A Change in Temperature, Scenery, Culture, Language - Well, Everything Actually!

Wednesday, I left the sunny and warm Cote d'Azur and flew to Zürich to visit my friends, Roger and Kathrin, and their two children.  Good bye French and hello Swiss German - or, in my case, as much German as I can muster.  It was about 20' when I left Nice and it was about 12' in Zürich when I arrived.  That was a bit of a shock.  What was lovely, however, was seeing all the fall colours - there is certainly none of that when you are surrounded by palm and olive trees on the Cote d'Azur! 

One thing about CH is that everything is very efficient.  Even though I was flying in from France, there was no passport control.  My flight arrived at noon, my bag was already waiting for me when I found the luggage carousel, and by 12:32 (precisely) I was on a train to Herrliberg Feldmeilen where the Jekers live.  Too easy - and it helped that I could even buy my train ticket ahead of time with an app and get it on my phone.   Alina, their daughter greeted me at the train station with a lovely red maple leaf (or a leaf that sure looked like one). 

The Zurich train station's Angel

Back in high school, I was in some classes with a gal named Bev Brown.  She now lives in Bern and, through our 50th class reunion, we reconnected.  We had arranged to meet up while I was staying in Zürich.  So, Thursday we, along with a friend of hers who was visiting from Australia, met under the "Angel" at the Zürich Hauptbahnhof and spent the rest of the day together.  After having a coffee, we started walking around Zürich with Bev as our guide.  We went along the river and then through some of the streets of the Aldstadt.



Bev and I in Zürich on Thursday

Looking across Zürich

In part of the Aldstadt

From there, we went for lunch to a famous vegetarian restaurant called Hiltl, which was the world's first vegetarian restaurant founded in 1898 and which is now run by the fourth generation of the Hiltl family.  It is a buffet-style and the weight of your plate determines the price you pay.  Interesting concept!  After that, we took a tram to the Frauenkirch so Bev and Marilyn could see the stained-glass windows in the church that were done by Chagall.  I had seen them 12 years ago and was just as impressed the second time as when I first saw them. 

Lunch at Hiltl

Inside the restaurant

Next, we decided we would take the train to Luzern (Lucerne).  I was more than happy to do that as I love that town and had not been there for quite a few years.  The train trip was only about 45 minutes and the next thing we knew we were on the banks of the Reuss River looking at that iconic wooden bridge.  We spent some time looking around the Aldstadt (old town) and admiring the old painted buildings.  We walked part way across the bridge - it still has not been fully restored since the fire on it years ago and the famous Plague paintings have still not been put back up.  Then, we said our good byes after having spent a wonderful day together and I took the train back to Zürich and then Herrliberg-Feldmeilen while Bev and Marilyn headed back to Bern. 

    
Later that evening, for something completely different, I helped the Jekers carve their Halloween pumpkin.  I have done this with them two or three times now and it has become somewhat of a tradition.  On tomorrow's agenda is crafting a witch's hat for Alina as that is what she wants to be on Halloween.  Thank heaven for YouTube!  We can find out how to make one.

 

 

The finished product lit up