After an un eventful flight from Melbourne to Singapore, then Singapore to Zurich we had a safe landing. The only difficult part was getting through immigration at Zurich Airport with the new rules that apply now to anyone entering the Schengen countries for the first time. After one and a half hours of waiting in a very long queue, we finally saw daylight and also our Swiss son Claudio, who very kindly came to pick us up.

We stayed with Jean Pierre at Richterswil, about 30 kms from Zurich overlooking the beautiful Lake Zurich.

We caught up with Claudio, Sandra and the boys, Lio and Mailo for lunch. Lunch was at Luegeten, a beautiful place overlooking Lake Zurich. We had a speciality of the house…..riesen-pastetli…..Swiss meatballs with mushrooms in a huge vol u vent. It was delicious.

The next day we went out with Claudio and JP to Burgunstock Mountain, which has a 5 star resort and hotel overlooking Lake Lucerne. We walked to the Hotel Villa Honegg , a beautiful rather classy 5 star hotel for lunch.

Our lunch was delicious. We started with a beer to quench the thirst, then Rhonda had lake pike fish on a bed of risotto with broccolini and Greg had chicken with rosemary gnocchi. The setting was delightful with the views of the lake and the lovely hotel which was built in 1907.

Claudio decided that we should take a different track back to the car. It was a route march, going up and up and up. Rhonda was not happy. She decided she should have had a glass of water for lunch. But in saying that the scenery was lovely and once the track flattened out it was very enjoyable!

We didn’t realize how big Lake Lucerne was with its 4 arms winding around tiny villages making for spectacular views at each bend.

That night we had a lovely bbq at JP’s with Claudio and Sandra and the boys.

Claudio decided we hadn’t walked enough so the following day, along with Sandra and the boys we went to Stoos. Stoos has a funicular which is the steepest funicular railway in the world featuring a “ jaw dropping maximum gradient of 110%” It was pretty cool.

Once the funicular reached the top, we took a ski lift further up the mountain. It was great seeing and listening to the Swiss cows with their bells ringing.

Once we got to the top, Claudio decided we should walk down to have lunch. In his words, it’s downhill and should take 45 minutes. Well, it was certainly downhill, quite steep and rocky and took us one and a half hours!😂

The Mountain views were spectacular and it took our minds off the rather difficult path……at times!

At least we only had ourselves to carry. Sandra carried little Mailo the whole way and a lot of the time Claudio had Lio on his shoulders, except when Lio wanted to run fast fast fast down the hill!😂

Thank you Claudio and Sandra and JP for giving us such a great time. It was wonderful to catch up with everyone and meet little Mailo for the first time.❤️

Last night we stayed at a hotel at Zurich airport as we had a very early flight to Albania. We arrived in Tirana , have settled into our hotel for 3 nights with our tour beginning tomorrow evening. Gregory has already had some issues with things!Things can’t only get better!🤦‍♀️🤞😂 Details later.

So that’s it for the first blog. More to come. By the way the weather is bloody hot here, 38 degrees today!

lots of love

Greg and Rhonda

xxx