Christmas in Switzerland!

We took the tube to Heathrow Airport by train around 1pm on Friday December 23rd...slightly crazy, but we managed an 1 1/2 later to make it to the airport. The airport was surprisingly calm and easy to get to our gate. We stopped off at the duty free shop for some spirits for our vacation and got a couple of sandwiches for dinner. After going through several long, curvy hallways and staircases we finally made it to our gate...40 minutes before departure, not a soul in sight. Literally, not even an employee! This made us worried that our gate had changed, so we walked all the way back through the curvy and empty hallways to find out in fact our gate hadn't changed, there just must not be anyone there yet...back to the gate we went. We enjoyed a cocktail as we waited for our plane and about 20mins before we boarded the gate was packed! It was a nice easy flight to Basel, Switzerland (right on the boarder of Switzerland, Germany and France. We took the city bus to our hotel by the train station. We checked into our BRIGHT lime green hotel room for the night (they love their bright colors over here!). We had read on the internet that while in Basel you should check out the Bar at the top of the Ramada for great views of the city, so off we went. We got back on the city bus...believe me, I impressed myself with this one too:) and took it to the closest stop to the Ramada. After walking a fairly sketchy poorly lit block we made it safely to the bar...only to find at night in a city you don't know, a bar overlooking the fairly small city isn't all that great. We had our drinks and made our way back to the "lime green inn".

On Christmas Eve we went to the train station (across the street) to take the train to Lucerne, Switzerland. We got to the station and found out the platform we needed (which is kind of intense your first time out of the gate) and realized we had some time, so Jon went in search of coffee and breakfast. Upon return and minutes before our train is to leave he says "Do you have my water bottle?" Me: "No" Jon: "Oh, I set it down when I was taking pictures!" and off he ran to fetch his water bottle, leaving me in a complete panic that we were going to miss our train (those of you who know me well, know I HATE being late and get quite a bit of anxiety about if I think we might be late). Whew! We made the train just in the nick of time! We got all settled in for our hour journey to Lucerne. This is my first time on a train (not subway) so I thought it was the bee’s knees! We loved watching all the scenery go by.



We got off the train in Lucerne and realized we knew our hotel was close, but we didn't have a map or internet...but thanks to the AWESOME travel center in the train station we were all covered. They not only gave us a map with directions to our hotel, but great advice on things to do and when AND Christmas cookies!! Also, since we were there for the 24th & 25th a lot of restaurants were closed and they gave us a list of what was open those days. We knew we had upgraded hotels when upon check-in there was a basket of Toblerone’s! I had planned for us to go to the top of Mt. Pilatus this day, but it was rainy and cloudy and we wouldn't have been able to see anything so we changed gears and walked around the beautiful town of Lucerne. It was really picture perfect! Everyone we had talked to so far in Switzerland said we had to try the Fondue while we were here...so we found a restaurant on the river for lunch that was serving Fondue and basically, we had beer, cheese, bread and potatoes for lunch...yes, take that in for a moment. We were glad we had the rest of the day to walk at least some of it off! The Fondue was delicious and way better than any American version of it that I have tried. However, we were a little surprised when we got the bill (a common theme in Switzerland), the menu said "Fondue for two- 33 CHF" (Swiss Francs), what they fail to mention here on the menu that it is 33 CHF per person! We decided we were glad we did it anyway:)



We spent the rest of the afternoon walking around the Old Town and taking it all in. It's a beautiful town on a lake with a river running through the center surrounded by mountains. We went to a great little wine bar and restaurant for dinner called OPUS. We had some extra time before Christmas Eve service started at 11pm so we walked around some more and stumbled upon another church that was about to start their service and listed to the choir singing Christmas Carols (in German) for about 15 mins. Then we headed to the church we planned to go to. It was so beautiful, the service was in German which made it interesting, but we thoroughly enjoyed it! Back at the hotel we Skyped with some of our family and friends to wish them all a Merry Christmas!



On Christmas Day we woke up to a clear blue sunny sky! This was our day to go to the top of Mt. Pilatus and the weather couldn't have been more beautiful. We took the city bus to the closest stop by the mountain. (Let me just say here, with all of the city buses we took on our trip we were never asked for a ticket or proof of purchase, we found this a little strange.)Once off the bus we walked 7 or 8 blocks to the start of the cable car ride. We took a cable car 3/4 of the way up the mountain and then got into a gondola (about 1/2 hour total). The views of this ride we incredible, we had such a great time looking at everything! At the top of the mountain we were left breathless with the panoramic views of snow capped mountains and lakes. What an amazing way to spend Christmas Day! There was a little restaurant where we had lunch and tried Elchhof beer while looking out over the mountains. While we were up there a guy proposed to his girlfriend! We decided he should get a free pass a lot over the coming years...all he has to say is "remember the day we got engaged" and she's sure to forget why she might have been upset! On our way back to town while waiting for the bus we found a Swiss vending machine (see pictures on link)...hilarious!!!



The rest of the day was pretty low key as we were pretty tired with our late night Skyping! We still needed to get our postcards...but the cheapest we could find were 1.20 CHF per card, geez! We only bought a few. We walked around town some more and decided to pop into a little pub for a beer before we went for dinner. We ordered two pints of the local beer, we got our beer and our bill and it was 18CHF for 2 beers...this about gave Jon a heart attack, especially when we've had this same beer several times since we've been here for 3CHF apiece. As we all know Jon loves a deal and hates being ripped off...this just really ruined his beer drinking experience:( So we went off to find a place for dinner and cheer Jon up! We found a cute little Italian place (our options were very limited being Christmas Day) and shared a salad and pizza, it was just was we wanted. We went back to our hotel to Skype some more and go to bed early as we had an early train to catch in the morning.

Wir hoffen, dass Sie alle hatten ein sehr lustig Christfest! Auf Wiedersehen fur jetzt...


Click here for pictures: Sorry, some are out of order...I spent a very long time putting them in the correct order and when I logged back in to snapfish they were all messed up again!

http://www2.snapfish.com/snapfish/thumbnailshare/AlbumID=7920029007/a=53561785_53561785/otsc=SHR/otsi=SALBlink/COBRAND_NAME=snapfish/

Next blog...Salzburg, Austria!