As part of our travels we enjoy using couch surfing. We were lucky enough to have met Stefan in Zurich. We stayed with him for two nights on his very comfortable couch. He was amazing. We ate raclette which is a popular dish in Switzerland, biked around the city, went on a boat ride and had many interesting chats. What a legend! Stefan has the best job, he is a train driver. This means he gets free public transport. In Switzerland you can access every mountain by train. He also gets half price train rides all over Europe.
We also met up with a friend Lorenze who we met on our previous cycle tour in Turkey.
On day three, we caught an extremely early bus to Basil in France to collect our hire vehicle. FYI: if ever hiring a car, do not do this in Switzerland, so much cheaper in either France or Germany. You do have to however pay for a vignette which is around $60 Australian dollars.
We drove towards Interlaken. We stopped several times to take photos of the impressive snow capped mountains. Once in Interlaken we took a cable car up to Gimmeln and then did a return hike to Murren. Some areas were challenging as there was snow on the ground and Vanessa had her runners on!!
We stayed the night at TCS camping. It wasn’t cheap $80 for two nights!
The next day we headed to Grindelwald. We knew the cable cars would be expensive but never expected it to be almost $200! For a 20 minute gondola ride up to the peak. We then walked on an elevated walk way to a viewing platform which went around the mountain. We finally got to the photo spot after a long wait as everyone was taking around 20 photos each. We decided to make the most of the glorious weather and the money paid for the gondola and hike for a further 2hours towards a lake, which was frozen over but still extremely worth the walk. Jon unfortunately forgot his sunglasses, which meant he was squinting all day from the glare off the snow.
After lunch, we drove to the start of another hike at Kandersteg to a glacier lake called Oeschinensee. we hiked up for an hour along a river bed, through forests and unfortunately some road. Everywhere in Switzerland has access by vehicles or train which to us seems very sad. Once at the lake, we were extremely impressed. Waterfalls running into the lake, snow and forest surrounding the water, as well as a glacier. Jon and I decided to go in for a dip after watching some others brave it. Jon jumped in and screamed blue murder, whilst Vanessa dipped her toes and decided against it.
Day five, we decided to run in the morning, then drive to the start of a hike around a lake towards St Beatus caves. This was well worth it. We enjoyed our packed lunch in an impressive spot.
We drove to a camp spot near Lausanne as we were meeting Vanessa’s cousins there the following day. It poured that night with some impressive thunder and lightning. Vanessa ended up sleeping in the car.
Day 6: We drove to Montreux on Lake Geneva to look around a medieval castle.
After exploring we drove to Lausanne. Met up with the family for a hot drink and went for a walk. Lucie and Stephanie were lovely. Stephanie begged us to stay the night with her and her family. We agreed and drove with them to Morbier in France. We had a lovely meal and lots of chats in a mixture of Portuguese and English.
The next morning was stressful. We drove very fast through unexpected country lanes. Unfortunately Jon’s phone was programmed to avoid tolls. This meant that we had a very scenic ride to Basil through French country lanes, instead of using Switzerlands impressive motorways, it added at least an hour. We were in a desperate rush to make the 10am bus to Copenhagen. We made it to Basil airport, dropped the hire car off just in time with only 15 minutes to spare. Phew!!