So our original plan was to leave Paris this morning and drive to Zermatt, Switzerland. Its a beautiful ski village that’s also the home of the Matterhorn. We knew the drive would take all day and we planned on just enjoying the hotel tonight and go up the Matterhorn tomorrow, spending the day in Zermatt before driving up to the German border. Well, today we learned its important to be flexible.
We left Paris and once we got into the countryside the scenery was beautiful. Lots of rolling green pastures with French farms and cottages. The freeway we took turned out to be a toll road and by the time we were leaving France we had to pay $45 at the toll booth, Ouch! Not long after that, at the Swiss border, they had everyone filing through and were checking windshields. They pulled us over and said we had to pay $40 for a sticker to drive on their roads. Ouch again!! After that hit it was time to do some calculations because the Swiss hotel was the one that hadn’t been prepaid and was the most expensive.Plus they were predicting snow and possible ice on the roads leading to the resort. We decided the best thing to do to make sure we didn’t run out of money was to just drive on through to the German border this evening. The Matterhorn will have to wait until some other time. I’m pretty sure its not going anywhere. Besides, if Marc was at a ski resort that nice and not able to ski, it would have been hard to keep him from curling up in the fetal position.
I did get to see the alps from a distance and of course they were gorgeous. Huge with snowy caps. We didn’t want to drive totally through Switzerland without stopping somewhere, so we stopped off in Bern, which is the capital. We walked up and down the street leading up to the big clock tower in the center of the historic part of town. Its really pretty there, but horribly expensive. We took some nice pics and got out of there quick. About an hour later we reached Basel, which is right across the German border. We just checked into the hotel we had actually planned on staying in tomorrow night. Its just what we wanted. The people are extremely nice and the room is big and affordable. . .. Marc continues below pics.
Here are some pics we took in Bern
First let me say, Ich bin wieder in Deutschland. And it feels so good!
So we got a taste of why Switzerland is considered one of the most expensive places on the planet. Tammy was actually upset about how much a big mac cost us. :)) Plus they are NOT on the Euro and although they will take Eruo’s (at a bad exchange rate) they insist on giving you back Swiss Franks. Which forces you to spend them there. But hotel on German side seems really great and I just poured my second. Beautiful day of driving with some anxiety mixed in.
Here are some of my pic. Bern means bear in Swiss and it is one the older cities in northern Europe. It has buildings still standing from the 12th century.
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