Favourite Photo Friday - 20/9/13

This weeks photo is from our Europe trip. It's not a spectacular scenery photo, or even a particularly cute photo of Astrid. It's some photos taken the day we went to Zurich zoo. We had seen the forecast for the day and it was starting out at about 2 degrees and raining and was gradually dropping to below zero with snow expected. We had been walking around in the wet during the morning doing some sight-seeing and by the time we caught the tram up the hill to the zoo, sure enough huge flutters of snow were coming down.

It was the first snow for the Zurich Winter (it was still technically Autumn, but first of the season I guess). It was also the first time Astrid had been out in snow. She had played in the snow in Switzerland but it was bright and sunny while we were there and not actively snowing. This was her first taste of the white stuff falling from the sky. She did look particularly cute all rugged up in her snowsuit on Anto's back. This photo was taken just after we entered the zoo as we realised how cool it was to be walking around in snow drifts seeing all the animals. Most of the animals had heated enclosures and didn't seem that phased by the snow.

The zoo was awesome but we only lasted a few hours in the snow so we didn't get to see all of it.  One day we will go back though!

I do love all the snow stuck to my lens!  Most of the photos from that day are a little less than stellar since there was so much snow falling. It was a great day though and a very fun and different zoo experience!

 

 D80 with Nikon 50mm f1.8 

ISO 800, focal length 50mm 

Exposure: 1/400 @ f/2.5

D80 with Tokina 12-24mm f4.0

ISO 800, focal length 19mm 

Exposure: 1/1000 @ f/4.0

28 October - Reflections on Switzerland

We planned a quiet day since we were tired after the last few days of travelling. We also had a mountain of washing to catch up on. When we had arrived home the previous night we realised a certain young lady had left the fridge slightly ajar (her favourite trick) and pretty much all the food in the fridge had to be thrown. This meant a big shop for groceries as well.

We caught up on most of the washing and shopping/cooking in the morning and let Astrid have a decent lunchtime sleep so headed to the park in the afternoon. It was still cold out so after an hour or so we went back to the apartment for some hot chocolate and episodes of playschool.

So for today's update here are our thoughts on Switzerland:

We knew we wouldn't get to see everything in our 5 days/4 nights and there are definitely things we want to go back and see.  We were fairly underwhelmed by Geneva, but we might have just had a bad day. Plus we were tired. Montreux and Luzern were lovely towns to walk around and we could have spent longer in both.

Interlaken wasn't that exciting, although we didn't really see much of it and used it as a base. We would have loved to have stayed longer in one of the towns further up the Alps. We could easily have had a few days there and done more exploring of the alpine regions and some of the walking trails. Grindelwald and Lauterbrunnen were lovely, but plenty of others we passed through also looked great.

Despite the appalling weather we loved Zurich and would have loved to have spent more time there. We will have to go back.  There were also plenty of places we didn't see. We didn't get to see any of the Northern regions or the South-Western Italian regions.  Definitely a country to go back to at some stage.

The Trains:
The rail system is brilliant. All the trains were clean, comfortable and efficient. Aside from a few issues working out connections we had no complaints. The international commutes between Paris and Geneva/Zurich were great and less hassle than flying.  Most of the smaller towns had free train/tram/bus connections for tourists which made life easy and the bigger cities had reasonably priced passes.

The trains do very much run on time. The first day or so we were freaked out that the trains just took off without warning. No door closing sound, no announcements, no warning at all. They just leave. The first couple of times Astrid and our bags went flying as we were unprepared. We soon figured out that they go by the railway clocks (which are all perfectly synchronised). Once you know what time your train is meant to leave you just know to be seated and ready at exactly that time.  There are copious clocks around, and all the trains had them so it was easy once we knew. Anto also synchronised his watch to 'train time' which made it easy.

They often didn't make announcements about stations and stops so sometimes you just had to guess how long til your station. The time stopped at each station would also vary as the train would leave when it got to 'exactly' it's leaving time. This meant we often didn't know how long we would be stopped for in order to get ourselves and all our gear off (and Astrid in the carrier) so we sometimes had to rush around just in case.

The currency:
Switzerland uses Swiss Francs and it is worth slightly less than an Aussie Dollar. It made it easy to see how hideously expensive everything was. The food was extremely expensive in restaurants and cafes, but fairly well priced at the supermarket.  So if you could do your own catering it wouldn't have been too bad. Coffee and soft drink was very expensive, but beer and wine not so much. Chocolate was very well priced and delicious!

The Swiss Francs seem to come in stupid coin denominations. The 5 Franc is a silver piece that looks exactly like an Aussie 20 cent piece. Very deceiving, when you are carrying around a pocket full of them and you realise how much money it is. For 10 Francs they go to a note that looks like our $50.  The half Franc looked like a 5c piece and again you could end up with a ton of them in your pocket.

The language/s:
It was very odd swapping between German and French in different towns. We didn't go to any of the Italian areas, but Luzern had a lot of Italian sections, where everything was Italian food in German. Another odd experience. The Swiss all spoke French and German with very precise accents to it was actually easier to understand than French in France or German in Germany. They were also more willing to swap to English than the French and pretty much all spoke some English.

Weird hotel things:
All the hotels we stayed at gave us a heap of hand towels and no face washers. They also have towels that are a good large size, unlike most hotels where you struggle to find one big enough to wrap around yourself.  When they made up the beds, they always put 2 single bed doonas (folded lengthwise) onto the bed, so each person had their own doona.  The baby cot (porta cots) were really  nice, with big thick mattresses and came with a pillow and thick doona. They obviously don't care about SIDS guidelines in Switzerland. Astrid didn't get the doonas, but she had her sleeping bag anyway. She enjoyed the more comfy matresses. All hotels seemed to include breakfast, which was good given how expensive food (and hotels) are.

All breakfast seemed to consist of copious different choices of meat, cheese, yoghurts and breads. It was generally really yummy though.

Going out with a baby:
Every time we went into a restaurant or cafe they appeared with a highchair automatically. Very different to France where you have to ask and may or may not get one.  They also assumed that you weren't going to feed your baby as they never asked if we wanted anything for Astrid and if we did order something (or ask for an extra plate so she could share ours) they looked at us like we were weird.  Generally they loved babies though and she got tonnes of attention, biscuits and chocolate and multiple people offered to take her home.

General impressions: 
The food was good, but not as good as Paris.  The German influenced food was pretty good quality but the French influenced just wasn't as good as what we were used to. It's hard to beat Paris though!  The food was nice everywhere we went and we  enjoyed most of our meals.

The people were very no nonsense. They don't chat much (unlike Paris) but were friendly and  helpful.  We didn't get hassled at all and we didn't really see any homeless people (unlike Paris, where there is one on every corner). Of course the Swiss probably hide them all, or it's too cold........

The scenery can't be beaten and photos couldn't do it justice.

They really do love banks, watches and chocolate..... and Roger Federer....... all 4 were everywhere!

A picture of Astrid in her new French coat and Swiss hat:

27 October - A very cold and snowy day in Zurich

We had a reasonably good nights sleep in our Zurich hotel. A bed that was big, in one piece and a room that was the correct temperature! The constant wail of police sirens was interesting but we were tired so it didn't bother us too much.

Astrid woke up fairly early so we decided to have breakfast and head out for some early sightseeing. Breakfast was in the next building (part of the same hotel). We went downstairs and immediately realised it was pouring with rain, dark and very cold.  At any rate breakfast was great, the best Swiss offering yet! Lots of lovely croissants and almond pastries, heaps of yummy breads, cheeses and meats and more yogurt and  jams and good coffee.  We ate plenty and decided to go back to our room and re-evaluate our plan for the day.

The weather forecast was not inspiring. It was currently 6 degrees, with heavy rain, and it was predicted to hit zero by lunch time, with sleet. Progressing to minus 1 and heavy snow by mid-afternoon.  The prospect of snow was exciting but it was pretty average weather for our only day in a city we really wanted to see.

Given it was only going to get colder we decided to rug up and put Astrid in the carrier with  the weather hood on and go for a walk around the old town and Bahnhoff Strasse.  We had to find a supermarket for an umbrella and started wandering the streets. It was too wet for many photos but it was still nice wandering around the river and looking at the lovely old buildings, cafes and restaurants.

We noted that the swans looked less than impressed with the weather and had their heads well and truly tucked up as the floated around.  At this point Astrid had fallen asleep in the carrier so we thought we'd keep walking and give her a rest. There were plenty of shops along Bahnhoff Strasse to look at. We saw lots of the posh stores had their Christmas displays up and we could see the lights twinkling through the grey and cold morning.

We sought out the toy store Franz Carl Weber, as it was meant to be awesome. Awesome it was. Four levels of toy heaven, anything a young baby or big boy could want.  We found heaps of things we loved. They have amazing wooden toys we just can't get at home and we have seen them all over Switzerland. Most are Swiss or German and we really wanted to get Astrid some.  They also had spectacular model railways with replicas of all the trains we had been on. The were very impressive but not really the right age range for an Astrid. Anto enjoyed looking at them though. He was even more impressed with the model cable car/ski lift that we saw. We thought it was pretty cool, maybe when Astrid is a few years older we'll need to come back. At any rate the store was huge, and had so many interesting things. One floor had a kiddy hairdresser, another a kids cafe and there were also areas where you could get dressed up and I think they had entertainers come in. In the end we did purchase some things for Astrid's Christmas present, despite the dilemma of how to get them back to Paris as we hadn't bought our spare bags on this part of the trip.  Astrid has woken up while we were in the store and was in wonderland. We didn't let her out of the carrier though or it would have been more expensive.

We then kept wandering around Bahnhoff Strasse and the old town but we were getting quite cold and very wet. We decided it was time for  a break and found a little cafe tucked in an alley that was quaint and very warm and cosy. The had the best hot chocolate, the first really good one we had while in Switzerland. They also had a delicious berry torte thing that we all devoured.


 Feeling warmer we headed back to the hotel to change out of our wet clothes and stash the goodies from the toy store Anto was lugging. One of my boots is leaking and it's not fun walking around in icy water. Astrid was also getting damp even in the carrier, so we put her in a snowsuit to keep her drier.  We then thought we  should grab some of the Swiss chocolate we wanted to take back with us. We had eyed off several things in Geneva but only bought small amounts as we didn't want to lug it all through Switzerland. Of course the brands in Zurich seemed to differ and we couldn't get exactly what we wanted but still managed to find a stash. We were not the only people at the store buying huge quantities of chocolate, other tourists appeared to be doing the same thing.

At this point it was about 2 degrees and sleeting and we were cold and rushing to get back to our hotel for check-out. We managed to repack the bags, stow our luggage at the hotel and although sitting in a warm cafe all afternoon seemed like the better plan we thought we should try and get some more sightseeing done.

Wandering around and taking photos was pretty much impossible but the zoo had great reviews and apparently had several indoor exhibits. So what do you do when it's zero degrees and snowing, why you take your 16 month old to the zoo! It sounded like a mad plan but apparently it's not unusual to go to the zoo in those conditions. The tram was full of people heading that way and when we got there there were a ton of young children and babies so we weren't the only crazy ones.

On the way up the hill in the tram we noticed the sleet was now definitely snow and was starting to settle on the ground in big clumps. It was very pretty but rather cold.  The zoo was covered in snow and it was going to be an interesting visit!  We decided to have lunch first up. Expecting pretty average food from their buffet restaurant we were surprised at the array of hot and cold options (including scrumptious desserts) for a very reasonable price. Astrid and Anto mostly shared more bratwurst and chips but I got a salad bar plate, which incidentally was an awesome salad bar with so many options I couldn't fit them all on (and they were all yummy) and Astrid and Anto both had some salads too.

Ready for zoo going we headed out and noted that there was a thick covering of snow everywhere. Many of the animals are moved into heated areas over winter so not all the displays were running. The animals that didn't get moved inside all had shelters and most were using them.  We loved the flock of pink flamingos standing in the snow and the tigers standing on their rocks with snow drifting on them. We should also point out that our alpacas are very soft and get coats when it rains or is a bit cold. The zoo alpacas were out in the snow, being hard-core. Take note Inti and Chimu, harden up Zurich style!

It was very cold and we skipped a lot of exhibits and decided to head for some indoor ones. The monkey/ape/gorillas were fantastic and there were throngs of children in the exhibit being entertained by all the cheeky primates. Astrid thought they were hilarious as they rolled around and garnered for attention. They also had massive gorillas who were telling off the younger gorillas.

We headed to the African exhibit to see some of the toucans, ant eaters and lemurs.  They had animals I'd never seen before and we were enjoying seeing some of them but Astrid was getting a bit over it. We distracted her with the penguins for a bit  But we decided to skip the rainforest exhibit as she wasn't keeping her mittens on and was getting cold and tired. The zoo was really good and on another day when it was less cold and/or Astrid was less tired we would have spent longer there.

We headed back on the tram with a cranky bub and found a cafe to have a coffee in to warm up. We had been planning on riding the funicular but it closed early on a Saturday so we gave it a miss and just hung outside inside in the warm for a bit. steeling ourselves for hauling our luggage down to the train station. Astrid was pretty dry in her suit but wasn't keen on leaving her mittens on so was getting cold hands and face and we were getting wet through our coats, gloves, hat and boots and it was pretty miserable. We got back to the hotel, loaded up and walked to the train station in the snow.

The train station was bitterly cold but we quickly found our platform, which thankfully wasn't too far away. Anto grabbed us some dinner for the train and Astrid's milk while we tried to stay warm waiting for the train. It was snowing on the platform which would have been cool if it wasn't so damn cold and miserable.  This train leg was the only one that we weren't able to book with our Eurail pass and it meant we couldn't get first class cheaply so we were relegated to second, which would have been OK but it was a four hour trip and we ended up in a small section of cabin at the front of the train that was pretty full. Most of the passengers looked pretty unimpressed about a baby being in the same cabin but they were all good about it except one woman. She spent the whole time glaring at Astrid and giving us looks when she was playing up. She ended up storming off to first class, which was next door. We felt like dobbing her in to the ticket inspectors but restrained ourselves.

Astrid had dinner on the train and we got her changed and settled for sleep. She mucked around for about 40 mins, not wanting to settle and being a bit naughty but she wasn't too bad. She eventually fell asleep on me and I managed to keep her snoozing for 2.5 hours until she was woken up by the above cranky lady who came back into our cabin 10 mins before we arrived into Paris, slammed the carriage door and then was filthy about Astrid waking up and screaming hysterically.  I had every intention of keeping her asleep til the last minute so it was her own fault.We gave her dirty looks but to her credit Astrid still waved 'bye bye' to her.

The best bit of the train ride was, as we were leaving Zurich, the sun was setting and the train was hurtling through the snow drifts and you could see the fields and houses covered by snow, glittering in the twilight. Even the locals aboard the train were taking photos, as it looked very cool.
The train was very efficient and we reached speeds of 317km/h which would have been more fun if not holding a small sleeping child.

After 4 hours we arrived into Paris, grabbed our gear and trudged through 2 metro rides and a bit of a walk back to our apartment. It only took us 30ish minutes to get back and we were weary and cold (Paris was chilly too) but it was an efficient trip back. We collapsed into our beds and got Astrid resettled pretty quickly and had a fairly good nights sleep, all tired from a long and very cold day!

26 October - Interlaken, Luzern and Zurich

We noted that our Interlaken hotel has a sign that says guests must be SILENT after 10pm. Very Swiss of them to tell us that. They also tell you to get the hell off their trains when they get to the terminus station. They like to tell you what to do. Despite the sign, people are not silent in our hotel. Nor are the trains and buses, except a few hours during the middle of the night. Astrid some how slept through it all, probably because she was exhausted.

We headed off to breakfast, where we consumed carbs in many forms and then packed our bags again and headed for the train station. Interlaken had been nice, although we didn't see much of it other than on a train. The town is quite big and spread out and we didn't get a chance to walk through much of it, other than when finding food. The river that runs through the middle is quite pretty but we did get a great view of the train station and the mountain from our hotel room.

Having figured out there train system the previous day we made it with plenty of time. We were supposed to be on the Golden Pass Line again through to Luzern but due to track work we were put on a mix of normal trains with a bus connection through the middle. It is a bit annoying when you book expensive seats (admittedly cheaply through a Eurail pass) and then get put in with the common herd. The first train was fine and we got to see some pretty nice scenery through to Meringen. It was again very foggy but we saw lots of farms, rivers, cows, chocolate box chalets and even some deer and rabbits. Again there were lots of towns built around lakes, sandwiched between massive mountains.

Astrid was endlessly amused by the herd of Asian tourists in our cabin. She had to pose for a million photos again and they all played peek-a-boo with her. We should start charging for photos, we could pay for our trip! Astrid doing what she does, eating biscuits on the train:

Once we got kicked off the train and had to hop on the bus, the fun ended. They buses weren't quite big enough for everyone and their luggage so it was very squishy. The buses also stopped to pick up more people along the way.

We did get to see some of the scenery off the railway line and up through the hills which was nice. However, there weren't many photo ops and Astrid was getting annoyed being squished on our laps surrounded by bags. She eventually fell asleep, which was lucky as this section of the trip through to Sarnen took about an hour and we only went 20kms due to how winding the roads were.

Assuming she would wake up when we transferred to the next train, we were somewhat shocked when we got her all the way onto the next train and transferred between parents twice without waking. She slept all the way to Luzern, which was only half an hour longer. This section of the trip there wasn't much to see. I'm not sure that we would have seen much more if we were on the train we were supposed to be on, but compared to the previous couple of days it was a little underwhelming, although the bits of scenery we did see were lovely (but more of the same).

In Luzern, it was back to a decent sized city, and the railway station was pretty big. We stored our luggage and realised it was actually cold! We hadn't been particularly cold in Switzerland at all, aside from when we were at 3500m on Jungfrau, and even then it wasn't too bad considering the location. Luzern railway station was freezing and we dug out all the hats, scarves and gloves. Of course we had finally given up bothering to put our wool layers on only to be tricked today!

We left the train station on the hunt for lunch and weren't all that impressed with Luzern to start with. It seemed like another city, nothing special. Lots of standard stores we had seen everywhere, fairly 80s-90s buildings. Lots of chain places for food. We finally walked down to the river and discovered that all the good stuff was down down. The old town was full of gorgeous buildings, cute bridges, swans, lots of lovely cafes etc.

We were keen for some fondue but kept mostly finding Italian places. We then stumbled into the German/Swiss area of cafes and found a great place that did heaps of interesting food. The menu was about 10 pages and there were daily and seasonal specials on top of that. Despite all the choice we went for a Cheese and wild mushroom fondue and Anto also had a mushroom, bacon and crouton salad.

In all Swiss restaurants they seem to give you free bread with every meal. As much bread as you could eat in a week. Astrid loves this as she hoes into it while waiting for the actual food. They then bring more bread with the meals. Of course they charge the earth for all drinks (including water) but the bread is free. Astrid loved the fondue. Her favourite thing to do this week is 'dip' her bread in things so this was perfect.

She ate a bucket load more bread and cheese and some bacon from Anto's plate. The meals were great and the waitresses wanted to take Astrid home. They bought her biscuits and then gave us a stash to put on our bags. Given she is currently eating biscuits by the truckload while on trains it wasn't ideal but she loved it. Too bad if you don't like people giving things to your kids. People are constantly giving her chocolates and bikkies without asking. She thinks it's a winner.

After lunch we wandered around the old town and were impressed by many chocolate and watch shops as well as lots of lovely cafes and buildings with interesting art painted on them. We also loved the cute bridges and misty old houses hiding up on the hills. We visited some more swans and walked through a few shops and decided it was really very cold and went and got some coffee and cake at one of the many places we found. Apparently black forrest cake is also a winner when you are Astrid.

We had a bit more of a wander and took some photos and it was starting to get colder and darker so we headed to the train station, collected our luggage and jumped on a train to Zurich. This trip was a bit under an hour, which was good with an increasingly tired baby. We made it into Zurich a bit after 5pm and discovered Luzern railway station had nothing on Zurich. We arrived on platform 53 and there were more platforms. It took us over a km of walking to get out of the railway station. We then discovered our hotel was 100m from the station, but not that one, central station which was connected by trams but not in a way that would cut more than a couple of hundred metres off the trip.

Zurich was also cold but by the time we had trudged with our bags for about a km to the hotel we were warm again. The hotel is another winner. It's a cute building(s) up a hill and the rooms are modern and funky and it's almost as big as our Paris apartment (which we now consider big). It also has luxuries like a bathroom you can move in and WiFi! Astrid's cot is also not pushed up against our bed, and the bed is a whole bed, without wood in the middle and it has proper pillows.... oh the luxury!!

We headed out to grab some dinner and found a good German Brasserie nearby. Yummy salad for those of us craving something other than cheese and Bratwurst and Rosti with gravy for the meat eaters. Astrid devoured everything and got lots of attention as usual. The food was great and we would happily go back as they had a lot of interesting things on the menu. Zurich at night looked really interesting and vibrant but we needed to get Astrid to bed so not much time for exploring. We are already wishing we had longer here, but we will see what tomorrow brings.