Long weekend in Switzerland  | - Click on the image above to view gallery
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 Village Fountain Our eldest son James lives in the city of Winterthur in Switzerland with his fiancée Olivia and we were invited to spend a long weekend with them, which we were really looking forward to. I had checked the forecast and sadly it wasn’t for the best weather but we were sure we’d have a good time all the same. Our flight was from Heathrow where although it was very warm it was a really grey overcast day. As soon as we were above the clouds, however, the blue sky was amazing. I’d made sure I had a window seat and had great fun with my camera taking a few pictures. It’s always really hard to take pictures through windows and the bright sun shining off the white clouds all added to the camera not really liking it that much but with a lot of adjustment in the exposure compensation I managed to get some shots that weren’t too over exposed. All good fun and before we knew it we had landed at Zurich Airport, the flight only taking an hour and twenty minutes.  Arrenenburg Castle  Lake Constance
On arrival the weather was really good but the forecast for the following day wasn’t so good, with rain forecast. James and Olivia made a few suggestions about what we could do and the best option for a wet afternoon was to visit Arenenberg Castle, the former residence of Napoleon III which now houses the Napoleon Museum. The castle is situated close to the German border on the shores of Lake Constance. To get there we used public transport, which has to be said is so reliable and clean and a real pleasure to use. We were even were able to pay for the train fare, postbus fare and castle entrance on one ticket before we travelled.
The house itself was built in the 16th century and it was really interesting inside. Like most places though no pictures are allowed in the house and I even had to leave my bag with camera inside by the entrance! We also had to wear huge slippers over our shoes something I’ve never done when visiting any house before and it was certainly one way of keeping the wooden parquet flooring polished. The furnishings and interesting Napoleon artefacts certainly make an interesting place to visit. Sadly the views across Lake Constance towards Germany were not too inspiring on a wet Saturday afternoon so we had to imagine how lovely it would look on a better day.
 Rhine Falls 1  Rhine Falls 2
The Following day the weather was much better than forecast so Nigel and I took the train to Schloss Laufen am Rheinfall which is the railway station closest to the truly impressive waterfalls that are said to be the largest in Europe. At a width of 150 m and a height of 23 m, depending on the time of year an amazing amount of water per second rushes of the cliffs each second and so you can imagine the noise was quite something. Above the falls but sadly closed today was Laufen Castle. It did mean that the normal entrance fee didn’t have to be paid though as we couldn’t reach one of the most impressive viewpoints.
What we did instead though was take several boat trips during the afternoon: one taking us to the other side of the river and a couple more that took us very close to the waterfalls themselves. These allowed you to get an idea of the power of the falling water. It is possible to climb one of the rocks in the middle of the waterfall but on a busy Sunday afternoon we decided this was just going to take too long, so instead of getting off the boat we stayed on as the queue up the steps was very long indeed and didn’t seem to be moving. There really were a lot of people enjoying the waterfalls that afternoon and who could blame them too but it wasn’t our idea of fun really. Far nicer was a quiet walk along the banks of the River Rhine which we enjoyed when we had a short time to spare before our train back was due.
 Rhine Falls 3  Rhine Falls 4
The next day was Olivia’s birthday and there was a family get-together with a BBQ in the garden which was very enjoyable and then all too soon it was the day we had to travel back. As it was a beautiful morning we had a walk down into the village close to where James and Olivia live and where we could look across the city.
On our flight back to Heathrow today we booked a window seat again and I was busy taking pictures and enjoying looking at the views once more. At one point there were obvious mountains poking up through the cloud layer. By the shape of one of the mountains it looked like Mont Blanc but there was another we couldn’t work out. It certainly did look impressive though. Before long we were crossing the English Channel and I could just make out the many boats in the very busy stretch of water. Coming in over London we could see many landmarks we knew but the sun was shining right into the window at this time so it was impossible to take any pictures that worked.
It had been a really enjoyable weekend: one that gave us a taste of what the northern part of Switzerland is like and leaving us looking forward to the next time we can visit.
The gallery for this journal contains far more pictures than I would normally include but it does contain pictures from the whole weekend.
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