Barcelona: Switzerland!

Two weekends ago, Lauren, Taylor and I took a trip to Switzerland. We left for Geneva early Friday morning, and when we got there we immediately dropped our bags at the hostel and went in search of some breakfast. We found an adorable cafe where we had our first "taste" of Switzerland. I ordered amazing quiche and a cappuccino, and Taylor ordered the most delicious hot chocolate I have ever tasted in my life (Swiss chocolate beats all).

Tomato and spinach quiche

Coffee, steamed milk, and Swiss chocolate!

After eating, we really wanted to get a feel for the city of Geneva, so we bought self-led audio tours from the tourism center. Our adventure around the city lasted several hours, and even though we were tired, I really enjoyed seeing and hearing about the various import sites throughout Geneva. It's hard to upload a lot of picture to blogspot, but here are a few of the things we say on Friday's audio tour:

Cafes on Lake Geneva

Beautiful ceilings of St. Peter's cathedral

Wall of the Founding Fathers of Protestantism, including Martin Luther...the Lord's Prayer is carved into the wall in huge letters as well

Plaza where we ended up eating dinner later

The tour was great, and after we rested for a while, we went back out around Geneva to find a great place to eat dinner. Switzerland was so expensive, even after converting from francs back to dollars, but we found a good place with a lot of options and I ordered pesto vegetables and tofu, and we all ordered some french fries. At the end of dinner, Taylor and I split a delicious dessert (that obviously included chocolate)


Hazelnut cheesecake, with a huge spoonful of chocolate

On Saturday, we took an amazing and scenic train ride to Interlaken, just a few hours away, so that we could partake in some Extreme Sports. Interlaken is known for extreme and exciting outdoor adventures, and our canyoning trip was nothing short of extreme and exciting. If you click on this YouTube link, you can see the exact same trip we took except with different people: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z7jDxUk1g7k Interlaken was one of the most beautiful places I have ever been in my life. It is basically a small town in a valley of the Swiss Alps between two lakes. The water of the canyoning trip was the coldest water I have ever subjected myself to in my life, and the jumps and slides were very, very scary, but I was proud and happy after scaling down the Alps through glacier run-off waterfalls. After canyoning, we spent the rest of our night in Interlaken. We ate at a cute Italian restaurant, and afterward went to a famous chocolatier and restaurant, Schuh, to get some fondue for dessert. Interlaken was amazing, and if anyone ever goes to Switzerland, it is a must do!

View from right outside the small town up towards the mountains. There were 10 - 20 paragliders in the sky at any given time!

The beauty of Interlaken

...The beauty of our fondue

On our final day in Switzerland, Sunday, we decided to take a boat tour up Lake Geneva to some towns in France and other towns in Switzerland. The weather was slightly cool but very sunny. Out tour had about 8 different stops on different shores, and we finally disembarked in the Swiss town of Lausanne, the 3rd largest city in Switzerland. The town was adorable, with many shops and cafes as usual. Strangely enough, the Olympic Museum is in Lausanne (why not in Athens, I do not know), so we stopped for a while to rest and look around the park and grounds of the Olympic Museum. We climbed up extremely steep streets to find a famous chocolate stop at the top of Lausanne (the city is built up a large hill), but being Sunday, we found it was closed. Instead, we found a very tasty Whole Foods/Do-It-Yourself Cafe that made up for it totally. Towards the end of the day, we took a train back to Geneva to go to bed early so that we could wake up, catch a 7am flight, and make it to class on Monday morning. Everything worked out perfectly, and my Switzerland trip was really one to remember.