Switzerland 2022 - Lugano and Zurich

Before I flew, I texted Danielle I was going to Swiss and we arranged to meet up at Lugano - the city she's staying at but I didnn't have a free day until Zurich, so I had to ditch Weiling and my mum to meet her. After making sure they checked in to the hotel at Zurich and everything is fine, I took a 2 hour train ride to Lugano to meet Danielle!

Lugano

So excited to meet a friend finally! We met in Shanghai and Swiss but never in SG lol. Anyway she brought me to lunch at an Italian place with nice view and we walked around the city for a while. 

It's an Italian city so we grabbed some gelato and ate beside the lake. It was really like summer already. The city is pretty small, nothing much to do so she brought me supermarketing, I bought 2 bottles of Bianco De Merlot wines, white wine made with Merlot grapes - their specialty and then headed back to Zurich. Nothing much there except the wine. 

Dinner at hotel and I opened one of the wine and it was amazing! My new favourite white wine now!

Zurich

We stayed at Ibis which had a weird room layout - the toilet was in a windowless room and it's open shower. That's why Weiling rebooked a room on her own. The breakfast spread was the best in this trip, they had pancakes, sausages, ham, cheese, yogurt etc. We decided to go to Rhine fall on spot, so 1 hour trip later we were there. There's nothing much to see haha so after 20mins we went back to Zurich, then to the Lindt House of Chocolate. 

We missed lunch again so we had salad at their cafe and started the chocolate tour. It was immersive and amazing, and at the end of the tour - free flow Lindor chcoolate. We took so many we got back more than the price of the tickets. But we did more buy at the Lindt shop. 

Back to the hotel, did our ART test opposite the hotel, and tram to the shopping street. We shopped around, Weiling bought Bally belt and looking for a cuckoo clock to buy home, and we chanced upon this really nice farm-to-table restaurant at the old town and sat at the outdoors for dinner. The dinner was so good we decided to go again the next day haha.

The next day it was the swatch-omega launch so we checked that out. The queue was crazy so we gave up, went to a flea market, lunched, shopped for shoes, had coffee at starbucks because we were so tired. Then a few guys came in with the swatch paper bag and Weiling asked them to show us lol. They were so friendly and they said they queued for 6 hours hahah. It's crazy. We went to see the queue but everything was sold out, went to the Rituals store and I bought some candles and shower gel - really nice, I'm a fan of Rituals now. After that the 2 of them bought Longchamp bags haha.

Dinner back at the Restaurant August - really one of the best meals we had in Swiss. Their tagliatelle and pork dishes were to die for. Then supermarketing for some last minute things - I bought more wine and hot chocolate to bring back home. 

I finished a bottle of wine at night haha. The next morning after breakfast, straight to the airport and there was a long queue coz our flight was quite full. A mad rush to the tax refund counter, they went to the gates first while I bought my bottle of gin, and I didn't know there was a mad queue at the customs. I was already gonna be late for my flight at 11.45am and I was still queuing at the customs. And I still had to take a light train to the gate urgh. 

In the end I ran to the gate and was one of the last to board at 11.50am haha. I wasn't the last because they were still waiting for a passenger in wheelchair who went to the wrong gate. Phew.

The flight was better because it was daytime in Swiss and I finished a few movies, had cup noodles and 2 Singapore Slings. Arrived in the morning at 7am, cabbed home and went straight to bed for a quick nap.

Switzerland 2022 - Bern and Luzern

Bern

We set off in the morning after breakfast to Bern, 2hrs train ride and deposited our luggage at the train station, and went to lunch at Rosengarden - Rose Garden. We sat at the outdoor area although it was too cold but the view was beautiful.

And then walked down to bear park to see the symbol of the city, then to the Bern Art museum for some Van Gough, went shopping around the old town and got some smelly swiss cheese at their outdoor market, and 1 hour train ride to Lucerne for dinner.

I think Bern is a nice and small city for some shopping, we should have spent more time but Luzern is not bad as well.

Luzern/Lucerne

We got delayed a little while coz we messed up the trains. We had to drag our luggage to the hotel on stone roads from the train station. Dinner at an Italian restaurant - because Luzern is an Italian city, and off to hotel. I went grocery shopping because I spotted a liquor shop at the train station, and also I wanted to drink some wine after so long of not having any.

It was the best hotel we had in Switzerland, I really love the room, the big shower area, the big toilet, the big beds, even the breakfast was good. It was perfect, except for the stone roads and small lift. 

The next morning was trip to Mount Rigi. 1 hour boat ride, 1 hour scenic train, and we are at Mount Rigi.

The scenery was beautiful as usual but we got bored since we have seen too many snow mountains so we went down early to look for lunch places but everywhere was closed after 2pm so we bought sandwiches from the supermarket to munch, then transport back to Luzern and then shopping time.

We passed by a watch shop, Weiling wanted to get a Tissot and the Chinese lady owner welcomed us and served us coffee etc. She was really nice and they got chatty in Chinese, and she gifted my mum 4 rolex spoons lol. Eventually Weiling bought a Tissot from her and she gave me her contact information in case I go back to Swiss again, she has a ski chalet at the mountains and invited me to ski there next season hahaha. Another Chinese sugar mummy obtained. 

After more shopping around old town, we settled for dinner at our hotel restaurant and it was amazing. It was Weiling's birthday but we didn't celebrate or whatever, but the food was really really good. They started the restaurant first, then branched out to do hotel business. 

We couldn't leave Lucerne without walking on the old wooden bridge so after dinner we walked a bit, I went to the liquor shop to get my gins and wines, and then back to the hotel for packing. I feel there's much more to explore at Luzern and I will definitely miss the hotel. 

Switzerland 2022 - Zermatt

Early in the morning we checked out, had breakfast at the train station and took a 1.5hour ride to Visp and changed to the scenic train up to Zermatt.

Zermatt

The scenery en route there was so beautiful already we couldn't stop taking picture or videos, and on the scenic train up to Zermatt we were also quite excited. 2 of them haven't been up to snowy mountains before. We reached there in the afternoon, checked in, had lunch at some random restaurant and took another scenic train up to Gornagrat.

The weather was super sunny although the weather app showed it was gonna snow 2 days ago and my friend said we were so lucky to see the Matterhorn on the first day. We took some really nice pictures and walked up to the building on top (3100m altitude) and saw a distillery. The store assistant said it was the highest distillery in Swiss and let us try their gin and whisky. And guess who bought all variety of gins and whisky. Yes me. We were jetlagged so we drank some coffee and waited for the sunset. It was gorgeous.

This is my favourite photo of this trip. No regrets buying Iphone 13 pro for this trip.

We headed down, had dinner and went back to rest for the night. My room bathroom was really small but ok for this price. Zermatt is an expensive town.

The next day is my snowboarding day. I collected my gear and we went to the top of Klein Matterhorn via cable car. The entire trip was 1.5hrs long. When we reached the top, I felt something off. I was dizzy and breathless and I realised: altitude sickness. We were 3900m on top, Weiling and I had to sit down for a while to catch our breath. 

I was actually very nervous because I'm not familiar with the terrain and I haven't boarded for 2 years and it was so high up. The map is super confusing as well. The weather and view was beautiful, we were above the mountains, above the clouds.

Eventually I warmed up but the slopes were really too long for snowboarding. The snow wasn't as good coz no sun but it wasn't very steep, just very long and it took me 1.5hrs just to get to the middle part. I was so afraid of taking the wrong ski lifts coz I might end up in Italy and be stuck there. 

I went to the other slopes to play around and my thighs cramped up for a bit lol. My leg muscles and butt were so sore but I wanted to make use of the whole ski pass for a day. I went up to Gornagrat again and did a few runs until I was really tired at 4.30pm and took the scenic train down. Back to return the gears and rest in hotel. Really really satisfied. Another of my favourite photo with Matterhorn in the background.

We finally had cheese fondue but it was quite underwhelming and expensive haha. I think we were too used to Singapore's version of cheese fondue.

Very tiring but satisfying day. Luckily we only stayed for 2 nights, it's too expensive here. 

Switzerland 2022 - Geneva

Shortly after CNY, Weiling took a week leave near the end of March during her birthday and asked me if I wanted to go somewhere together. I saw Phillip and Cindy took their 5 months old baby to Switzerland and I really think it's possible to travel now, so we just booked 2 flights to Switzerland for 10 days. $1144.80. I told my mum about it the next day and she said she wanted to go, and I booked another ticket for her. Our passports expired and we had 2-3 weeks to renew our passports, luckily we got them on time. One week before the trip I bought my new Iphone 13 pro.

The 3 of us are going Switzerland, 2 of them first time in Europe, first time long haul flight, first time winter season, first time on the mountains. And all of us, finally flying after 2 long years. Oh how I miss the airport.

We were so excited we reached the airport 2.5hrs early and cleared the checkpoints within 5mins and waited a long time to board. Most shops were closed at 11pm so we were just playing our phones until boarding time. The SQ flight was only half full, empty seats in between, the movie selections were really good though. I watched Belle the anime, King Richard etc but I was so sleepy the whole flight. It wasn't so bad after all for a 13hour economy class flight. 

The Swiss customs clearance was ridiculously fast. The officer asked 2 questions, scanned my passport, didn't even stamp, and off I go to collect my passport. Very excited to feel the cold weather again. We took the train immediately from Zurich airport to Geneva straight, 3 hrs ride. 

Geneva

Checked in rooms at the hotel and we were so excited, first time being overseas that we took the bus and alighted at the wrong stop lol. We wanted to go to the Museum of Art History but overshot, but we chanced upon Du Rhone Chocolates by luck and we went in to see. The store manager was so friendly coz there were nobody in the shop yet, and we could try everything for free. Just look.

We were very very impressed by their chocolates but it was the first chocolate shop we went to so we didn't buy anything but we told him we would be back. Then we walked 10mins to the museum and started taking pics.

We walked to St Peter's Cathedral and took a lot more pics and bought more things. It was so nice and refreshing to be out of the country and surprisingly we didn't feel tired at all. Ate at Chez Ma Cuisine which my friend recommended - French chicken restaurant, walked to the Geneva old town, went to LV to check out my item and took the bus back to the hotel. I bought beer and yogurt from the supermarket. First day and I love Swiss already.

Second day after breakfast we took the electric tram to United Nations to see broken chair and botanical gardens. Nothing much to see there but just to experience the cold weather lol. Bus to old town and took the touristy train around the Jet Fountain, and back to shopping. We went to LV store and accomplished my main objective of coming Swiss. HA.

No I didn't buy the bag but I bought something from the same collection. My first LV and $200 cheaper than Sg.

Lunch at Pasta People, then Patek Phillip Museum - really got me interested in PP watches. He actually invented the keyless winding which is the crown on our watches today. Very impressive collection but I don't have money to buy any. We wanted to buy Chocolates but didn't see/eat anything better than Du Rhone so we went back to the friendly store manager and he made us chocolate drinks. We had free chocolate tasting as usual and I bought 4 boxes back. SGD150 on chocolates, no regrets for quality chocolates. 

Dinner at Chez Ma Cusine near our hotel - they had different menu, and back hotel to pack and sleep. Jetlagged.