A Walk on a beach

Alessio and I have arrived back to Zurich from our 10 days in Scotland, we had a great time visiting lots of places, taking hikes and of course seeing our family.

The first Saturday we walked down to the beach at Broughty Ferry where my parents live, also with us was my sister Elena and her two boys Liam and Jamie. The sun was shining, even though it was quite cold and the boys enjoyed running along the beach, collecting stones and in Jamie`s case spotting a crab!

Along this area is the lifeboat which we saw in action the following saturday along with the helicopter, but I think it was a practice run!

Also long here is Broughty Ferry Castle which we have visited on numerous actions, here is a photo of it and next to the castle is an excellent playground. It was full of kids and the boys had a great time, eventually we got them away and into in the town for a coffee.

A great start to our holiday in Scotland!

R is for Roses

Just about to head off to Scotland for a while, so time to do a quick post in the alphabet series. I am at the letter R and thought I would chose roses for this letter. The first photo are roses bought my mother when she was over here, they lasted for ages. The next two photos are from my garden and the last is from a walk I did with the kids from work, on the Au penisula.

Gruyeres

On our trip back from Chamonix we decided to stop in Gruyeres, it was a place I had always wanted to visit and being in the region we thought it was a good place to take a break. We were lucky with the weather too, it was one of the last really hots days of the summer!

We parked the car at the bottom of the town and walked there, as it is a car-free area. The medieval town has amazing buildings to gaze at on both sides, it hard to take it all in. The main cobbled street is full of restaurants, hotels and some shops. We had a lunch very delicious at Fleur de Lys restaurant, then carried on our walk through the small town. We also checked out some of the shops and bought cheese and honey.

We headed up the castle and decided to do a tour, which I will do a separate post on that. We got some great views of Gruyeres and the surrounding area. Gruyeres is of course well-known for its cheese and if we had had more time we may have gone to visit the cheese factory. Also if we had had more time it would have been nice to visit the lake which from the castle we could see.

If you are looking for a day trip it is well worth from Zurich, especially if you include a visit to see how they make cheese.

Photo of the Week- William and Kate

I have not done a photo of the week for a while, so finally here is one, and it was taken last Monday in Zurich when I met a friend for breakfast. Afterwards we did a bit of toy shopping and we saw these  William and Kate dolls. Sorry about the reflection of the camera, I only took one and I really wanted to use it as the photo of the week.

I am curious, who would buy this for their kids?

August Books and Films

So I just realised that I had not posted the books and films for the month of August, so here goes.

I saw 3 films they included Total Recall with Colin Farrel and Jessica Biel. Remake of the film which starred Arnold Schwarznegger back in 1990, I enjoyed the new version very much and I always like to see Colin Farrell too!

I also saw Prometheus directed by Ridley Scott, it stars Michael Fassbender and Noomi Rapace. I have to say it was quite weird with some gory scenes too, certainly not one of my favorites films.

Lastly I saw The Dark Knight Rises - batman 3 which I really enjoyed. Christian Bale is very good as batman and all the other characters were also good. I also liked how you did not expect Marion Cotillard to be the bad person!


As regards to books I managed only 3 this month the first was called Death Comes to Pemberly by P D James. I liked this a lot, Darcy and Elizabeth live in Pemberly and someone gets murdered. It includes all the characters from the original book including the bad Mr Wickham and his annoying wife Lydia.

Then I read the final book in the Fifty Shades trilogy, called Fifty Shades of Freed, not as good as the other two, to be honest.

Then finally I read The Hidden Child by Camilla Lachberg, a Swedish crime writer this is my first novel by her I have another one to read. This is her 5th book so I have read out of order, I have a lot to catch up on! A thriller set in a Swedish town called Fjällbacka, it delves into Sweden during WWII, and Neo-Nazi stuff.

Anyone got some good recommendations for books or films?

Ciutadella, Menorca

My last post on the summer holiday with my family in Menorca back in July, this is the city called Ciutadella in western Menorca. I went with my sister for the day, it was nice to spend some time with Elena without having the kids around us.

Ciutadella used to be the capital of the island but now that is Mahon, once we arrived we found a place for a coffee. It was as usual a hot day, not necessarily the best for walking around a city, once we finished our coffee we walked around the market.

Then down to the port, where we saw some lovely views, it is much smaller than Mahon but still very nice and we stopped for a drink. There were definitely lots of expensive and fancy looking boats to check out! We also browsed around the shops and we both bought some jewelry.

We headed back into the city to an area we had not seen before and bought something small to eat and sat in the square next to the fountain. We saw lots of old and new buildings, I liked the old yellow building with the prints on it.

Since all the shops closed in the afternoon we decided to head back to our resort, it was a nice day and we were pleased to have visited Ciutadella.

Lake Zurich Trail - Section 9 - Meilen to Küsnacht

For the last two years I have been doing the Lake Zurich Trail which is walking around the lake, in all honesty I should have finished last year, as I only had one more section to complete, this one. Lots of excuses were used too tired, not good weather and other stuff, but finally I completed it. The other good thing is that Alessio also did all the sections which is pretty dam good for a small kid.

My parents also did some of the sections and were with us for this one which starts in Meilen and finishs up in Küsnacht. I used to live in Küsnacht many moons ago when I was a nanny so it is always nice to visit it again.

The walk is 12,2km which should take 2.5hours, I think we were good with the timing probably a bit longer due to a few rests on the way admiring the views of the lake.

Luckily the weather was cooler than the hot weather we had been having, we saw lots of interesting buildings, houses, views and flowers. This walk takes you through 3 ravines, the Meilemer, the Erlenbacher and the Küsnachter Tobel.

Once we arrived in Küsnacht we walked to the centre and awarded yourselves with coffee and cake, then hopped on the train back to Meilen where I had left my car.