Discovering Switzerland

Our two-week trip around the country

 

By turning the pages of the Swiss calendars that we sell in the store, and seeing lots of beautiful places we have never set foot in, we thought it was time to pack our bags and go explore all of this with our own eyes :-)

The minimum subsistence level piled up in the back of the car, the tank fills, our seatbelts fastened and we are ready to set off to explore our country. We will tell you what we saw, the things we liked and the things not to do.

We booked two weeks in September, set some mandatory checkpoints to visit and the rest was freestyle.

 

SATURDAY
Left Lausanne in a rush on Saturday afternoon, we decided at the last moment to orient our first night in a chalet near Leysin. Initially, we thought we were heading towards Valais, but the pace being launched, here we are set off to start our tour with the Upper country.

Sunday
On the very pleasant road which leads to Château d'Oex, we stopped at l'Etivaz, known for its good cheese (which looks a bit like Gruyère) which we tasted at the foot of the church of Œx Castle located on a big bute in the center of the village.

We took the opportunity to visit the Museum of the old Pays d'Enhaut, which sums up the art of Swiss carving and other stories from the region. Very nice ! A nice step back in time. Several cutouts really impressed us! The very well done audio guide allowed you to walk quietly in front of the works and other ancient objects. On the ground floor I found the old wooden key to close the latch through the hole in the door brilliant. (I didn't think about taking a picture of it at the time, but if someone goes and he can take a picture of it, I would be very grateful)

My favorite of the museum: a cutting of Ms. Boillat ! I dare not imagine the number of hours of work it took to create such a work (out of respect for copyright I did not publish a photo too close on purpose):

After the museum we continued our journey towards Gstaad. On the way we found a very nice hotel in Saanen, with a beautiful view of the Gstaad region. And it was without realizing we had crossed the barrier of Rösti :-) A few minutes before we spoke French with the nice gentleman of the Museum, and now we are off to throw grüetsi  to all goes. Long live Switzerland !!

MONDAY
After a good night's sleep and a wonderful breakfast buffet, we hit the road again until Thun.
I hadn't realized how peaceful this city was! The last time I was there, it was for 3 months to do my compulsory military service, and apart from Bier Halle and jogging at dawn along the river I had never taken the time to visit this city. What a mistake: The wooden bridge, the old streets leading up to the castle, the little restaurants by the river ... Very, very pretty.

We then continued our route along the north of Lake Thun to Interlaken (located as the name suggests, " between Lake Thun and Lake Brienz). What is funny is that the day before we went from French to German in 5 minutes, and there in 5 minutes it's downright from German… to Chinese that we switched;) !! No, but this town is sick! He has Chinese everywhere! at the same time everything is done for them! even at the cash desks of supermarkets it is marked in Chinese !! I have nothing against the Chinese, be careful! it is even thanks to them in part that I can afford to wander in my country :-) But even as many in the middle of the mountains it still has its effect :-)
Not having obviously (as usual) reserved any room, we decided to spend the night in a campsite by the river. We had all the gear in the car, so no worries. We even had a good fire to warm us up.

TUESDAY
We folded the tent to 8h. We left the car at the campsite and took two train tickets to climb to the top of the Jungfrau : - / Here is the first precious advice we can give you: Look at the summit webcam before taking your train ticket !!! It was BIG BEAUTIFUL in Interlaken! a beautiful cloudless blue sky .. and from below we cannot see the top of the Jungfrau .. so it did not cross our mind for a second that we were going to pay the 102 CHF the worst invested in the trip ... and yeah 102 balls (and with the half-price!) to get to the top and see that, in 360 °:

When we know that behind the fog there is this:

History to put a layer, you should know that it takes about 2h30 (and 2 change of train) to go up from Interlaken to the top !! 2h30 tight in a train listening to Mandarin in 5.1 surround sound ...
If we had to do it again: we would check the summit webcam (the weather is not enough!), And by car, we would go to Lauterbrunen or Grund, near Grindelwald! (The first section of the train does not add much ..)

To change your mind on the way down, take a walk of a few kilometers between the Eigergletscher stop and Alpigen (approx. 2 hours walk), which runs along the legendary north face of the Eiger.

WEDNESDAY
We leave Interlaken, to go not far, to Bellenberg, the Swiss open-air museum. The concept is nice: nearly a hundred chalets from all regions of Switzerland have been dismantled and rebuilt on a huge area about 3 km long! There are all kinds of them, Valais mazots, Bernese bourgeois chalets, Freiburg farms, etc. Imagine dismantling a chalet (of several floors), transporting it and reassembling it elsewhere? it's a sick thing !! We thought we could do the tour in an hour quickly ... we will have stayed there for 5 hours! In addition to viewing the chalets from the outside, exhibits and other related decorative items have been added to the interior.

At the end of the visit we called a friend who lives in Bellinzona, who had offered to accommodate us when we had told her about our plan to tour Switzerland. And it turns out that that night was the only night of our trip that was going for her! So we accelerated the end of the visit and traced the road to Bellinzona. And we took a extraordinary road to succeed !! wilderness of beauty across the mountains and the magnificent pass of Sustenpass ! a little traveled road Zigzagging in the mountains, on bridges, tunnels, more bridges, it always rises higher and exceeds the tree line, there is no home .. beautiful. My Coup of heart of trip !

Less funny but interesting, once we went through the small tunnel at the top to go down to the other side of the mountain we found ourselves in a super thick fog! A huge contrast between the blue sky on one side and the fog on the other. For those who came in the opposite direction, who got all the climb in the fog and who arrived at the top seeing this beautiful blue sky had to be a truly magical moment!

So we continued our descent in the fog until Andermatt, , from where we took the mythical Via Tremola. A historic axis between the north and the south of Europe. It is also the longest construction in Switzerland: 13 kilometers, 37 hairpin bends and several million cobblestones… It goes from the Saint-Gothard pass (2106 m) to Airolo, 900 m below. was used for years by mail trunks. But with the increasing number of vehicles, a new road was built (from 1967 to 1977).

That was Via Tremola when we were there:

but without the fog it gives rather that ;-)

We arrived in Bellinzona in the evening, we found our friend, we had a good meal and not long after sleep after a busy day.

THURSDAY
Lift quietly. Small visit of Bellinzona in the morning with climb to the top of the Castelgrande tower.

Very charming this small town, far from tourist trails and (suddenly) very nice :-). Departure late in the morning for the Val Versasca, with at the beginning, the great dam where the film James Bond: Goldeneye was filmed. It's still impressive, nearly 220m high! and above all it is possible to bungee jumping! .. I obviously would have done it .. but it was a shame, that day, the attraction was closed ;-)

Continuing through the valley we came across the famous stone bridge: Ponte Del Salti. Fairly busy I was lucky to be able to take the picture without anyone on it and without a big tourist bus behind.

A good pizza in a restaurant a little further down the valley (Pizzeria Ai Piée), then down the valley and visit Locarno in the middle of the afternoon. Not much to say about it, we did a little tour .. but nothing in particular to see .. We returned to Bellinzona in the early evening to have a drink with our friend before she took her train to go to Lausanne, and continued this improvised evening with a nice tour bars in Bellinzona (you should know that in Ticino, they often offer food in bars, so no reason to go and eat elsewhere ;-) Evening that will end in style with a legendary karaoke in the bar the Clava ;-) where I also discovered a super good Italian alcohol: Amaro Montenegro

FRIDAY
Difficult awakening .. Rainy day. Our friend left us the keys to her apartment and we took the opportunity to spend a quiet day in the area.

SATURDAY
We leave Bellinzona and Ticino for Graubünden where Weather-Switzerland promises us a better weather. The weather forecasts have not been wrong and we are looking at the Landwasser Viadukt under a blue sky.

Lunch at the restaurant next to Filisur station. We then drop off the car in Preda and walk to Bergün (7 km, 2 hours walk). A very pleasant walk lined with red signs explaining the creation of this incredible railway (Official name: Rhaetian Railway).

Built between 1889 and 1913, it is a gem of civil engineering. The tunnels link the bridges, each more beautiful than the next. You have to see it on a map, because even on board the train you don't necessarily realize it, but tunnels spiral in the mountain to gain altitude in order to reach the level of the bridges above. incredible work.

The walk ends in Bergün from where we finally take the Bernina train back to Preda (9 CHF per ticket). You have to admit that it's almost more impressive from the outside than from the inside of the train;)

We take the car back and then drive to Scuolat the bottom of Graubünden, passing by roads that seem to lead to the end of the world.

Sunday
Scuol, located in the Engadine region, is famous (in part) for its pure water and thermal baths. So we made it a point in the morning to go for a dip in hot water in the center of the village. It was nice, but the water could have been a few degrees more ... and the old hairy kekettes in the naturist area were less pleasant to look at than the surrounding mountains :-)

A beautiful tourist photo as we like them;)

We left Scuol and the rain in the late morning to join Appenzell (Road 2h30 and a new pass, under the snow, followed by full of long tunnels of sick)

It's impressive to go from a hostile snow-covered pass to the green meadows of Appenzell in less than an hour.

We arrived at the Wasserauen car park in the middle of the afternoon from where we took the cable car to Ebenalb. We booked two dormitory places in the chalet at the top (43 CHF per person), and took a one hour walk through la Wildkirchli and the famous hostel / hotel Aescher (second favorite of the trip) where I will drink a delicious glass of Appenzeller. To finish in style, we even saw edelweiss in front of the chalet :-)

MONDAY
Descent on foot to the plain where the car awaits us (1h30 walk… for 6 minutes by cable car…).
We then visited the Appenzeller cheese dairy. The smell of cheese whips your face when you get home, but you get used to it quickly :-). And seeing the big machine that continuously turns the cheese wheels is still funny.

A pretty road follows along Lake Constance to the famous Rhine Falls in Schaffhausen.
Maybe we're a little jaded, or maybe it was the season (in summer the water flow is almost twice as high) but frankly these Rhine Falls are not necessarily worth the detour. If you're in the area, ok, but don't drive 200 kilometers to see this.

We continued our journey south, crossing Zurich without stopping so that we could visit before its closure the famous Abbey ofEinsiedeln..
..hmm .. it's beautiful, but the interior is a bit kitsch for my taste. However, I still admire what religion is capable of making men build ...

(the photo is not from us, part of it was in scaffolding and you especially need to have a super wide-angle to be able to shoot so closely)

A good night's sleep follows in the pretty Marina Lachen hotel a few kilometers away.

TUESDAY
Very good lunch buffet :-)
Displacement up to Ibach, where the famous Swiss army knife Victorinox was born. Who would have believed that such a landscape would give birth to one of the most famous pocket tools in the world:

Visit of Ibach, where the factory is located Victorinox, unfortunately the only thing that you can visit from the factory ... is a store bringing together all Victorinox knives and accessories. We then went on to the museum dedicated to the Swiss Army Knife: the "Swiss Knife Valley" 10 minutes away, in the small town of Brunnen, at the edge of Lake Lucerne. Nice, especially the video that shows the creation of knives! You can even build your own knife and then have it engraved!

We continued our journey to Lucerne in order to visit transport museum. Third favorite of the trip: Awesome! As much for the little ones as for the big ones. On its own it is worth coming from Lausanne. There are huge old locomotives, you can ride in an old Swissair plane, visit the last Migros bus that delivered the products to the villages, educational games to every corner, etc. Very cool ! In three hours we haven't all seen.

Then crossing Lucerne in traffic jams at the end of the day, with a picture super fast made of the famous Kapellbrücke under the scaffolding (built in 1332, it deserves a small facelift between two fires :-).

WEDNESDAY
Due to the bad weather in the days to come we decided to abandon Lucerne where we wanted to visit the Rigi or the Pilatus as well as the Biosphere, to head north, to Aargau, more precisely to the Hallwyl Castle (800 years old). Nice visit thanks to the audio guide, but nothing more. Our Chillon castle is still more impressive ;-)

Transfer to Bern, where we will say hello to the bears in their pits. We must admit that they are royally bored. Seriously, guy, the only thing he has to do is watch his mate pawn!

We continued by visiting the interior of the Zytglogge. It is a big tower in the center of Bern with an astronomical clock built in 1530. It was beautiful to see a 500 year old mechanism still working perfectly .. it is a change from iPhones ;-)

An old friend who lives in Bern at the moment, welcomed us to his place to spend the night.

THURSDAY
We left Bern in the morning to head back to Lausanne. On the road we decided to go and visit one last unmissable monument: Castle Gruyère. The visit begins with a nice video on the history of the castle and the region, followed by a classic stroll through the rooms covered with paintings by the last owner. It should be known that the castle passed between several hands, its construction began in 1270, and several counts of Gruyère passed it on until the bankruptcy of one of these in 1554. The cities of Friborg and Bern then followed. shared his land, and it was finally put up for sale in 1849 to be bought by ... a private family! Can you imagine that? Living in such a castle, it's crazy :-) It was finally bought by the State of Friborg in 1938 which founded a museum there.

We took a whirlwind tour of the Giger Museum and the bar of the same name. This artist who notably created the creature from the film Alien, opened a strangely large museum with an impressive amount of dark and fantastic works of all kinds (museum not recommended for children ;-)

We ended our tour of Switzerland in style with a fondue and cottage macaroni at the Tsalé restaurant in Les Paccots. We arrived in Lausanne around 19 p.m. where we had to put away a mountain of mess that had accumulated in the car for almost two weeks, and 1463 kilometers :-)