Zermatt

One of the most beautiful places in Switzerland, and seen on most of the swiss souveniers is the Matterhorn in Zermatt.. Once we were up there, our jaws dropped at the beauty of the Matterhorn range and the glaciers we could see.
Best way to get up to the matterhorn from Geneva is by train. We took the train to Visp, and from there took the train to zermatt. The train journey from Visp to Zermatt is also a beautiful scenic journey where you can catch glimpses of the perfect swiss landscape. :)

Once in Zermatt, you immediately see the beauty of this car free town. Stepping out of the train station, just to the right is the tourist office, and in front of you is the Gornergrat ticket office from where the Gornergrat bahn leaves. It takes you upto Gornergrat with breathtaking views of the matterhorn and zermatt along the way. (10000 feet).
Another option to get close to the matterhorn will be to take the cable car up there. The cable car station is at the end of the village at about a 1 km walk from the train station.

The cable car gets you really close to the peak and has couple of hiking stops also you can make in between. Its quite long, being about 50 mins to get up to the peak.

Besides the matterhorn, there are a couple of other things to do in Zermatt.. You can take the horse carriage ride through the whole town.. There are a couple of museums as well. All in all a great town to walk around and admire the typical swiss chalets with flowers at their windows :)

Zurich and Lucerne

So we move on with our experiences in Zurich & Lucerne, out to mount pilatus - which is one of the steepest cogwheel train rides in the world! Pretty exciting... We went with our colleages Dave and Angie.. Took a cruise along lucerne to reach the train station for mount pilatus!

So to people who are planning a trip here, some things to do in Zurich and Lucerne:

Luzern Attractions:

1. One of the main attractions in Lucerne is Mt Pilatus. The way to get there is go to it is this: We take a train from the Lucerene train station to Alpnachstad / or take a 90 min boat cruise to the station. I would suggest the boat cruise.. Its lovely and really scenic! and then take the cogwheel train up to the Pilatus Kulm.

To come down, we can take the cable car or they call it aerial gondola..

2. Swiss transportation museum: - Can take upto 1 whole day

3. Chapel bridge

4. Cruise on Lake Luzern – Must do!!

5. Dying Lion of Lucerne Monument

6. Glacier Garden

7. Nine towers – Again it’s a hike there.. might take a couple of hours.

The glacier garden and nine towers is apparently very close to the lion monument,. We didn’t get there, but have heard great things about it...

There are lots of other museums to see around..

Things to do in Zurich:

- Rhine falls

- Loads of museums around

- Walk down Bahnhofstrasse – extends south of Hauptbahnhof towards the lake. Its a pedestrian street with a tram line down the middle. Has lots of high-end shops for window-browsing.

- Walk through Old Town and the Niederdorf district – situation on both sides of the river Limmat towards the lake. Cobblestone streets and little laneways to wander around. Some shops will be open here on Sunday but not all of them.

- Walk by the lake down to Zurihorn – its a pleasant walk by the lakeside (can be crowded), the lakeside views from Zurihorn are great.

- Churches in old town – Fraumunster, Grossmunster and St Peters. Fraumunster has the stain glass windows by Chagall, Grossmunster has the iconic double spires, St Peters has the biggest clock face in Europe. I think you can walk up one of the towers in Grossmunster, not sure of the cost though. Otherwise free to enter and walk around if there aren’t any church services going on.

- Lindenhof – In old town, this lookout retains part of the original protective walls surrounding the town. Has nice views of the city and river Limmat.

- View from the lookout at Zurich University – higher up than the Lindenhof, also has great views. The university has a distinctive big green dome – should take about 10 minutes to walk from old town.

- Uetliberg (pronounced Oot-lee-berg) – Has a nice view of the Swiss Alps from the viewing tower when the air is clear (can be hazy). Take the S10 train – this departs from Main Station but in a different part of the station. Maybe ask the person at the ticket counter where the platform is (they all speak english). You walk for another 10-15 minutes to get to the lookout..

Annecy, France

So here we are planning our first trip to France, outside of Switzerland :).
We chose a small quaint little town called annecy which is just a little over an hour from Geneva.. Can't belive it, in 1 hour you are in another country!

Annecy has a very Venice like feeling to it. The best way to get there we thought was by going to the Gare-routeire in Geneva, and taking a bus from there.. Costs around 33 franks roundtrip.

There is a very old prison right in the middle of a canal there, which is by far the most visited attraction in annecy. For all you people planning some trips here, this is the link to the tourism in annecy - http://www.lac-annecy.com/ and of course trip TripAdvisor is always great to see the things to do...

The lake Annecy is beautiful.. It is supposed to be one of the cleanest lakes in Europe.. We did boating on the lake for half an hour, and it was very reasonable at just 10 euros for 20 mins.. Highly recommended :).
The food was great and cheap as well!

Travel to Bern, Switzerland

Our next trip - Bern Switzerland.
Everyone knows how convenient it is to travel by train in Europe.. so we just hopped onto a train to Bern :) the capital of Switzerland..
A very clean little German city.. Not very big though, and perfect for a day trip. We started off by visiting the Bear pits - as the name suggests, there are pits right in the middle of the city with bears!
We also went to Einstein Haus - yes, prof Albert Einsteins house. which is now turned into a museum and is one of the attractions in bern.. I must say he lived on a beautiful street, right in front of the clock tower :)


We then went to the Rose garden, from where you get a panaromic view of the city of Bern, photo of which is the first one above...

All in all a good trip and perfect for a day from Geneva.

First trip in Switzerland - Montreux

So we went on to out very first trip in Geneva (back in July 2010), very excited about it at that time ;). Montreux is about and hour away from Geneva by train... Crossing through a very scenic route of vineyards on one side and the lake leman on the other side..

Montreux is a small town, famous for its jazz festival that it has and off course the main attraction there which we also visited - the Chateau Chillon. It exists from around the 12 century and is worth the visit at least once. Be sure to take the audio guide with you as it will be meaningless if you roam around in the castle buildings :)

On a clear day be sure to get a picture of the castle with the lake and the mountains in the background...

Transition from Bellevue to Geneva

In Jan of 2010, Siddharth got the exciting news that his job was being transferred to Geneva, Switzerland and since then our life has been full of action ;)...
Back then when we received this news, we had such mixed feelings about this.. so many unanswered questions, how would we move? What about our US visa? what about my job ? and the list could go on... But when we came for our look-see trip and our home finding trip to Geneva, we knew that we were going to accept this offer! Another reason being the location of Geneva. Switzerland is one of the most desired places in the world.. and why wouldn't one want to come here :)
Also we have such great access to Italy, France, Austria, UK and the whole of Europe.

So we have decided to put into a blog our experiences of travel all around Europe as an expat during these two years in Switzerland...

So starting with Geneva, its a very international place with people from all communities and from different parts of the world coming here.. The dominant language is French here. You can do without knowing French, but for certain to interact with people like the electrician etc, you need to know the basics of French, and we have started learning that too :)

As far as places to see in Geneva:

• Old town is a must!
• Lake geneva - Jet d'eau
  
• La Saleve
• United Nations
• Flower clock of Geneva - which changes flowers every season.. pretty cool :)
• University of Geneva, where you can see the statues of the founders of Geneva as well.