Trip To Switzerland for Larissa's civil Wedding

Getting There

1. Larissa is getting married to Hans-Georg in Zürich, Switzerland on November 24th! With that news, we begin making plans to travel to Switzerland. By the end of September, we have airplane tickets and a hotel reservation. (At this point, $.60 = 1.00 CHF)
   
2. Near the end of October I start waking up with a sore throat. I am not sure what's wrong, but generally a cup of hot coffee takes care of it. However, about a week before we are to leave for Europe, it gets so bad that the coffee does not relieve the symptoms. By the Monday before our planned departure, I am definitely not feeling well; my nose is running so badly I call in sick. My condition does not change much over my day off. However slowly, over the next several days, I start feeling better, and I think I'll be over it by the time we leave.
   
   However, on Wednesday Marilyn starts feeling bad, with the same symptoms, and by Friday she is too clogged up to speak, and she doesn't think she can face getting on a plane. She goes to the doctor, who gives her some really strong medicine. I don't think there is any way that she can leave on Sunday. But Saturday she starts feeling better and by Sunday morning she is feeling good enough to go. Both of us are really relieved.
   
   The main thing I kept remembering is how sick she got in London several years ago, and I did not want a repeat of that. I also wanted her to help me deal with the language and cultural issues. But most of all, we both wanted her to be present at our daughter's wedding!
   

After a long flight, starting on Sunday and ending on Monday, we arrived to a beautiful sunrise over the Alps. This is a picture of the Alps out across the wing of our aircraft. If you click on the picture, you can see the mountains in the distance.Monday November 19

1. We arrived in the early morning cold, just as the sun was rising, and were met by a nice young woman who took Marilyn in a wheelchair through customs. She knew exactly where to go and the best routes for getting there.
   
2. We met Larissa right outside of customs. We then waited a few minutes for Kenny's flight to arrive.
3. The next challenge was getting to the hotel. We went out to get a taxi but all of us -- and our luggage -- wouldn't fit in a single taxi. So Marilyn and I took the first taxi and Larissa and Ken took the second taxi.
4. We were staying at the Hotel Sofitel just a couple of blocks from the train station and the river.
5. Finally, after we were able to unwind, Larissa and I went for a walk through downtown Zürich. Here is the approximate path we took.
   

Tuesday November 20

What happened here? I have a total memory block for this day.

See comments at bottom for Larissa's description of what we did Tuesday.

Wednesday November 21

1. Train ride to Luzern.
2. Boat ride to Vitznau, the start of the rack railway to the top of Rigi mountain.
3. We rode the rack railway down Rigi moutain. We were hoping to have lunch at the summit but the restaurant was closed and also the conditions at the top were not too good. The final path to the summit is steep and has to be done on foot. The path was covered with snow and ice which would have been really hard for Marilyn and me.
   
4. Boat ride back to Luzern for a late lunch at the Hotel des Alpes, beside the lake, and a quick tour of the old central city.
   
5. Train ride back to Zürich.

Thursday November 22

1. Took a walk to Larissa and Han-Georg's apartment.
2. Ate at one of Larissa's favorite restaurants. We have Birchermüesli which is delicious.
3. Went back to Larissa's apartment to recharge cell phone and download the pictures from my camera. Unfortunately, I was not able to recharge my cell phone. I had the USB cable but for some reason it would not charge. I'm not sure if it was because the computer was a Mac or the cell phone driver for the computer was missing. So my phone usage was severely restricted for the rest of the trip.
   
4. Larissa and I took a long walk that followed roughly this path:
1. Milchbuckstrasse - Milk bucket street, where Larissa and Hans Georg live.
2. ETH - We took a path around the agricultural school.
3. Zürichberg - The Zürichberg is a wooded hill rising to 679 metres (2,228 feet), overlooking Lake Zürich. It is to the east of the city, between the valleys of the Limmat and the Glatt rivers. Its highest point is about 270 metres above the Limmat and it is part of a chain of hills between the Greifensee / Glattal and Lake Zürich.
4. We walked through the Zürich Zoo.
5. Stopped at the Fluntern cemetery and saw James Joyce's grave.
6. ETH Zürich or the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology.
7. The University of Zürich.
8. Kunsthaus Zürich (Art Museum).
9. Walked down the HohePromenade to Niederdorfstrasse.
10. Walked along the Niederdorfstrasse to the Grossmünster.
11. Walked down to the river and caught the tram back to the hotel.
5. Hans-Georg's parents, Gudrun and Othmar, arrived via train from southern Germany.
6. Both sets of parents had dinner with their children at a traditional Bavarian Restaurant near the main shopping street by the train station.
   

Friday November 23

1. Ate lunch at a vegetarian restaurant with Larissa, who was running pre-wedding errands. I picked up a voltage converter/charger with a USB port. It later proved to work fine with my GPS unit, but did nothing to help my cell phone.
   
2. Visited the the Zürich Art Museum with Hans Georg's parents, and saw a special exhibit of Félix Vallotton paintings and also some of the pictures on regular display.
   
3. Dinner was at a Chässtube Rehalp a Fondue restaurant in the suburbs of Zürich.
   

Saturday November 24

1. Here is a copy of the invitation.

1. Larissa and Hans-Georg's civil Wedding
   ^[1].
2. Post wedding lunch at the Restaurant Rigiblick.
1. Larissa do you have the menu? Could I put it here?
   

Sunday November 25

1. Hans Georg's parents went home this morning on the 10:00 train.
   
2. Sunday Brunch on Lake Zürich. We were on an elegant tour boat, that took several hours to go around the lake. (I forgot to start the GPS so the first part of the trip is missing.)
   
3. Visited the Christmas market in the train station (Hauptbahnhof)

Monday November 26

1. Kenny and I went down to the train station (Hauptbahnhof) and found where we could get bicycles for free. We had plans to ride for a short time. However, it was really cold and we did not have clothes that would allow us to ride and keep warm. I will have to remember to bring clothes that are good for riding on the next trip! It looks like there are numerous places to ride.
2. Bus tour of Zürich. We took the short tour of Zürich. We saw some of the following locations:
1. Train station (Hauptbahnhof)
2. Sihl river which passes under the train station. There is a lot of construction with a new addition to the train station.
3. Löwenplatz which is a less expensive shopping area of Zurich -- at least compared to Bahnhofstrasse.
4. Sasha Doll Museum.
   
5. The Red Castle
6. The White Castle
7. One end of Lake Zürich, with the circus set up for the annual Christmas visit.
   
8. Numerous banks and insurance companies.
9. The Odéon cafe where Lenin hung out, before he went back to Russia to start a revolution. Apparently he also tried to shake things up in Switzerland, too, but couldn't get very many Swiss people interested in his ideas.
   
10. Rode up to the University of Zürich and saw the main building.
11. The Zoo
12. FIFA (Fédération Internationale de Football Association) the international home of the world soccer association.
13. Rode though a nice neighborhood on a hills above Zürich where rich and famous people live, including Tina Turner, and (formerly) Johanna Spyri (author of Heidi).
    
14. The restaurant where we ate lunch after Larissa's wedding. Luckily it was clear so we could see what we had missed a few days earlier.
15. Than we went back to central Zürich to the visit the Fraumünster and to view the stained windows created by Marc Chagall in 1970. The tour guide described each window including where the artist's picture is on the window. This concluded the bus tour.



3. We walked through the area around the church until Larissa met us at a Starbucks coffee shop. For once, it was nice enough to have our coffee outdoors.
   
4. We concluded the day with a quiet dinner at the nice French restaurant just down the street from our hotel. Hans Georg treated us -- a nice gesture from our new son-in-law.
   

Tuesday November 27

1. Trip to Chur, Switzerland


2. Visit to the Sasha Doll Museum
   

Wednesday November 28

1. After checking out of the hotel (by this time, 1 CHF= $.90, so our costs went up by 30% during our trip!), we flew from Zürich to JFK in New York and Kenny flew the same route except on Swiss Air. He left from gate 23 half hour before Marilyn and I left from gate 24, so we had some time to chat.
2. The flight from JFK to Dallas was 2 1/2 hours late getting off. First the arriving plane was late due to bad weather then we could not take off for an hour after we boarded because refreshments had not been put on the plane during the pre-flight cleaning.
   
3. We missed the last connecting flight to Austin so the airline put us in a Ramada Inn and scheduled us for a 7:40 flight the following morning. This meant we had to be at the airport early. Fortunately, we were used to Switzerland's time so getting up early was no problem, although Marilyn had to go straight into work after we arrived.

[1] All the pictures of the wedding