clevelandbrown

We just returned from our first trip to Europe, flying into Venice and taking a train to Florence for a week, then a train to Boltigen in Switzerland for a week, and then a train back to Venice for our final week.

Thanks to the many posters here for enabling us to prepare for the trip. Despite your advice, I had too many things planned for each day, so we will probably have to return.

We visited Bern twice, once on Saturday when it was like a festival, and once during the week to visit the art museum, which is excellent. It is uncrowded and well laid out. While their main concentration is Klee, they have some rooms of lovely impressionist works that alone are well worth a visit.

We also spent a day going to Thun and to a castle in Oberhofen. With our Swiss passes we were able to get around by train and postal bus; we intended to return to Spiez by boat, but spent too much time in the castle and saw our boat leave without us, so it was back to the postal bus.

clevelandbrown

We also spent two days exploring the Bernese Oberland, but the mountaintops were usually obscured, which I had been warned was not unlikely in May. We took the funicular up to Murren and had lunch near the base of the Schilthorn excursion, enjoying both the food and the view. We took the Schilthorn excursion, but it was heavily obscured so we didn't get much of the view; the best part of that day was the cable car down from Murren; when it went past the edge of the cliff and we could look straight down everyone in the car gasped.

On our first day visiting Lauterbrunnen we were going to take the Jungfraujoch train, but the ticket agent suggested we try another day because of the weather. That was just one example of how well we were treated by virtually everyone we dealt with.

clevelandbrown

I had gotten Swiss passes for this trip, because I didn't want to drive, and it was well worth it as the views from the trains were magnificent, and we had the flexibility of going anywhere.

When we received email that our first grandchild had been born, we felt we had to get her a gift reflecting our Swiss venture and heritage. Boltigen has no clothing stores, so we went up the valley to Zweisimmen to find a traditional Swiss dress; in about the third store we visited, the clerk advised us that no-one there dresses that way anymore, and suggested we try Gstaad. Armed with our passes, we got a train to Gstaad and found a lovely dress. Since it was still early in the day, we decided to take another train to Montreaux for lunch. Montreaux was lovely, but also seemed the most touristy of all the places we visited. We didn't have time, unfortunately, to visit Chillon, but that is something for our next trip.

We had second class passes and never had any difficulty getting seats on the trains, but again we were there in off-season. For our train trip to Venice, we got first class seats with reservations, and that was fortunate in Italy, as the train was fairly crowded.

I had expected Switzerland to be beautiful, but it was beautiful beyond my expectations. Now I wonder why my ancestors left?

jmw

Clevelandbrown! How wonderful! Tell us more about Boltigen. I hope this will be only the first of many visits to Switzerland. J.

clevelandbrown

Boltigen is a very small dairy farming village; there is a lumber mill there also, but almost everything centers around dairy farming. Each morning as we walked to the train station we passed a group of farmers gathered at the coop to deliver their milk, and the elders of the town walking down there with a small pail to gather their daily ration. The population is reported as about 2000, but I think that must include people who live at some distance. There is a sport adventure hostel there, but it was closed during our visit; they apparently offer everything from river rafting to paragliding. There is a small grocery, a ceramics store, and a smaller grocery that also has fresh bakery and the most delicious chocolates we found.

We picked Boltigen as it is my ancestral home, and because we wanted a very uncrowded place, and it certainly was far from hectic.

We stayed at the Minotel there, which was inexpensive for Switzerland, and very comfortable. I expected a small room but we ended up in a very large one with a small balcony. It looked to me like ours was one of four rooms that had been built into what was once the barn. There was no laundry in the town, but the lady running the hotel offered to take our laundry home and do it, and we found that type of generousity and consideration everywhere we went in Switzerland on this trip.

The hotel had a very good restaurant, and we ended up returning there for dinner more frequently than I had planned. The cuisine was not exclusively Swiss and was very well prepared with good ingredients. Because we were there in the off-season we were often the only people in the restaurant.

My wife and I agreed that Florence and Venice were wonderful, but we were most impressed with the beauty of Switzerland, and certainly plan to return.