Our most recent European mini-adventure started with a list of tour dates posted by Ryan Bingham on his website over the summer; he's the American singer we went to see in Dublin in February. Since his European tour dates never seem to include a stop through Paris, we take advantage of the opportunity to find a show in a city we haven't yet visited, and build a trip around it. So this time... off the beautiful city of Zurich in Switzerland! After a four-hour train from Paris to Zurich on Thursday night, we checked in to the Boutique Townhouse Hotel, which was a 5 minute walk from the train station. Everything is ridiculously expensive in Zurich, but we'd recommend this hotel as not too pricey and a fantastic location if you ever go - just be sure to ask for a room on an upper floor. We got up dark and early the next day for a day trip to the Bernese Alps, which I had been looking forward to since I booked the tour a few months ago. We boarded the largest bus I have ever seen and headed out with our Swiss guide, Pedro (seriously) four our first stop, Interlaken. It always helps when the weather is awesome, but this town is seriously amazing, and worth a longer visit. Next stop... Grindelwald! The names of some of these little towns just sound like they should be filled with nothing but log cabins and steaming mugs of hot chocolate all year round. To get up to our ultimate destination - Jungfraujoch - we had to take a number of cogwheel trains that winded steeply up, up up to the mountain, which you can see in the distance: Jungfraujoch has been quite brilliantly branded the "Top of Europe", for the fact that it is home to the highest railway station in Europe at over 11,000 feet above sea level, and is nestled among three famous mountains - the Jungfrau (virgin), the Mönch (monk), and the Eiger, which is known for the treacherous climb of its North Face wall. The station was opened in 1912, and allows visitors to gain access to the Sphinx, one of the highest astronomical observatories in the world, and take in some pretty spectacular views of the Aletsch Glacier. Back in Zurich, we spent the next few days exploring the city itself, and of course attending the concert that took us there in the first place. It turns out that if you've going to go full groupie, getting to the venue early and standing in the front row is definitely the way to go! Best concert yet.
The weather wasn't quite as good the rest of the weekend as what we had in the Alps - go figure - but the city's autumn charm worked its magic on us nevertheless. You can find more photos from our trip in the album here.
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AuthorBecause why not get married and move to Paris to really kick off your thirties? Archives
December 2016
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