Grandma and Grandpa Robison Visit: Part 1

In the middle of September my grandparents were able to visit us.  My grandpa loves mountains and my grandma loves chocolate, so of course they needed to come to Switzerland!  They arrived on a Tuesday, but ended up being delayed four or five hours because of mechanical troubles in Toronto.  Luckily, they were able to get some sleep on the plane because as soon as they dropped off their stuff at the apartment, I rushed them out the door to see downtown Zurich!  But first, every good Swiss trip starts off with chocolate!

Grandma and Grandpa's welcome gift, a piece of delicious Lindt chocolate

Showing them around downtown Zurich, it was a beautiful day

Hanging out with Darren at the Zurich Arboretum after he got off work

And every good Swiss trip starts off with dinner at Zeughauskeller, also!  Yes, I have the perfect itinerary down now after so many visits.  So we took them there that first night and it was delicious as always.  It was so fun to see them enjoy all the little things I like about Switzerland, too, like the special French dressing and German-style potato style.

The next morning, since it was a bit cloudy, I had us do some indoor things.  We drove down to Gruyere to visit the chocolate and cheese factories.  They had fun trying all the samples of chocolate at the Cailler factory and seeing how cheese was made at the Gruyere factory.  Then we headed into Gruyere to have lunch at the same delicious restaurant I took Dad and Macy to called Restaurant La Fleur de Lys.  Now that I have tried fondue in a bunch of different places in Switzerland, I have decided this restaurant has the best.  Grandma and Grandpa loved it, too.

Grandpa and I trying to decide what chocolate to buy

Grandma in heaven at the chocolate taste testing station at Cailler

Me eating the delicious fondue at the restaurant in Gruyere

After walking around the very cute town of Gruyere, we drove down to see the Olympic Museum in Lausanne on Lake Geneva.  Like me, Grandma loves the the Olympics, so I was excited to take her there.  In addition, both Grandpa and I did high jump in high school, so we enjoyed goofing off at the museum.

Grandma and Grandpa at the Olympic Museum

Grandpa and I trying to high jump over the world record height, I don't think we made it

Trying to get over the high jump by other means

My grandparents next to beautiful Lake Geneva

After visiting the museum, we walked a few blocks to have dinner at a creperie that I had wanted to try.  A friend in Zurich had recommended it to me when we went there last time with Dad and Macy, but we weren't able to go.  All of us got one savory and one sweet crepe and it was delicious. 

One of the crepes we ate, yum!

After dinner, we drove back to Zurich to get some rest.  The next day was going to be sunny, so I took them to the best place in Switzerland: Interlaken!  We took the train up to Kleine Scheidegg and had a great picnic lunch.  Then we hiked from there over to Mannlichen to see some more great views.

Me and Grandpa at Kleine Scheidegg

Me and Grandma with Grindelwald in the background

Doing our Sound of Music picture at Mannlichen

We took the cable car from Mannlichen back down to Wengen and got some souvenirs at one of my favorite stores.  From there, we took the train back down to Lauterbrunnen and headed home.  We had a late dinner with Darren after he got off work and then went back home.  More to come in the next post!

Ticino, Lake Como, and Graubünden

On Sunday, after we left church, we got our things together for an overnight stay and drove down to the Italian part of Switzerland.  Darren had planned the whole road trip, so it was fun to find out what he was interested in seeing.  We stopped first in Bellinzona, since Darren hadn't seen the old castles there and I took him to the best two.  It was much warmer than the last time I was there back in February!

Darren at one of the old castles in Bellinzona

Looking from Castle Montebello to Castelgrande

Me on the grounds surrounding Montebello

The inner parts of Montebello

It was after we visited the castles that Darren realized the camera was on the wrong setting and fixed it.  Good thing he pays attention to these things.  After seeing the castles in Bellinzona, we drove farther down Switzerland to another cute town in the Ticino region called Lugano, which is on Lake Lugano.  This is a popular vacation spot for the Swiss who like to experience the Italian culture without the Italian chaos. :)  We walked along the lake and stopped to have a great dinner next to the water.  The sun set and rain clouds started to roll in while we were at dinner, so we walked back to our car with small rain drops falling on us.

Camera fixed!  Pictures are big again!  Me next to Lake Lugano

We left Lugano and drove along very, very tiny roads (it was a little tense when cars would squeeze by going the other direction) to leave Switzerland for the famous Italian region of Lake Como.  Lake Como is the third largest lake in Italy and because of its clear waters, pleasant weather, and idyllic mountain views, it has been a popular vacation destination since Roman times.  Many celebrities have homes somewhere on Lake Como, including most famously, George Clooney.  

We drove through Italy to the northwestern part of the lake and ended up in a small town called Gravedona where Darren had booked a hotel for that night.  Since it was dark, we didn't get to see the amazing view from the hotel right away, but we unpacked our things and read for a bit before going to sleep.  In the middle of the night there was a big thunderstorm that rolled through the area.  Lightning was flashing all over the place outside, but there was just a small amount of thunder.  By morning, the skies were completely clear and we got up early to look at the fantastic view from our balcony.

The view of Lake Como and the town of Gravedona from our balcony in the morning

Another great view of Lake Como

We got up, had a delicious breakfast, and then enjoyed some time by the pool before we had to leave.  Darren knew I had wanted to take a beach vacation this summer, but with our busy travel schedule, we had never made it to a beach location, so he was nice enough to plan this time for me to enjoy some sun.

Our hotel from where the pool was

Soaking up some sun, but never seeming to get any more tan

Darren did a few laps in the pool

We then left Gravedona and drove around the northern side of the lake over to the town of Varenna.  We then took a ferry boat over to the popular resort town of Bellagio, which is located on the point where the lake separate into two parts.  The Bellagio Hotel in Las Vegas is named after this place.  Even for a random Monday afternoon in September, the town was still busy.  We enjoyed walking around the cute small streets before having a delicious lunch of prosciutto with melon and fresh pasta.  We also enjoyed eating food for only 9 Euros!

One of the ferries on Lake Como

The town of Bellagio on Lake Como

Us on the Bellagio waterfront

Me on a cute street

We didn't spend all day at Lake Como because Darren wanted to take a drive through southeastern Switzerland while we were in the area.  So we left Bellagio to get our car and then drove up from Lake Como back into Switzerland.  The southeastern part of Switzerland is called Graubünden.  This area has some of the world's best ski resorts at St. Moritz and Davos and contains the Swiss National Park.  The whole country feels like a national park to me, so that must be saying something about this area if the Swiss single it out in that way.  Our drive took us through the Engadine Valley and we found that the area was really beautiful as promised.

We stopped at a very small town close to the Italian border called Soglio.  Darren had figured out earlier that this was where the picturesque town was that is on the cover of our Switzerland travel guide.  It really was a super cute town and seemed like nothing had changed in hundreds of years.

The view from the windy road up the mountain to Soglio

A comparison of the cover and the real thing

Us in front of the famous view from Soglio

Darren with a great mountain background

After out quick stop in Soglio, we continued our drive and passed through both St. Moritz and Davos.  With huge hotels, restaurants, and spas all around, these two cities were a stark constant with the quaint, old towns just down the valley and they weren't that appealing to us.  Though, I imagine they are more beautiful in the winter with the great skiing and the celebrity clientele.  We then made our way back home from there.  What a relaxing and fun weekend!  I think after that trip, we have hit every major city in Switzerland with the exception of Basel.  We feel pretty good that we have made an effort to explore a lot our temporary home.

Arosa, Switzerland

After the Bakers left, we spent the next weekend (which was Labor Day weekend in the US) just recovering.  Darren technically had Labor Day off, but he went to work anyways.  The weekend after that, Darren had a Swiss half-holiday on Monday.  This was the last Swiss holiday until Christmas (though, this year Christmas is on a Sunday, so they don't get the holiday, yeah it sucks).  Anyways, Darren wanted to make sure we used his last (half) day off for a while.  So we did a bunch of fun things that weekend, starting with a day trip on Saturday.

That Saturday, we rented a car and drove up to a mountain town called Arosa, which is a popular hiking and skiing area. On the way up, we hit stopped traffic where police told us we would be waiting only for a little while.  We didn't know why we had to stop, though we thought maybe it was an accident, but I was happy to get off the windy road for a bit because I was a little carsick.

The line of cars stopped on the road

More cars waiting farther down the road

The view from the road, not a bad place to stop!

A fantastic Ferrari only a few cars ahead of us

We only had to wait fifteen minutes before we were off again to go up more windy roads to Arosa.  We finally figured out that there were car races taking place on the road to Arosa.  We realized that we arrived in the area right before they took an afternoon break of racing and opened the road again, what luck!  Darren bravely drove up windy roads in traffic with a stick shift for the next twenty minutes.  I think he's ready to be in a car race himself.  We finally arrived in Arosa and parked our car in free(!) parking.  Yes, that's what I said, something was free in Switzerland!  We walked through town to get to a gondola while taking pictures of the cars lining up for the next race.

Some classic cars lined up to race

Some more modern cars in the race, too, including my love

We bought an all-day pass for the town of Arosa for only 13 Francs!  So cheap!  Arosa is a good place to go if you are on a budget.  We took two gondolas to get to the top of the Weisshorn, which is at an elevation of 8,700 ft.  The view was pretty, but the area around Arosa is much drier than other parts of Switzerland, so there weren't lush, green mountains, as in the Berner Oberland.  We walked down a bit from the top and stopped to have our picnic lunch.  A picnic lunch on top of a beautiful mountain is my favorite thing in the world.

Darren on the Weisshorn

Our picnic spot, man my legs are white

Hiking down from the Weisshorn

We then hiked down from the Weisshorn and ran into a lot of cows, which I was thrilled about.  Darren tried to get me to pet one, but I was a little nervous and they kept walking away from me whenever I would come near.  We did come upon a farmer gathering up the cows to be milked and Darren took a video of it.  Just in case you didn't know, all of our videos are shot in HD, so where it says 360p on the bottom of the video menu, you can click that and select 720p instead to see a sharper video.  I know you are like me and want to view the cows in the best available resolution. ;)

A cute Swiss cow

We only hiked down to the lower gondola and then took that down to the town.  Since we had an all-day pass, we decided to go over to the small lake in the middle of town and rent a paddle boat.

Passed a beautiful Lamborghini on the way to the lake

The small lake in Arosa

In the paddle boat, enjoying the sun, and not helping paddle at all

After we were done paddling, we had to wait another 30 minutes for the races to end for the day and the road to open up again.  I got a sausage and we shared some ice cream while we watched the cars come down the finish line.  It was really funny because on the road was a permanent radar sign telling cars to slow down as they entered the small town.  Watch the video below to see how it reacted to these race cars speeding by. ;)

The races were just timed, since it would be dangerous to pass someone on the windy road

A view of the beautiful drive home

We left Arosa and had a beautiful drive home and arrived back Saturday night.  Next time, I will talk about what we did Sunday and Monday.