We left Austin on November 1 and returned on November 25. We spent the first week in England, the next 3 days in Madrid, then 7 days on a fabulous Mediterranean cruise, and finally 4 more days in London. I will add a post for each segment of the trip. For now, here is a map of this trip.
We arrived by train from Grindelwald on Saturday October 19 - an unusual Swiss train trip since it includes two train changes and a replacement bus service(!), but we made it. In Lucerne we stayed at the Grand Hotel National with gorgeous views across Lake Lucerne.
The stay in Lucerne was a bit rainy, but we persisted with our walking tour habit and there is lots to see - both history and wonderful views wherever you look.
On Monday, we took a boat trip to Vitznau, at first thinking we would take the cog railway up to Mount Rigi, but low cloud and rain chased us into a wonderful local restaurant - Nostalgie Bar - where we spent a charming afternoon for an extended late lunch.
That's it for our Switzerland adventure of 2023. We will be back soon - we just love it here!
Updated: Dec 7, 2023
Friday October 13 we took the train from Zurich to Grindelwald, our base for 6 nights to explore the Jungfrau region, staying at the Hotel Bergwelt.
First thing to mention about Grindelwald is the amazing views, including the Eiger and Wetterhorn. Next thing to mention is that the town is weirdly overrun by "Tik Tokkers" - people who roam in twos and threes in garish costumes and take selfie videos every 20 seconds. Annoying, but if you look up and away from the humans, everything is glorious :-). View from our hotel room:
Grindelwald has a great set of gondolas, cable cars and railways to take you up into the mountains in different directions and we made good use of them to do a series of day hikes to explore the region. The trip to Jungfraujoch gave us amazing views of glaciers and the surrounding peaks. Our favorite was hike was from Kleine Scheidegg to Mannlichen on a beautiful day when the views never stopped.
On to Luzern tomorrow!
