calm and quiet village with gorgeous views of green meadows and the neighboring snow capped peaks. We arrived early enough in the day and there were hardly any tourists around. Even though this was higher up in the mountains it was still warm and we had no use for our coats! We walked to the other end of town clicking away zillions of pictures and marveling at the views around us. With some time left for the fest and parade to start, we spent some time on a playground with the snow capped peaks for company. We soon found ourselves joining a stream of people heading to watch the parade. We found ourselves some spots to watch and the parade started with lots of cheer. There were the famous Swiss cows with their traditional cow bells, other villagers with their handicrafts and many groups dressed in the traditional costumes. We also got some freebies like candies and cheese. After the Parade, we walked down a different route and found a Chinese cafe for lunch. One of the cheaper places to eat, we found the food worthy. We rode the cable car back to Stechelberg and took our car to Trümmelbach falls.
Trümmelbach falls is fed from the snow melting from the peaks. An elevator takes us through a shaft carved inside the mountain and leaves us at the head of a trail. It's a climb up from there to various levels. The waterfall flows inside tunnels and sometimes out in the open. There are galleries and platforms to view the waterfalls that thunders and roars down the mountain. We viewed from a couple of different levels before returning as the steps and trail was getting cold and wet higher up.
We drove and parked our car across from our hotel. Later in the evening we followed a walking trail in Lauterbrunnen to catch glimpses of the train that goes up to Jungfrau, a traditional church and the roaring river flowing from the Trümmelbach falls. Our dinner was at the restaurant - some Swiss Rosti and spaghetti before falling asleep watching the gorgeous views from the window.
Day 4 was again warm and bright and we so badly wanted to see an alpine lake. We again asked the owner for some suggestions and she suggested Buchalpsee. After some discussions, we decided to go ahead and do the 3 hours rouhd trip hike. We drove to Grindelwald, parked our car and took the gondola up to First. When I was planning for our stay in the region, I looked at both Grindelwald and Lauterbrunner. There were many who recommended Grindelwald. I chose Lauterbrunnen for the small town feel and I must say I was not disappointed and in fact was hugely relieved that we stayed there instead of Grindelwald. Grindelwald was a busy Swiss town with loads of tourists, cafes and traffic.
The ride up to First was again with enchanting views. We had picked up some sandwiches, salad and water from a Co-op store in Lauterbrunnen. Even though it was a good 30+ minute ride, the sun was beating down and it was pretty hot even up at that altitude. We got off at First and started our hike amidst even more enchanting scenery. We encountered some cows with their dangling and jingling cowbells up close and continued our hike with three snow capped peaks of Wetterhorn, Schreckhorn and Eiger keeping us company through out. We reached the twin lakes of Buchalpsee about an hour and 45 minutes later and settled down in a scenic spot. We were quite hungry by then and the food from Co-op made up for a good picnic lunch and were gone in a jiffy. After a ton of pics, dipping our feet in the cold waters of the lake and noticing that there were not many around us, we started our return hike. It was quicker this time and we reached Grindelwald just over a couple of hours later.
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| Lake Buchalpsee |
After our hike to Buchalpsee, we felt we had achieved the purpose of the visit. There seemed to be nothing left for us to see or do. We still to stick to our initial plan of visiting Geneva as we were flying back home from there. We drove through a hail storm along the shores of Lake Thun to reach Hôtel La Tour d'Aï at Leysin pretty late in the night and all the cafes and restaurants were closed. After a quick dinner of some ready-to-eat stuff, we tucked in for the night, tired, but content.
Geneva
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| Jet D'Eau |
After an interesting breakfast, we were all set to spend our last day at Switzerland. We started our drive along the shores of Lake Geneva and reached Geneva airport a little past 11 in the afternoon. We returned our car, had a quick lunch at the airport station, checked our bags into a locker and took a crowded and warm train to the city. It was an extremely warm and humid day and we were highly uncomfortable by the time we reached the lake from the station. There was a gallery like set up along the shore of the lake and we were happy to rest under the shade watching the Jet D'Eau and the people hurrying across. After a long break, we walked around the few streets surrounding the lake. After the excitement at Bernese Oberland and the Jungfrau region, Geneva did not excite us much. It seemed to be just like any other European city.
Clouds were closing in and a storm seemed to be brewing up. It was pretty cool by this time and we started our walk back to the station to board the train to the airport.
We bid good bye to Switzerland, an expensive heaven on earth, and boarded our EasyJet flight back home.
The Bernese Oberland was nature at it's best and I'm hoping to return someday.
The blue domed churches of Oia. One every few hundred feet. 
