On June 9, we flew into Basel, Switzerland from Antalya, Turkey. We spent a day walking around the city seeing some of the sites before we rented a car and headed out on a two-week driving tour.

We were walking down a pedestrianized area when we came upon this beautiful RED building.


The 500 year old building houses the city hall and dominates the "Marketplatz" where fresh flowers, produce and gifts are sold from small stalls in the market square while tolley buses roll past the neighbouring shops. The building has ornately painted walls with scenes, carved wooden doors and decorative windows. It really is a very beautiful building.

We sat in front and had our morning coffee and croissant while watching the locals purchase their fresh produce from the vendors. We did comment to each other that produce doesn't compare at all with the lovely fresh produce we are able to buy in Turkey. We've been spoiled that past few years with the freshness and flavour of our produce.



And of course, the clock still works. You would expect nothing less in Switzerland!

As in many places in Europe, cycling is so popular and we frequently saw dedicated bicycle parking.




Above was our view from the balcony on our overnight stay in Fiesch. In the distance we could see paragliders coming down from a nearby mountaintop.

We were told by the owner of the hotel that until recently, this community would have often been cut off for parts of the winter due to the narrow, winding roads coming over the mountain pass. A new rail tunnel now enables people and cars to arrive eliminating the worst of the dangerous Alp highway.




Above is a glacier as seen from the highway on our way through the Alps to Zermatt.


We travelled through beautiful scenery on our way to Zermatt but at times the road could be a little nerve racking. You can see the "switchback" road to the right of the photo.


This was a very typical mountain chalet as we drove. We wondered what the purpose would be of the round flat stone. Later we decided possibly it would keep animals from climbing up and into the structure.

We parked our rental car at the Tasch Railway Station and finished the last 20 minutes of the journey via rail to Zermatt Village. Zermatt is a "car free" village so this was the only way to travel the last leg of the trip.



Above, the view from our Zermatt apartment balcony.

Our first day was comprised of touring the village and orientating ourselves and learning about the trails as we wanted to do a couple of hikes.






The 2nd day we hiked 11.5 km from the Village up to Furi and then up past the Zum See Restaurant to and back down. We thought this was a good "break in" hike for us.


Looks like a scene from a jigsaw puzzle!

We passed this lift on our hike. You could it to the top and then transfer to another lift and then arrive Italy.



On our 3rd day in Zermatt, we had beautiful clear blue skies. It was our day to take the train to the Matterhorn observatory platform.




The train crawls and winds its way along the tracks past 5 different stations where passengers can get on and off depending on the ticket you purchase. We purchased tickets to go to the very top and then back down to the 2nd station from the top where we had planned a day hike.

The following photos were all taken from the Matterhorn observatory platform above the Village of Zermatt.







These two St. Bernards were ready to pose with tourists (for a fee of course).


Ready, Set, Smile!







After visiting the observatory platform and taking a "zillion" photos, we jumped the train to the Riffelberg Station (2nd station from the top) where we started a 9 km hike. We had an exciting but exhausting afternoon after a very frustrating start when we couldn't find the beginning of the trail and walked likely ½ hour before finding it.


Looking for the trail?

The trail still had snow on parts of it which a couple of times gave me pause to think about how deep it might be as the land on each side of the snow was sloping down and disappeared to ??? We also added some distance to the overall hike since I had emphasized a couple of times to Trevor that I wasn't going to cross over some snow covered areas as I didn't know how deep a crevasse might be below.



We came to one snow-covered spot where we could see several recent footprints so we figured it was likely safe enough. But just in case, we put our arms out so if we did drop, we might have a chance of stopping our weight from sinking too far. That's what we learned to do on an ice covered lake. I wondered if that would have worked on snow but thought it was worth a try.




At another point, we had to almost crawl across snow as the slope was so great. When we looked down, we could see that if we lost our footing we would slide down on the snow about 100 metres before stopping on a grass covered slope. This trail would be much better to do in July!




In the end, my pedometer said we did 23,518 steps, 16.7 km in just about 4 hours. And since it was the strain of a fairly steep downhill hike, our legs were really feeling it by the bottom. It wasn't until we were at the bottom that we thought there was likely an app with electronic trail maps that would have been VERY handy!

Vevey, Gruyere and Bulle



When we left Zermatt we drove to Vevey, on Lake Geneva, where we met our niece Caley who was soon heading back to Canada having just finishing a 3 week stint working at the Nestle headquarters.



Below is Caley's hotel, a beautiful view from a lovely hotel (isn't it great when the company picks up the tab Caley!).



Caley showed us around Vevey and then we headed to Gruyere. Our friend Janet was raised in Switzerland and suggested that it was her favourite small village so we decided it was a "must do". And it was perfect!






Gruyere is a picture-perfect medieval town perched atop a small hill with yet another castle surrounded by a fortified wall.



Inside the 13th century castle is a museum and people dressed in costume wander through the castle and grounds re-enacting the daily lives and chores of the castle's earlier residents.



Outside the walls of the castle, the town is today now full of restaurants and shops for all the tourists who visit the castle.



We celebrated Caley's birthday in the nearby town of Bulle where we said farewell that evening.



Caley was off to Bern and Zurich before heading home to Canada and we were heading in a few days to Hvar, Croatia for our daughter Stephanie's wedding to Aleks. And we managed to escape Switzerland without indulging in any Swiss Chocolate!



And since Lichtenstein is such a small country and only took us an hour or so to drive through, we only have two photos!!