Another adventure in Switzerland (Part 2)
The next morning we awoke, had breakfast, gathered our things and said good bye to grandma and hit the road. This was supposed to be our last day on the road but there were other things in store for us.
We stopped in and bought a bunch of meat. Then we stopped in at another shop and bought a bunch of chocolate. Oh yeah baby. We also stopped for a little more discovering around Heidiland where we took a little walk to the village. I guess when we stopped before it was just the Heidiland restaurant and gift shop. If you want to do the full experience, you need to walk for 2 hours. We didn’t have the time.
We stopped in at the hubby’s uncle and aunt’s place near Zurich for lunch. His cousin was also there. What a delicious meal with great company. I always enjoy seeing them and hearing about what they are up to. The wee babe received a little cat we call Lea that plays music when you pull a string. Merci beacoup!
After a wonderful lunch we stopped in at Lucerne to check the famous lion that’s there and also the covered bridge that burnt down many years ago. We wanted to do a maze with mirrors but it was going to cost us $12 per adult to get in as it was within a museum so we decided to forget it and hopefully we’ll get a chance to see the maze over in Vallais. By this point in the day, it was hot.
Back on the road and off to Thun to see Hans, our best man at our wedding in Canada and to meet his girlfriend.
The road to Thun was a beautiful winding road through a lake district where the colour of the lakes were this gorgeous turquoise blue. They all looked the same colour and the tweenager and I so wanted to go for a swim (even though I’m sure it was freezing cold). But we were running late and needed to move it.
We arrived in Thun and decided that it was going to be too late to drive back that night so we were going to sleep there. Thank goodness we like to wing it and thank goodness Hans and Maria have space for 4 people! I was so relieved as I really didn’t want to have to eat and then run as the drive back was another 1.5 hours. Sigh…
They cooked us a wonderful dinner of tarte flambé and salad. They speak German and English so we figured the most common language between us was English. I kept finding myself speaking French with them and reminding myself that I needed to speak English. This language thing is so crazy!! I’m not used to it. Switching back and forth, it’s pretty cool when you think about the diversity of it all.
We had a wonderful night, drinking wine and rehashing old memories that we had with Hans.
The next morning, it was yet another beautiful day and Hans and Maria had said that we really needed to check out the castle in the middle of Thun before we left so we walked over to it. Thun is a beautiful little town with a gorgeous turquoise blue river running through it. Devine. I can’t help but want to plunge myself into all their bodies of water here! But I don’t ?
The castle was neat. I wasn’t overly impressed for some reason. Maybe it was because it was getting hot again, I was a bit hung over and I really needed a change of clothes. Since we had extended our vacation by a day, I hadn’t brought enough supplies.
My hubby surprised me by saying, “why don’t we stop in in Bern for lunch?” I’ve been trying to get to Bern since we came here as the tweenager really wanted to see it and it’s the capital of Switzerland so I thought it would be nice to show her. So, off we went to Bern for lunch.
Now the weather was about 34 degrees. It was HOT again. I’m realizing I don’t do too well in weather like this. I feel like a big blog of melted marshmellow in that heat. We ate lunch which was less than great (oh and they were going to make us pay for tap water!! $3 per glass. I find this so tragic as there are fountains all over the country that spew forth cold fresh mountain spring water that never stops and there was one of these fountains just across the square so we could literally walk over there and drink for free if we wanted too) and then ran through the fountains in the middle of the town. It was refreshing for about 5.4 seconds.
I guess when you’re in Bern, the thing to see is the bears. Who knew that there are real live bears in the city for you to take a gander at. So we hoofed it over there. Really very anti-climatic in my opinion.
My temperature gauge was at the tipping point and I think the wee babe wasn’t doing too well either as she was so whiny. But really like a whine like, “get me the freak out of this weather, I’m dying a slow and painful death.” She didn’t want to sit in the black stroller and only wanted to be carried. You can imagine how much I wanted to be carrying a hot sweaty body around.
Back in the car and this time our destination was home. All in all, we had a wonderful time toodling around Switzerland. I think now I can safely say, I’ve seen most all of it EXCEPT for the Italian part (although I did see this a few years ago with my hubby). I think we’ll save this part for when my mom comes to visit in October.
