A Visit to Säntis Mountain

Back in April when my parents were here we visited the mountain Säntis, I drove there and it was not a too long of a drive.

Säntis is 2,509m above sea level and is the highest mountain in the northeastern part of Switzerland. When it is a clear day you can see into 6 countries Switzerland, Germany, France, Liechtenstein, Italy and Austria.

It wasn`t a totally clear day, but we were happy with the views we saw and right at the top was a little chilly as you can imagine. We had our lunch in one of the restaurants and made our way back down. It is short trip up and down.

Back down again we decided to go on a circular walk which took around 1 hour. There were plans still covered in snow and slippy to say the least, but we made without any incidents! We saw lots of lovely spring flowers and the sun came out for the rest of our walk. Once we finished our walk we had the obligatory coffee and cake.

The prices for the cable car are actually not as expensive as for other Swiss mountains. Adults without half-price card, it is only 45ch both ways. For kids and adults with the half-price card is it 22.50ch. I have a junior card for Alessio so he got for free which was even better!

Summer holidays have started for both myself and Alessio, and tonight we fly to Singapore and then on to Auckland! We are both really looking forward to this trip!!

Happy holidays!

View from a Plane!

This was the view from our flight from Tokyo to Zurich, at one point I thought we were seeing the Great Wall of China. I then realized that the flight only few over a little bit of China and I think this could be Mongolia. Anyway regardless of where this is, it certainly is amazing to see!

A Quick Trip to Zermatt!

Outdoor Stage

This was my second trip to Zermatt and it was only for a day! I had very luckily won in a raffle two tickets to see a play called The Matterhorn Story. This rather special play was performed in the outdoors at 2500m at the station of Riffelberg.

The reason for the production of the play is that this year is the 150 years anniversary of the first ascent of the Matterhorn which happened on 14th July 1865. Edward Whymper and a group of others including Lord Francis Douglas, his Zermatt guide Peter Taugwalder, his son plus another 4 people. There was another group trying the ascent too, the Italian party and Edward Whymper obviously wanted to beat them and be the first up. They managed to get up without too many difficulties and were able to beat the Italians. Now they prepared the descent and that is when the problems begun and unfortunately 4 men fell off the mountainside.

Whymper, his Swiss guide and the son returned with the news of the deaths, then another group set off with the grim task of recovering the bodies. The body of Lord Francis Douglas was never found!
A tragic story, but very well performed, the languages spoken were English, German and Valais German. I have to say that trying to under Valais German was quite hard to say the least!

We were also very lucky with the weather is was not so cold considering we were so high up and the sun did shine. Plus we had rain gear and blankets to keep everyone warm, but in fact it was too much.

Ballenberg Open Air Museum

During the first long weekend we had in May, Alessio and I visited the Swiss Open-Air Museum called Ballenberg. Situated in the beautiful Canton of Berne, very near to Brienz surrounded by stunning scenery.

Over the years along with my parents we are visited numerous open-air museum in Norway, Denmark and Southern Germany. We have always found them very interesting and for kids quite educational too. I had already been here before but at least 10 years ago, so another visit was definitely on the cards.

From all the Cantons in Switzerland there are examples of the different types of houses, barns, bakehouses, stables, chapels, and not only that they have plenty of animals and craftsmen giving demonstrations of how certain things are made. For instance we saw a man who was showing to make rope.

Inside the buildings are also very interesting to see, from living rooms, bedrooms, kitchens, cellars, schools, hairdressers and much more. There are around 100 buildings to visit, there are plenty of places to eat, bring a picnic or grill and really enjoy a whole day here.

Mt Fuji seen on the way to Kyoto!

One of the many highlights of our trip to Japan was visiting Kyoto! To visit Kyoto we took the bullet train (Shinkansen), the train itself was quite amazing from its looks to the speed. It is not the fastest train that would be the Nozomi trains.

Our trip took just over 3 hours and on the way we passed Mt Fuji which is the highest mountain in Japan at 3,776m. It is about 100km from Tokyo and if the weather conditions are good you can see it from Tokyo. Sadly we could not, but we did pass it on our journey. I was sitting in the window seat and had been enjoying all the views, when suddenly I saw it. At first I was not sure but started taking photos anyway. Then the lady selling drinks on board passed by and we asked her to make sure.

By the way the Japanese Rail Pass is well worth buying, we got one for 7 days and although we only used it for 5 days we got our moneys worth. The trip alone to Kyoto and back to Tokyo actually more or less covers the pass!

Easter Sunday in Schwyz

Town Hall

The Manor House

Ital Reding Estate

Small and Big Mythen Mountains

Interesting tree!

Pretty outdoor shop!

Interesting facade!

My mother posing!

Statue outside the Museum of Swiss Charters!

Easter has finished and back to our normal routines, for me it is the countdown to my big trip to Japan. During Easter the weather was so so, but on most of the days it was not raining at least. My parents and I did two trips, the first on Easter Sunday to Schwyz and Brunnen, which were both really lovely places. Then on Easter Monday to Basel which you will see at the later date!

We arrived first in Schwyz in the morning,  I parked the car next to the wonderfully attractive Town Hall. We wondered around the town enjoying the views of the two great mountains that overlook this town Grosser Mythen and the Kleiner Mythen (big and small). Sadly we could not get a cloud free view, but they looked very impressive nevertheless!

There were many interesting buildings to see and of course lots of lovely views of the surrounding environment. Some of the most interesting were the cluster of buildings that belong to the Ital Reding Estate. We also saw a huge statue dating from 1941 which was outside the museum of Swiss Charters, which was the 650th anniversary of the oath of allegiance. It was pretty impressive and very big!

We had our lunch in a lovely place just off the main square, afterwards I drove us down to Brunnen. That post will come at a later date!