A return to Switzerland – land of mountains, museums and moos! COMPLETED 12/4 - Page 6 - PassPorter - A Community of Walt Disney World, Disneyland, Disney Cruise Line, and General Travel Forums
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There are other changes as well.
Why? Well, the world has changed. And change with it, we must. The lyrics to "We Go On" for IllumiNations say it best:
We go on to the joy and through the tears
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We go on
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It's time to move on and move forward.
PassPorter is a small business, and for many years it supported our family. But the world changed, print books took a backseat to the Internet, and for a long time now it has been unable to make ends meet. We've had to find new ways to support our family, which means new careers and less and less time available to devote to our first baby, PassPorter.
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A ten mile tunnel?!? Wow, that's some engineering! Although I guess you routinely go through a much longer one every time you cross the Channel, right?
Thermal baths sound so wonderful!
Today we've been down to the Italian end of Switzerland - mixed feelings on this end of the country, although we did go through the St. Gottard Pass (a 10 mile long tunnel) on the way down and the way back was absolutely stunning. We went to another thermal spa in Bad Ragaz and this one was just unbelievable.
We are now in another country - we're spending the night in Liechtenstein, before heading off to Zurich in the morning...
On my first trip to Europe in 1995, on a tour, we went through the St. Gottard Pass. This was from Venice to Lucerne. Also pretty cool going through the Lakes district of Italy on the way and seeing great views of Lake Como! Never been through a tunnel this long before as this is uncommon in the states. Loved it! Glad you and Mark had a great birthday dinner for him, even though it was a bit expensive. But, you have to expect that in Switzerland as it's not known for being cheap in any way.
Hopefully, on your next trip you can take the cog whhel train to Mt. Pilatus. You'll certainly enjoy it!
On my next trip to Europe in 1996 we stopped in Liechtenstein from Bern to Paris. Only there for a couple of hours, but it was cool to have my passport stamped there and have that country on there. It's not required but just went to the TI office and had it done. It was just a minimal fee, but really clear ink, unlike msot, which you can barely read.
Looking forward to more updates and the photos of course!
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October 6, 2017-Enjoying an amazing dinner at Victoria & Albert's with PP's Dot and Drew
My TR from my most recent trip is now underway. Includes: Universal Studios Florida, Disney World and Sea World Orlando Trifecta TR -Updated December 10th! TR is now COMPLETED!
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I'll be interested to read about your experiences in the Italian Alps. I toured that area on a separate trip from the Swiss Alps, so the way I feel may have been caused by different logistics of the two trips. My memories are of liking the feel of the Italian Alps better, although both were beautiful and the Swiss Alps more dramatic.
In fairness, we were passing through the Alps - our stops in the Italian part of the country were towns - Lugano and Bellinzona.
A ten mile tunnel?!? Wow, that's some engineering! Although I guess you routinely go through a much longer one every time you cross the Channel, right?
That's true, although it was very different, as we don't drive through the Channel Tunnel - it was weird to be driving for so long through a tunnel.
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Thermal baths sound so wonderful!
They were. If only they weren't so far away, we'd be there regularly!
On my first trip to Europe in 1995, on a tour, we went through the St. Gottard Pass. This was from Venice to Lucerne. Also pretty cool going through the Lakes district of Italy on the way and seeing great views of Lake Como! Never been through a tunnel this long before as this is uncommon in the states. Loved it! Glad you and Mark had a great birthday dinner for him, even though it was a bit expensive. But, you have to expect that in Switzerland as it's not known for being cheap in any way.
That is certainly true!
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Hopefully, on your next trip you can take the cog whhel train to Mt. Pilatus. You'll certainly enjoy it!
Thanks for the recommendation. There's also a rotating cable car that interests me...
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On my next trip to Europe in 1996 we stopped in Liechtenstein from Bern to Paris. Only there for a couple of hours, but it was cool to have my passport stamped there and have that country on there. It's not required but just went to the TI office and had it done. It was just a minimal fee, but really clear ink, unlike msot, which you can barely read.
Looking forward to more updates and the photos of course!
Oh that's good to know. We asked last time in Switzerland if they would stamp our passports and they told us they couldn't because we were European nationals. While I love having free travel through so many countries, it really does seriously reduce the amount of passport stamps you can get.
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Feel free to answer these questions once you're back home:
Did you plan this trip yourself in regards to booking hotels and such? What resources did you use?
Have you ever been to the Friedrichsbad in Baden-Baden, Bavaria, Germany? It's my only thermal bath experience, but it was awesome. I mean aside from the co-ed nudity that threw me off a bit.
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Rachel
Blogging about whatever comes to mind at The New Smiths.
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Totally OT, I just noticed your Doctor Who countdown. We're anxiously waiting for that, too, and I'm re-watching all the episodes now.
It is so great to find so many other Doctor Who fans on here. I have loved that programme since the 20th anniversary and I feel so old, as of course that was 30 years ago now.
Feel free to answer these questions once you're back home:
Did you plan this trip yourself in regards to booking hotels and such? What resources did you use?
I did it all myself. I worked out how far I thought we could travel in a day, then I looked at where to spend each night and what to see on the way. When it came to booking hotels, I looked for reasonably priced hotels generally with free parking (if possible), free (or cheap) Internet and free breakfast, as we prefer to have it included - and I tell you what, some of the breakfasts we've had have kept us going until dinner! Once I found something that met that criteria, I checked on TripAdvisor to see what they were like, and if they came out with a good score, I went for them - simple as that. To be honest, I swear by TripAdvisor, as in all the years I've been using it (maybe four years now...) we've only had one bad experience and we've stayed at a lot of different hotels in that time.
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Have you ever been to the Friedrichsbad in Baden-Baden, Bavaria, Germany? It's my only thermal bath experience, but it was awesome. I mean aside from the co-ed nudity that threw me off a bit.
we haven't, although the co-ed nudity is something I wouldn't be comfortable with either. I read up about the Swiss thermal baths to check that they didn't do that, as I don't think I'd have liked that at all!
We had no Internet last night, so I couldn't update... now where was I? Oh Liechtenstein... we visited the capital city (very small!) and then headed to Zurich to visit the Swiss National Museum. We then paid Baden a visit, before heading to the farm where we'd be doing the cow trekking. We were literally the only ones staying there, so dinner was surrounded by cows, chicken, a dog and three cats, which was a bit surreal.
This morning, we did the cow trekking (I've just stuck a couple of photos on Facebook) and it was a lot of fun. It was wonderful to spend so much time up close and personal with cows and I learnt a lot about them.
We've spent the rest of the day since driving, and we're now in Luxembourg. The plan is to explore the capital city in the morning before heading home. We've seen the first rain of our trip driving here today since last Saturday when we came through France. seriously - no rain at all in Switzerland, and it's been hot. It was up in the high 80s yesterday, so coming into rain and colder temperatures is a bit of a shock to the system...
Thanks for the recommendation. There's also a rotating cable car that interests me...
Oh that's good to know. We asked last time in Switzerland if they would stamp our passports and they told us they couldn't because we were European nationals. While I love having free travel through so many countries, it really does seriously reduce the amount of passport stamps you can get.
A rotating cable car sounds like a lot of fun. On my trip to Mt. Pilatus, we took the cog wheel train and then a cable car the rest of the way. But this one didn't rotate, so it may be something fairly new. On the descent it was just by cable car.
That's too bad about the passport stamps.
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October 6, 2017-Enjoying an amazing dinner at Victoria & Albert's with PP's Dot and Drew
My TR from my most recent trip is now underway. Includes: Universal Studios Florida, Disney World and Sea World Orlando Trifecta TR -Updated December 10th! TR is now COMPLETED!
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Never been through a tunnel this long before as this is uncommon in the states. Loved it! Glad you and Mark had a great birthday dinner for him, even though it was a bit expensive. But, you have to expect that in Switzerland as it's not known for being cheap in any way.
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If only they weren't so far away, we'd be there regularly! 
While I love having free travel through so many countries, it really does seriously reduce the amount of passport stamps you can get.
we haven't, although the co-ed nudity is something I wouldn't be comfortable with either. I read up about the Swiss thermal baths to check that they didn't do that, as I don't think I'd have liked that at all! 
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