In Wettswil, just outside Zurich

Today we spent most of the day travelling. The weather is raining and misty and not conducive to sightseeing, so we decided to head for Zurich this morning. We had some lovely yogurt for breakfast at the hotel, so we found the source before we left and bought some. It is a dairy cooperative which operates in this little village, and they produce their yogurt in 10 flavours, in little glass bottles. We also had some local goat cheese. Wish I could have spread it on the wonderful smelling rogenbrot that is also made in the village.

We boarded the bus for the  40 minute trip down, down, down to Domodossola, in Italy. After a quick but delicious espresso, we boarded a train with wonderful panoramic windows, for the 2 hour trip through the Centrovalli. This is a video of the trip. It was so picturesque, with deep chasms, a waterfall tumbling down the vertical valley walls every hundred feet, and beautiful green valleys.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rS21iAry3y4

That train trip ended in Locarno, Switzerland, where we had lunch at the train station, before the 3 hour trip to Zurich. Another fantiastic journey, and it snowed during the trip. We exited one tunnel to find the snow piled up 8 inches deep. All the mountains were snowcapped, and the evergreens were lovely, as if they had been lightly sprayed with fake snow.

When we arrived in Zurich, we ran for the tram, then ran for the bus, which took us to this small town outside Zurich. Maria, Josef's partner, had made a lovely homecooked meal, the first for me since Gordon's albergue, and before that, the last one was with Meghan and Cy the night I left home.

So, I expect to spend a week doing day trips and taking it easy before returning to Toronto on Oct 27.
Stay tuned for more adventures!

Darlene

In Switzerland, at Hotel Fleichhorn in Simplon-Dorf

All went well with the trip to Switzerland.  I was worried about the weight allowance for carry-ons, so I weeded my backpack thoroughly, and then they never even weighed it at the airport. I had also put a lot of stuff in my pants pockets, so of course when I went through security, they made me empty them into a tray, and the security guard made a comment - looks like a supermercado (supermarket). I flew Easyjet, and you cannot book seats, so seating was a free for all. We also walked across the tarmack both times to get on and off the jet.

Josef met me at the airport, and the hotel was only one stop away on the subway. Up for breakfast - would you believe the hotel had no cereal without gluten, in the country that invented bircher meusli?
Lots of bread and pastries and cheese and cured meats, though.

We took a train along the side of Lake Geneva. It was a 2 hour ride through a beautiful countryside, and when we entered the canton of Wallis (Valois) the intensive farming was remarkable. The mountain sides are all terraced, with many of them growing grape vines. We had lunch at Brig, then caught a postal bus up the mountain to the Simplon pass - at 4000 meters above sea level. Wow - the vertigo was hard to control, but I kept telling myself that the bus drivers do this many times a day, and we don't hear about buses and cars falling off the  mountain. They truly are works of great engineering.

We are stayiing in Simplon-Dorf, down a few feet from the top. The weather is either misty - that is, in the midst of clouds, or raining, so we wandered around the town and visited a museum about the building of the Simplon Pass. Dinner was another challenge - no fish or chicken on the menu, and no vegetables either, but I ended up eating rosti with cheese and tomatoes, and it was truly delicious. And they are letting me use the office computer to write this, so I am grateful for their generosity.

Tomorrow we will get back on the bus for a 30 minute ride down the mountain ( I think) and into Italy for lunch at Domodoloroso, or something like that. Then the canton of Tessine, which is very Italian. On the train ride the announcements were always in German, but sometimes also in French, and or English. But English is a fourth or fifth language here, so the menus are not always translated into English, and neither were the captions in the museum. In Spain I could puzzle out the general meaning, but here I am lost with German.

Wish I were multilingual, instead of lingually handicapped.

Darlene