The Great European Adventure - Part 2: Switzerland

SWITZERLAND
Switzerland was so idillyc it felt a little bit unreal. There were so many picture-postcard perfect little towns with tiny little houses with pointy roofs and cute little windows brimming over with flowers, and ornate little fountains on every street, and clocks, lots of clocks everywhere, and I could hardly imagine people having normal lives where they actually put on workclothes and commuted to work everyday...it seemed like they'd just get distracted on the way and stop for a coffee or icecream at a sidewalk cafe instead. and enjoy the beatiful view of the town square.
I went to Switzerland for 2.5 days to visit the Guptara's in Zurich, expecting that 2 days might be a bit rushed to see one city but it would be a start. Instead my hostess Anjali ended up planning a crazy whirlwind tour where I ended up seeing 2/3rds of the country, including 4 different cities, 4 different small towns, and in fact 2 coutries since we ended up seeing two towns in Germany as well - all in 2 days. It was quite the adventure. We bought a train pass that gave us unlimited train travel anywhere in Switzerland for the day, and it definitely helped that most of the cities are very conveniently spaced about an hour apart from each other.

So we started with a pinic brunch in Luzerne, where we fed some swans and then almost got attacked by the hungry little citters:
Then we sat in a train to the capital, Berne, and as we neared the city I was surprised to hear someone call out my name, which was weird since I know about 2 people in Switzerland and one of them was sitting in front of me, and I had no idea where the other one was...but lo and behold, there was Ariadna from IHouse, the one other person I know from Switzerland, who happened to be, of all the places she could have been in, in the same city on the same train on the same day at the same time in the same compartment as me!! Crazy
Berne was quaint, that's really the word to describe most of the places I saw in Switzerland. We did the whole town in an hour and saw a pit full of bears and then climbed to a hill and took a nap among the roses.







Switzerland is full of these cute little fountains on every square...like this one of a goblin in the process of dismembering and devouring little children!



































We ended up having dinner in Basel, and back to Zurich for a night-time boat-cruise on the lake.
The next day we saw Konstanz (Germany), Meersburg, which is an adorable little town on a hill by the sea and houses Germany's oldest castle, and a couple of little towns along the Rhine valley.
























I loved getting to go to church in Zurich on Sunday morning - here at one of the centers of the birth of the Reformation, getting to see the church where Zwingli first preached from and urged the people to go back to a gospel that was about loving God and others and for the poor and oppressed, the start of a movement that ended up leading to where I'm at today....it was cool.
























Sunset on the Rhine valley from the plane, Zurich to Berlin.