Zermatt and the Matterhorn

[Dated post about trip to Switzerland in May]

It was a rather long, though lovely train ride from Montreaux to Zermatt. 

One nice way to travel to Zermatt would be to take the Glacier Express from St Moritz. 

It'd definitely be a route I'm keen to take next time!

View of the Matterhorn from our room's balcony

The village of Zermatt lies at the southern end of the Matter Valley, which is in the southern part of Switzerland.

The village is almost completely surrounded by the high mountains and the most famous peak is the Matterhorn, at 4,478 m.

A colleague of mine highly recommended that we visited Zermatt. It's an old-fashion looking village that is charming in spite of its popularity with skiers and tourists. The village is a combustion-engine car-free zone, which means that you only see silent, battery driven vehicles around. This makes the air extremely fresh and supposedly helps with a clearer view of the Matterhorn.

 Zermatt is a charming village

You see electric vehicles around.. and they are really quite quiet

There's a Matterhorn museum in the middle of the village

We stayed in a very nice guesthouse in Zermatt with a great view of the Matterhorn. Although it was early May when we were there, there were still plenty of snow around and hence there were still many skiers around, doing a last ski before summer arrives.

It was a pity we weren't able to ski this time around. Nevertheless, we took the cable car ride all the way up to the Matterhorn and enjoyed the great views. Hopefully, I'd be able to visit this place again in the future.. and I can ski then!

 We saw this on our way to the cable car...

Before going up the mountains this time, we made sure we had our lunch first.. 

(Unlike at Jungfrajoch, where we were really starving by the time we came down..)

This is a really HUGE calzone!

Travelling up the Matterhorn

The world turns from green...

To white...

Chateau de Chillon

[Dated post about trip to Switzerland in May]

Château de Chillon is located on the shore of Lake Geneva in 3 km from city centre of Montreux.

Montreux is an interesting city. It's the only French city of Switzerland we visited during our trip.. and it's interesting to suddenly start hearing French being spoken and seeing signs in French, after a couple of weeks of reading German signs and trying to decipher some of the announcements in German.

The Chateau is listed as "Switzerland's most visited historic monument" - it really isn't that very impressive a chateau, but it is very old and made up of many buildings connected to one another, so it was a good place to spend the afternoon exploring.

There were exhibits of witch hunting in Europe when we were there so it was not only an interesting afternoon.. but an informative afternoon as well.

Miniature of the Chateau

Various snaps of the castle

View of lake from the chateau (1)

View of lake from the chateau (2)

View of lake from the chateau (3)

Lake Thun

[Dated post about trip to Switzerland in May]

Interlaken is a town located between Lake Brienz and Lake Thun. We did not really have the intention to visit either lakes as part of our travel. But due to strong winds, we weren't able to visit Jungfrajoch on the first day we were at Interlaken, so we decided to visit Lake Thun and the old town of Thun.

The lake was a beautiful one and I thought actually that the boat cruise we took was almost as nice as the one at popular Lake Lucerne.

The views of the mountains were fabulous that day, as it was a sunny, albeit windy day. We visited a church on the top of a little hill and took many great pictures of the lake and the surrounding mountains.

Ragusa and Nutella

I have been feeling rather tired of late - work has been really hectic and I haven't been sleeping too well. That's why I'm up at 5+am on a Saturday morning!

Well, since I can't sleep, I might as well turn my attention to my neglected blog. I have been reading Ting's posts on her latest trip to Italy recently and one of her posts on this place called Ragusa reminded me about this chocolate bar The Husband picked up for me in Switzerland.

Trying out photo effects with Picasa

Yep, this chocolate is also called Ragusa and I LOVE it!

Ragusa Noir is the dark chocolate version and boy.. it is so delicious! It is not some fancy chocolate that you get from a high street chocolatier. Nope, you can buy Ragusa from almost any supermarket or convenience stores in Switzerland. I wished I ate it whilst I was in Switzerland because then, I would have brought home a luggage bag full of it. Sadly, I only ate it when I came back home and now, I'm waiting for the next time some Swiss colleagues come to Singapore, so I can beg them to buy me a luggage full of it.

Hmph.

Now, I have to describe the taste so you can understand why I like it so much. It's a soft chocolate bar with bits of hazelnut in it. Taste-wise, think of Nutella, the yummy breakfast spread, only in a soft chocolate bar form and less sweet but more chocolatey. Or think of the soft centre of Ferrero Rocher, slightly harder, darker and with nice crunchy hazelnut in it.

Yums.

I haven't been that crazy about a chocolate bar for a long time. I feel like a kid peeling away the tin foil wrapping the soft chocolate bar as I ate this. It really put a smile on my face afterwards and that's a lot for a tiny, inexpensive bit of chocolate.

Speaking of being a kid. Another interesting snack I had recently was from Italy. My parents went to Italy for a holiday recently and came home with a pack of this for me. I felt like I was 10 again. This Nutella snack is very interesting. It comes with some finger biscuits and a Nutella dip for the biscuits, as well as a drink (I think it's lemon tea). All in this compact little container.

Another interesting snack that put a smile to my face. In this case, almost a grin.

Sometimes, small things like these can really brighten up one's day.

Spring blooms

It was spring when we were in Switzerland and the flowers were really blooming everywhere.

Here are some pictures to brighten up your day. Have a happy Wednesday!

Cheery tulips

Love the deep yellow..

More exquisite than any dress

A very nice purple

I thought these are bluebells but the colour is dark purple, almost black

Similar colour, but a tulip instead..

Pretty flowers by the road

These look like butterflies to me

View of Lake Geneva on a cloudy day

View of Lake Lucerne and the Swiss Alps from Weggis

I love tulips - these red ones are lovely!

Don't know what these are but these are beautiful flowers along a random road!

More beautiful flowers by the road..

These were growing indoors at Hotel Hermitage

Jungfrajoch - Top of Europe

The Jungfraujoch railway station, which at an elevation of 3,454 meters (11,332 ft) is the highest railway station in Europe. It is often called the "Top of Europe" in tourist literature.

The Husband and I were keen to go up the Jungfrajoch but our plans were thwarted by poor weather. We stayed at Interlaken for 2 nights and the plan was to take the train up to Jungfrajoch on the first day, and then travel around Interlaken on the second.

Strong winds on Day 1 meant that the trains weren't running. We ended up spending Day 1 at Interlaken and Thun. On Day 2, we were told that the trains were only running up to Wengen, a village part of the Jungfrauregion, located at 1274m above sea level.

Since we didn't have any other plans, we decided to visit Wengen. It is a small, supposedly car free village alpine village and after a short walk round the village, we heard that the trains were running again up to Jungfrajoch.

The weather wasn't too good that day, so although we heard that it is a waste to pay for the (rather overpriced) tickets up to Jungfrajoch because there isn't much to see, we went ahead anyway.

It started snowing lightly as the train climbed up the mountains. The train was packed full of tourists who like us, refused to let the weather thwart their travel plans.

 The tickets were 129 CHF each, even though we had the Swiss Pass

Well, it turned out that we didn't get to see very much indeed - all snow and clouds that day but being from Singapore and Hong Kong, The Husband and I did have a very fun (and freezing) day at the Jungfrajoch train station, roaming around the ice palace and squeezing it out with the hundreds of other tourists. Supposedly with perfect weather conditions, one can see the Aletsch Glacier, the longest ice stream in the Alps clearly and even views stretching as far as France, Germany and Italy.

Views on the way up..

The things you can do at Jungfrajoch - ice palace, viewing points, etc

The ice palace was fun - I was just very afraid of slipping and falling, 

so I held on to the railings like a koala

Nothing much to see outdoors but it was fun because 

it was snowing and FREEZING...

We came down from the Jungfrajoch station via a different route, stopping by another alphine village, Grindelwald for a very late lunch. By then, both The Husband and I were starving so all I really did remember of Grindelwald was the tortilla that I had.

The very yummy tortillas

If you have had an opportunity to visit Jungfrajoch in good weather, do share your photos with me!

Lucerne and Hotel Hermitage

Probably the most famous landmark - Tower Bridge and the octagonal tower

View of Lucerne city from the old city wall

Lucerne was the first city we visited after Zurich.

It is a beautiful city, obviously very popular with tourists as well from the throngs of tourists swamping this place.

We took a boat ride on Lake Lucerne, also called the "Lake of the Four Cantons". A round trip would take something like 6 hours, so we opted to just take a relatively short route - to a small holiday resort called Weggis, where we had lunch and then went back into town.

Photos take from the boat ride

 

I like all the houses and buildings we saw along the way.. 

 Weggis has a beautiful view of the snow topped mountains

Taken at the beautiful resort town of Weggis

Lucerne city itself has 2 other famous sites -  Chapel Bridge with Water Tower and Bertel Thorvaldsen's famous carving of a dying lion. The bridge and tower is probably one of the most famous landmark of Lucerne, if not of Switzerland.

The weather was beautiful when we were there - it was also Saturday and apparently, Saturday is also market day, so we had a nice time strolling around, admiring the beautiful flowers and other sites of the market.

A stroll by the bridge

Market day!

I liked the Lion Monument a lot - I thought the lion really looked very sad, as it probably should since it was to commemorates the hundreds of Swiss Guards who were massacred in 1792 during the French Revolution, when the mob stormed the Tuileries Palace in Paris.

The sad sad lion..

We stayed in a modern hotel called Hotel Hermitage when we were in Lucerne. The hotel wasn't very expensive by Swiss standards, yet I thought it was very good. It was about a 15 mins bus ride from Lucerne train station, yet situated by the lake. We had a large room that had a magnificent view of the lake. This would definitely be a hotel a recommend.. and I would most definitely stay here again when I next visit Lucerne.

 View from our hotel room

 I really like this hotel - and I appreciate the Loccitane toiletries provided