A whirlwind weekend in Switzerland

The second part of my Europe trip was a whirlwind weekend in Switzerland in early March 2011. We were at London's City airport for a flight to Zurich when we saw the news about the earthquake and tsunami in Japan. It was quite scary. I have an aunt who stays in Japan and quite quickly, she sent a facebook message that she is OK. What a relief.

We were very lucky that a friend who lived in Switzerland previously joined us here and was able to drive us around. That probably allowed us the to visit so many places in such a short space of time....not forgetting the wonderful food here.

One of the first places to go was to the Lindt chocolate factory shop. it's actually slightly cheaper here than at the duty free shops in Europe. Well, as you can imagine, the amount of chocolate and varieties that they have there would make a chocolate lover go bonkers.

The bunny is for the Chinese year of the rabbit or Easter?

Our friend introduced us to 2 national drinks (apart from liquor) here. One is of course hot chocolate (heavenly) and the other Rivella,  a brand of apple carbonated drink that comes in a few variants. During our trip, I think we had too much of both but it was lovely, I must add.

My wife and me sharing the two types of drinks

We went to Lucerne and on the way enjoyed the views of lakes, small towns and views of mountain tops covered with snow. These small towns are so quiant and with the air so fresh, it was a joy just walking around. Really, one can just do nothing and enjoy the clean air and nice scenary.

Beautiful scenary

Quaint small towns

Small tourist town with some shopping

Many beautiful lakes

The next day, we had the chance to eat breakfast at the original Marche restaurant. Before the concept came to Malaysia/Singapore, we had visited them in other parts of Europe.  The concept is the same but of course it taste better here, especially if you are hungry and cold.

At the original Marche Restaurant

Marche located on the highway

On our way up St Moritz, we could see the changing landscape. There were more snow and ice and the mountains got more rugged.

Rugged mountains

Snow as we climb higher

Frozen stream?

Frozen lake and streams

As we were approaching St Moritz, it started to snow heavily. As we were short of time and did not want to get caught in a traffic jam, we decided to stop and just enjoyed the short blizzard with more hot chocolate.

Frozen lake

Snow high up

Lots of snow

We also stopped at Einsiedehl which is a quaint stop with a beautiful church and abbey (please see seperate post on this church). The town have also some beautiful buildings. We had dinner there and enjoyed our cheese fondue very much.

Beautiful Einsiedenl

Delicious fondue

Again, as we drove on, more beautiful scenaries. The Swiss are blessed with this and this was a really nice weekend. Many thanks to my good friend who took the trouble to drive us around and also the company of another good friend and his wife. It made the trip fun and memorable. It's a pity, I could not take nice pictures and also the other food that we had (all so nice).

Nice scenaries

Nice and quiet towns

Old small towns

Nice green meadows too

I will make a point to visit this country again and soon, I hope.

Until the next time, cheers.