Swiss Holiday

On July 2nd, Ani and I headed out from Delhi and DC, respectively, and met up at the CDG airport in Paris. This airport remains one of my least favorite in the whole world. On several occasions I've found it challenging to meet up with people (pre international roaming) here due to the size of the airport and the fact that you have to take buses from terminal to terminal. I had the same worries for this trip since Ani still does not have international roaming. To my surprise everything worked out as planned and we met up at the terminal for inter-Europe flights as scheduled. At the same time, I was glad that I'd allowed for a nearly five hour layover instead of a two hour one because we would have never made the first flight.

In any case, from CDG, we flew to Zurich for the first leg of our two week adventure. I quickly realized that while we've traveled a lot, it has been mostly long weekend trip or extended visits to the US with lots of mini-trips and this would be our first two week vacation!

We arrived in Zurich early in the morning, made the easy transfer to our hotel by train, and then ventured out to explore the city. One of our first stops was Sprungli, a very famous confectionery and home of the famous Luxembourgli.

As we continued down Bahnhofstrasse, we literally stumbled upon Zuri Fascht, a major street festival with rides, games, food and tons of people. So, we wandered the streets, alternating visits to Fraumuenster and Grossmuenster churches with stops for snacks at the various food stalls.

On our second day, we woke up early and caught a train to Arth-Goldau, the beginning of our journey to and up Mt. Rigi, one of the mountains near Lucerne. From Arth-Goldau, we took a train up to the top of the mountain where we enjoyed spectacular views in all directions.

We took the train down part of the way, but hopped off at Kaltbad, where we took a cable car the rest of the way. The ride was great and the views were even better. The cable car ended in the small town of Weggis. We enjoyed a lunch and drinks at a cute restaurant right on the lake. Weggis was a super cute town and we put it on our list, in case we should ever return to Switzerland.

From there we took a ferry to Lucerne, the last stop on our day-long adventure.

After a few hours (and a few drinks), we headed to the train station for our one-hour ride back to Zurich. Since Zuri Fascht was all weekend, we decided to return to central Zurich for a little more adventure. The festival offered a wide-variety of food options, making it an easy and smart place to have dinner. We also stopped into the famous Kronenhalle Bar for a drink, but it was unusually empty, probably because of the festival just outside their entrance.

Soon it was back to the hotel for us for a little packing and rest before we headed to the train station (again) for our trip into Italy!