Searching Switzerland
November 16 - November 30, 2022
Oh boy this is a big one. After many years of telling my oldest best friend who lived in Switzerland that I would visit her in Switzerland, I visited her in Switzerland. This trip was truly unforgettable, as I went with my (at the time) girlfriend, Jawz, and left with my now (at the time of writing) fiancé. I got to spend about two weeks in Switzerland and explore many different areas with the love of my life, and my oldest best friend spent a lot of time with us along the journey, showing us her new home. This was a very long trip and we had no stops, so there will be tons of pictures and videos to see. Here’s the broad strokes: Switzerland is a small country, roughly a third of the size of my home state of Pennsylvania, but with WAY more history. The Swiss people seem very standoffish at first, but have absolute hearts of gold. They are so friendly and considerate of each other. Historically speaking, they are the biggest contrarians, not getting involved in either world war, being very socially progressive ahead of the time, and having very good treatment of refuges and the less fortunate. In other ways, they are extremely lawfully good; we were warned that you absolutely DO NOT cross the street without the light being green; if you do, you are being judged HEAVILY (we actually witnessed this happen). The country is absolutely beautiful and every place we visited was stunning. Lastly, the public transportation in the country is phenomenal. We got the Swiss travel pass for two weeks that made trains, buses and trams 100% free while we were there and it allowed us to travel to every corner of the country. It was also super easy to use; there were frequent trains, the SBB app was super easy to use, and trips could be saved in advance to plot out our journeys.
We initially flew into Zurich and got a Swiss Travel Pass for the public transportation. From there, we took a train down to Bern, where we stayed for most of the trip. Our friend Kaila lives in Switzerland and had an apartment in Bern that she graciously allowed us to stay in for free. We explored Bern before we left, so those pictures will be later. Our first batch of pictures is from our trip to Luzern and Mt. Pilatus. Luzern was a cute little town right on the lake. We then took another train to Alpnachstad, where we took the world’s steepest cogwheel train up the mountain to Mt. Pilatus. The views were incredible, and we could see for miles. It was pretty cold and windy at the top of the mountain, so we got warm inside the hotel at the top. We got one of our favorite meals of the trip, Alpine Mac and Cheese, and enjoyed the views before heading back to Bern.
Next up is the big day, the day I asked Jawz to marry me. When we were planning the trip, Jawz mentioned multiple times that she just wanted to see a castle. So Kaila and I planned this day with months in advance. We went to the Chateau de Chillon, which is a small island castle located in Lake Geneva. Like most locations in Switzerland, it was a short train and bus ride away from Bern. Once we got there, I coordinated a signal with Kaila so she knew when I would be asking. I initially planned on asking early in the day, so we could enjoy the day and take more photos around the castle before we explored it all. I scoped out the main courtyard and was all set to ask, but a huge group of probably 40 people came for a guided tour at that exact moment. Instead, we went down into the wine cellar (adjacent to the dungeon) and I said screw it, and asked Jawz to marry me there. Don’t let Jawz tell you otherwise, it was in the wine cellar, not the dungeon. She said yes, thankfully, and we took a lot of pictures around the castle. Kaila also brought some champagne, meat and cheese for us to celebrate, that we ate in the tower of the Chateau.
After our engagement at Chateau de Chillon, we took a quick trip to Lausanne. We walked through the city streets, got coffee, and enjoyed the afternoon. In the evening, we went down to the lakeshore and snapped some photos of the alps and used the 30x zoom on my phone camera to take photos of approximately where the Chateau de Chillon is. At night, we traveled to Yverdon-les-Bains, where Kaila and Nathan live, and enjoyed a fancy dinner with them in town. We tried a special dish called foie gras which was goose liver. Also, enjoy some photos of the engagement ring towards the end!
The following day, we went to Gruyere, where the cheese is from! The town was a cute little village higher in the mountains, with great views of the Alps and country side. There was another castle in the small village that we took a tour of. Additionally, there was the H.R. Giger (best known for designing the xenomorph from Alien) museum in the village as he was a Swiss artist. The museum was pretty heavy, as a lot of his artwork was satanic, dark, and overtly sexualized. There was a lot of weird energy in there. After the castle and museum, we got some souvenirs for family and got fondue from a restaurant. The fondue was INCREDIBLE. We got Gruyere cheese, which they serve in a pot with a heater underneath to melt it. Then you dip bread and potatoes in it. It was very filling but so delicious. Lastly, we stopped to get a small custard treat called meringue, which was a cinnamon pastry with swiss cream drizzled over it. We were joined by Kaila, her boyfriend Nathan, and their friend Aenora.
On Sunday the 20th, we ventured to Interlaken and the St. Beatus caves. Interlaken, which literally means “Between Lakes” (between the lakes of Brienz and Thun), was a quick stop for us before we went to the St. Beatus caves. We walked briefly around the town while waiting for the train to the caves, and saw some people paragliding down from the mountains over the town. We grabbed a quick bus from Interlaken to St. Beatus, which was a small stop. There was literally a small path up the mountain-side to a building built into the side of the mountain. The building was a little restaurant and portal into cave system under the mountain. The caves were naturally formed from an underground stream that then came out of the mountain side near the restaurant and became a waterfall under the mountain-side path. They were super extensive too; we walked for about 35 minutes straight and didn’t even reach the furthest depths. It was super beautiful and we enjoyed a nice lunch at the restaurant before we went back to Bern. We told Nathan and his friends about St. Beatus and none of them had ever heard of it. We looked it up, and their website said “Switzerland’s Best Kept Secret” and it turns out not even Swiss people know about it.
Now we’re jumping to the 23rd of November. Jawz and I took a two day trip to Paris, France, which will be in a separate post on the 21st and 22nd. We also took a trip to Milano, Italy on the 24th and 25th, which will also be in a separate post, so there will be another jump in dates after this section. In between the two mini-excursions, we took a trip to Blausee (literally “Blue Lake”), a small lake up in the mountains. Unfortunately, when we went to Blausee, the spa was closed, but we still spent a lot of time walking around the paths and enjoying the lake. This turned out to be one of our favorite days over the whole trip. The lake was absolutely beautiful, and the views of the mountain were incredible.
After our excursion to Milano, we had a calmer day exploring Neuchatel (literally meaning “New Castle”). This was another town on the lakeside of Lake Neuchatel with a stunning view of the Alps. We got some snacks and walked around the town, stopping to take photos at an overlook of the lake. We also stopped at a bookstore with antique books that dated back as far as the 1400s. Jawz got an old Swiss songbook while Kaila and I looked at old scientific books where they discovered that light was both a particle as well as a wave. There are a few photos from a grocery store because we grabbed a few things to prepare for the Swiss world cup game the next day. I took a photo of Heinz ketchup because I had to show my Pittsburgh Pride even overseas. We stopped at a castle along the way that had statues of wolves at the top of the stairs. A couple with their dog had to coax the dog up the stairs as it had gotten defensive when seeing the statues. The dog started barking at them, thinking they were real and it was really cute.
The next day after Neuchatel, we went to one of the most iconic places in all of Switzerland: Zermatt to see the Matterhorn. This was one of the farther trips in the country, which took us about 3 hours to get to our destination by train. Zermatt was a small little skiing town in the mountains. There were a lot of tourists ready to hit the slopes and we did a bit of shopping through the stores. We then took another small cog-train up the mountainside to see the Matterhorn. At the top, there was a great view of the mountain, some glaciers, and an observatory. We stayed for a few hours, but I started feeling a little lightheaded and short of breath. I was experiencing altitude sickness, which I had never had happen to me before.
We’re nearing the end of our trip; this next section is when we finally explored Bern. The morning of the 28th, there was the annual Onion Festival in Bern. In the city center, there were rows of stands, all selling onion braids and Gluhwein (hot wine). The market started before sunrise, and people from all over Switzerland came from all over the country to walk around and enjoy themselves. I initially went to the market with Kaila and her friend Eva early in the morning, and then returned later with Jawz (Jawz was not feeling well first thing in the morning). In the morning, I got a glass of Gluhwein, which I was skeptical about at first, but was absolutely delicious; it turns out that hot wine is actually really good. One of my favorite parts of the market was that they sold biodegradable confetti bags, which literally EVERYONE, from small kids to elderly adults, bought and threw everywhere. You would just be walking down a row of stalls and get blasted by a face-full of confetti. Additionally, the trams and buses in the city of Bern got DECKED OUT for the festival, by adding two tiny little flags on top of the bus, one for the canton of Bern and one of the Swiss flag. It was really great to see the normally reserved Swiss people “cut loose” a little bit and be more expressive than usual. Jawz and I came back in the afternoon, and then took the time to walk around Bern more than we had previously. We walked to the area where Bern keeps their mascots, two bears, but unfortunately, they were hibernating for the winter. We took a small “incline” down to the riverfront and got some great views of the city from across the river. We then stopped by the Einstein cafe, where Albert Einstein himself lived in the apartment upstairs while he studied and actually discovered the theory of relativity there. We also saw a statue that Kaila made a point to show us of a man eating a sack of children like popcorn, which no one knows why exactly it’s there. Lastly, under the bell tower in Bern, there were these measuring sticks that have been there for centuries to make sure that people shopping in Bern didn’t get shorted when buying things of certain lengths. There were measurements for a meter, two meters and other common measurements at the time.
Ok, this is the last bunch of photos from Zurich. We did not end up having much time here as we got into town late after spending time with Kaila in Bern for our last day. We did get a nice dinner while in town and briefly walked around the streets before we settled back into our Airbnb. A fun story from our adventures before heading out: we got dropped off at the main train station and had to walk about a mile to the Airbnb. We had our suitcases and everything as we were flying out the next day. We had loaded up all of our souvenirs from the journey into Jawz’ suitcase and it was legitimately 75 pounds. I had to drag the suitcase through the cobblestone streets of Zurich. It was so exhausting, and when we finally got to the Airbnb, I had to carry it about another 3 flights of stairs.
