Wednesday morning we boarded the Eurorail and headed to Zurich. The trip went smoothly and we arrived around noon, got picked up by our driver and spent the afternoon checking out the city. Zurich is a beautiful city especially the old par of the city with its curving cobblestone roads, cafes, and eclectic shops. We quickly found out that Zurich is expensive. We switched from Euros to Francs. Francs are about equal to American dollars and we soon realized that prices were higher on most things in Zurich than in Munich or Vienna. Our hotel, the Seidenhof was a very nice and located in a great area for walking to the train station, bus station, and nearby shops and restuarants.
Thursday morning we walked to the bus station to board a bus for our Mountain, Cheese, and Chocolate tour. The drive through the Swiss countryside was beautiful although it was raining. There were farms and pastures of cows all along the drive with a background of mountains. We visited the small town of Appenzill where we ate lunch and visited some shops before boarding the bus to travel on to chocolate factory. Getting off the bus was a pleasure as we sniffed the wonderful aroma of chocolate. The factory no longer allows tours so we headed to the outlet store where we were able to buy chocolate to bring home.
After that we boarded a boat to ride to the town of St. Gilgen. Beautiful scenery along the way but rain continued to fall as we made our ride to the small town. There we boarded the bus to head to the cheese factory. It was interesting but the cheese was a little stronger than most of us cared to eat. It was a full day and we enjoyed it in spite of the rain.
On our trip we had made new friends with a couple of our fellow bus riders. Peter was from Ireland. He told us about the beauty of his country. He has 9 bothers and 1 sister and described his parents as a "loving couple" who would be married 50 years the end of the month. Hannah was a young lady from Ohio who had just completed an internship in Dublin. She was spending some time traveling around before heading back to the states. Both were delightful and joined our group for lunch. Everywhere we went, we made new friends that will long be remembered!
Thursday morning we walked to the bus station to board a bus for our Mountain, Cheese, and Chocolate tour. The drive through the Swiss countryside was beautiful although it was raining. There were farms and pastures of cows all along the drive with a background of mountains. We visited the small town of Appenzill where we ate lunch and visited some shops before boarding the bus to travel on to chocolate factory. Getting off the bus was a pleasure as we sniffed the wonderful aroma of chocolate. The factory no longer allows tours so we headed to the outlet store where we were able to buy chocolate to bring home.
After that we boarded a boat to ride to the town of St. Gilgen. Beautiful scenery along the way but rain continued to fall as we made our ride to the small town. There we boarded the bus to head to the cheese factory. It was interesting but the cheese was a little stronger than most of us cared to eat. It was a full day and we enjoyed it in spite of the rain.
On our trip we had made new friends with a couple of our fellow bus riders. Peter was from Ireland. He told us about the beauty of his country. He has 9 bothers and 1 sister and described his parents as a "loving couple" who would be married 50 years the end of the month. Hannah was a young lady from Ohio who had just completed an internship in Dublin. She was spending some time traveling around before heading back to the states. Both were delightful and joined our group for lunch. Everywhere we went, we made new friends that will long be remembered!
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