Switzerland

Zethy and I went to Switzerland recently. It was beautiful as you would expect. Unlike our previous two trips (this and this), it was smooth sailing. Here’s how it went.

We wanted to cover a lot of places so ideally our accommodation should be somewhere central. Zethy suggested to stay at Interlaken, a picturesque town nestled between two lakes - Lake Brienz and Lake Thun, hence the name. We also bought the Swiss pass, that covers all trains, buses, boats, cable cars for the entirety of our trip there, except a few. After landing in Zurich, we took a train heading straight to Interlaken and checked-in into our room where we’ll be staying for the next few days. It was late afternoon when we arrived so we didn’t do much. We just took a walk around the park, getting to know the town, and bought some groceries at the local grocery Migros to cook. One fun fact I learnt that day was German/Swiss couples sleep with separate duvet, because that’s how our room was.

The next day, we took an early train to Bern, Switzerland’s capital (arguably). We joined a walking tour that lasted a couple hours where the tour guide walked us around the city and told us about Switzerland’s history, language, culture and political system. The key takeaway I got from the tour was that the Swiss people, comprising of people from different region and cultural background, are so neutral that they’ll try to avoid conflict and tolerate and compromise as much as possible on pretty much everything, from the name of the country, to the national language, to even the country’s top-level domain name. Another cool thing about Bern is its river. People of Bern commonly swim in the river. And if you live downstream near the river, then you can take a bus to work in the morning and after work, you pack your stuff in a waterproof bag, jump in the river and let the stream carry you back home. Also, most water in Switzerland you can get your hands on either coming from a pipe or from the ground are clean and drinkable. In the afternoon, we went back to Interlaken to go to Iseltwald and walked around there and dipped our toes in Lake Brienz.

The third day was an adventurous one. We took a train to Grindelwald and from there a cable car up the hills. It was a really long cable car ride that goes over the Swiss countryside. We stopped at First to walk a trail called First Cliff Walk to take in the view of the Swiss alps. Afterwards, we rode a mountain cart downhill. A cool thing I saw that day was the robotic arm they used for hanging the carts to the side of the cable car to hitchhike the cable car on the way uphill where another robot will grab it.

Our next activity was going up the Jungfraujoch, the highest point in Europe. The journey towards there involves a cable car ride and a train ride that goes all the way to the observatory at the top. This is the only part where it’s not covered by the Swiss pass. Yes, the engineers actually drilled tunnels in the Swiss alps at that altitude (3454m) and laid railways on it. There's actually a lot of things to do up there. Aside from the breathtaking view from the observatory, we went to a mini museum that talks about the alps and the construction of the railway and observatory, an ice sculpture gallery, and to the plateau outside.

On our fourth day, we went to Lauterbrunnen, a charming Swiss village set in a valley between cliffs. We just walked around there aside from hiking up a steep trail to the 300m Staubbach Falls. After that we initially wanted to go to the nearby Wengen but figured it’s just going to be another cute village. So we opted for going back to Interlaken to take the cruise that goes around Lake Brienz. We ended up on the other end of Lake Brienz and the next cruise that goes back was a couple hours later, or take the bus.

Zethy always wanted to go to Lucerne but we never had the time for it. Our flight back is the next day and we’re going to Zurich that evening with our bags were still at Interlaken. Well, this is the time. The moment we hopped off that boat, which conveniently docked at the train station there, Zethy saw a train with 'LUZERN' displayed on it and without discussion or thinking twice, made a run for it and made it inside. We were now on our way to Lucerne, an hour and a half journey, which means another two hour journey from Lucerne back to Interlaken to get our bags, and another train to catch to go to Zurich. It was tight. Anyways, we made it to Lucerne, walked around there for an hour, went to its famous Chapel Bridge, and back to the train station.

We woke up in Zurich on our last day. We had a whole day to explore Zurich since our flight was later that night. Our day started with a walking tour around Zurich. The tour guide explained how Switzerland became so rich with its world-leading banking industry, known for its stability and secrecy. I was hoping to open a Swiss bank account during my time there but unfortunately they’ve gotten strict lately, imposing a high minimum balance. After the tour, we took a bus to Lindt’s chocolate factory not too far from Zurich. The museum there explained everything about chocolate making, the history as well as the technical stuff. There’s an unlimited chocolate fondue fountain there which you can keep eating it all you want. We also grabbed a lot of Lindt chocolate from the museum tour. We’ve reached the end of our itinerary and we’re off to get our bags back at Zurich and go to the airport.