Swiss precision.

**Originally published 18 July 2016.

When I think of Switzerland & I know I’m not alone here, I conjure up images of snow capped peaks towering over beautiful towns built on rivers and lakes with cobbled streets, church spires rising high into the sky and gorgeous men wearing leather lederhosen yodeling and feeding me Lindt chocolate…..ok maybe that last one is just in my head but you have to admit I’m not that far off the mark with the rest. In reality Switzerland is all of that and so much more! 

We started our time here with 3 nights in Zurich & again relied on public transport to get around. There is a reason the Swiss are so good at making watches and have such a great reputation for precision. If the timetable says the train departs at 21 minutes past the hour it pulls in to the station at 19 past and at 21 past the doors close and off she goes, to the second every time and it seems to me they live most of their life this way. 

I’m not entirely sure why they are still an independent state and not part of the European Union even though they sit in the middle of the continent completely land locked by countries that do belong to the EU but it certainly works for them. The Swiss have one of the highest pay rates and best living conditions in the world but as a tourist & especially an Aussie tourist exchanging Aussie dollars it just might be the most expensive place I’ve ever been. Although the exchange rate for the Euro and the Swiss Franc ( yes they still have their own currency too!) are similar, everything in Switzerland costs so much more. 

A day train pass for a family of 4 was upwards of 50 Franc ($65) and a basic meal of a plate of pasta, 2 pizzas to share & a drink each cost us 90 Franc ($120) 

We got really good at walking a lot and as in most places we still bought from the supermarket for lunches & snacks but extended this to dinners as well instead of eating out each night. You have to be creative when you’re without cooking facilities. A favorite meal we made was a Greek salad with ingredients from the local market topped with beautiful lamb & chicken from the local kebab shop, all for under 30 Franc, it’s amazing what you can whip up on a bedside table in a hotel room! It’s still not cheap by home standards but compared to the alternative it suited us fine. 

Zurich is a beautiful city and we just happily wandered for a few days taking it all, it was nice not to rush around feeling as though we had to see this or that. We gave the kids a few days off from looking through  churches, museums and galleries and instead they enjoyed jumping off a bridge into the icy river to cool off with the locals while we enjoyed drinking beer in the sun (just for a change!) and watching them. 

From Zurich we did a day trip to Lucerne by train where again we wandered the beautiful old town and joined the flocks of people taking advantage of Lake Lucerne on a hot summers day. Swimming in a lake with water that was 21 degrees while looking at snow capped mountains behind us was a first for me & an experience I’ll never forget. 

Here’s a travel tip for you, not all trains in Europe require a compulsory seat reservation but if you’re traveling in peak season like we are and if you want to be seated together it’s recommend that you do, it’s only a few Euro extra per person over and above the cost of your rail pass or ticket to do this and you’re able to either pre book the seats at home before you depart if you know where & when you plan to travel or while away at almost any train station. A number of people that wing it struggle to find seats together or in the class they have paid for. Also, when you make a seat reservation your boarding pass not only has your seat number printed on it but also what carriage you’re in. A number of times we had to tell people they were in our seats, often right seat numbers, wrong carriage, but the funniest was having to ask a whole family who had spread a weeks worth of food out on the table and were already tucking in to their buffet lunch!

After Zurich we had booked a night in a place called Brig, a little town right near the Italian border.  Initially we’d considered Brig a stop over, one night which would be just a place to break up the journey between getting from Zurich to our next destination being the Cinque Terre in Italy. I’m so pleased I did a little more research prior to getting here as it ended up being one of the highlights of our trip so far. We took an early morning train from Zurich and arrived in to the little medieval storybook village that is  Brig by 10.  We dumped our packs at our gorgeous B & B, and went off to organise our train tickets to the ski village of Zermatt and onward from there by gondola to Switzerland’s most famous peak, and Europe’s highest, The Matterhorn. 

There is a train called the Glacier express which has a full glass roof to really take advantage of the scenery along the way but we would have had to forgo food for a week to afford it so instead we opted for the Matterhorn Gotthard Bahn train, about half the price of the Glacier Express so cost only about $300 for the 4 of us but it still has huge, high and wide windows so we were more than able to enjoy the stunning alpine views, the little villages dotted here and there, the raging rapids and the sheer cliff faces with thundering waterfalls. 

My ears popped more times than I could count as we climbed up towards 2500 meters to the stunning town that is Zermatt. Zermatt is considered a car free town, so apart from a few little electric vehicles that the hotels use to get their guests and luggage to and from the station you can only get around by horse & cart, by bike or on foot. After enjoying looking around the town centre checking out the chalets and boutiques we made our way to the gondola and paid another $300 (gulp!) to continue up to the peak to just below 4000 meters above sea level. Working our way up you could feel the shift in the temperature as quickly as you could see the green of plants & grey of rocks give way to snow. This day was my husband Cenzo’s equivalent of my “sound of music” moment. As an avid skier the Swiss Alps are the pinnacle so the smile on his face and excitement in his voice as he took in the majestic mountains covered in snow in the middle of summer was worth the effort & money spent. He has vowed to return in winter at least once in his lifetime to ski those same slopes, I think we will do that trip once the kids are grown, much to their complaints, as that one is sure to burn a much bigger hole in our pocket! 

After a big day out we we headed back to Brig and continued our splurge with our last dinner in Switzerland at an awesome pub. Sitting in the main square listening to live music and eating savory crepes & potato rosti I felt my first Swiss experience was complete. 

I will be back to explore much more of this amazingly beautiful country only next time I’ll be sure to have a whole lot more in the bank!