Well trained

DD sent me a picture of Swiss cheese last night.

It was part of the dessert plate at a business dinner he was attending in Korea.

Little did he realise that it was the third anniversary of us holidaying together in Switzerland.

I’ve taken it as a sign that I should revisit our lightning trip there in 2016.

Actually, to be honest … it’s just a sign of me being too knackered to come up with a topic for the blog today. Yesterday was a CORKER on the stress scale for me: it included lots of Nurofen and the youngest losing their wallet at the beginning of the day, then missing their bus to skipping training at the end of the day.

Both incidents required mum’s assistance, despite mum already being flat out with crazy work stuff.

Anyways … Switzerland …

After DD and I spent a whirlwind week in Tuscany, we headed to the Swiss-Italian border to catch a scenic train called the Bernina Express over the alps.

It departed from a town called Tirano, where we enjoyed a leisurely lunch beforehand that included sharing an affogato – gelato, freshly brewed coffee and chocolate – a first delicious experience for both of us. Add two macchiatos to the equation and we were heavily caffeinated for the trip!

And off we giddily headed on the best train ride EVER. We spent most of the four-hour journey outside our carriage in the corridor, with our heads out the window letting the wind rush through our hair … Until a German bloke complained we were making him “kalt” in his carriage.

I have no idea why he chose to sit right beside the carriage door in a virtually empty train, but he did. And I have no idea how we were making him “kalt” when the door to his carriage was closed. But he wanted those windows shut SCHNELL!

So we went and sat in our boring seats like boring old people for the last hour.

I wished I could speak German so I could tell him how much joy sticking his head out that little window would bring to his cold heart. I think he’d long forgotten the feeling. Poor, grumpy man.

Ah well, we still had bulk fun.

The scenery was insanely gorgeous. So green and sweeping and majestic and wild and … Oh, it’s impossible to put into words so I’m going to let the photos do the talking …

At our destination we discovered that while Switzerland is a very beautiful country, it’s also a VERY expensive one. Very, very, very expensive.

You know how your local pub has a $10 schnitty special on Tuesdays? The schnitty at our hotel in Davos was $75. Let’s not talk about how expensive the wine was.

Mind you, it was a rather spesh hotel, which we scored for free on points – here’s what it looked like from a distance:

And this was the view from our balcony:

The taxi to the hotel was another heart-starter: about $35 for less than 2km.

We later discovered our hotel had a free shuttle service. Bummer.

We used it the next morning to get to the station for our next train ride to Zurich Airport. We decided to skip the $75 per person buffet brekkie at the hotel and went to a cafe in town instead, where the coffees were the bargain price of $8 each.

The train ride was totally stunning again and had us oooohing and aaaaahing the whole way.

There were lakes and mountains and rolling green hills and veggie gardens and Swiss chalets with flower-filled window boxes and grazing cows, at one point a herd of horses and foals ran beside our carriage.