Fredi goes on holiday

Fredi goes on holiday

Sunday, August 15, 2010

Schaffhausen und Rheinfall

On a day trip we went to the Rheinfall in the northeast of Switzerland. Afterwards we went by train to Schaffhausen and Stein am Rhein from where we took a boat to Constance and then back to Basel.


The Rheinfall is 23 meters high and with its high volume of water it is very nice and impressive.

The 2 towns of Schaffhausen and Stein am Rhein with a lot of nice, old buildings.


On the way to Constance we passed a lot of villages like Steckborn and nice countryside.

Monday, August 9, 2010

Next trip

Well, 6 months travelling in South Asia weren't enough, so we decided to go again abroad. First however, we fly to Barcelona on the 29th of August where we are staying at home for about 1 month.
On the 26th of September we booked a flight via London to New Dehli. There we are going to explore the north of India for 1,5 months before flying to Bangkok. Thailand again, well, we need a visa to get to Myanmar and Bangkok is hopefully a good place to get it quite easily.
On the 20th of November we have a flight to Yangon, the capital of Myanmar, and back again to Bangkok on the 16th of December. Finally on the 21st of December we are flying back to Zurich via London to stay in Switzerland for Xmas.

Berner Oberland

After coming back from Ticino we stayed about 1,5 weeks in Thun, in the house of my grandfather. On the 1st of August was the National day, but the weather wasn't good and we couldn't see a lot of fireworks. But we could do some nice trips to place in the region, the Berner Oberland.


On a day trip we went hiking to Lauterbrunnen and Mürren (near Interlaken). From Mürren we had a nice view towards the mountains and Eiger, Mönch and Jungfrau, but always more clouds appeared during the day. We went also to visit some waterfalls, for example the "Staubachfall" which is 297 meters high! Finally we saw the "Trümmelbachfälle", some waterfalls in a narrow canyon which come directly from a glacier.


Another day we went to Ballenberg, the Swiss open air museum near Brienz. Here we could see many tradional houses, inside and outside, from different regions.

Also Bern we visited shorty to see the new "Bärenpark", a park for the bears.

The "Aareschlucht", canyon of the river Aare, was another nice walk thourgh.


And finally on the way back from Ticino we stopped in Andermatt to see the Schöllenschlucht and the devil's bridge.

Ticino

The weather forecast wasn't good for the north side of the Alps, so we went for 5 days by car to Ticino. The Italian part of Switzerland is on the south side of the Alps and often the weather is better there (and really we had some nice days). By car we had the possibility to drive around and visit some places which would be more difficult and expensive by public transport.

On the way from Thun (north side of the Alps) to Bellinzona (Ticino, on the south side) we had to pass 2 mountain passes; Grimsel and Nufenen (2'478 meters high). On the way back we drove via Lucomagno, Oberalp and Sustenpass.

In Bellinzona (1) we visited the Castelgrande from where we could see the other 2 castels, in Ascona (2) we enjoyed the Lago Maggiore (3), in Locarno (4) the Piazza Grande and from Morcote (5) we had a nice few over the Lago di Lugano.


On a day trip we went to the Verzasca valley near Locarno. In Lavertezzo we could see the famous bridge crossing the Verzasca river, however the water was very cold, so we put just our feet inside. After we went to the high dam at the end of the Verzasca valley. Here already James Bond enjoyed the height of 220 meters to do bungee jumping!!

On another day we went to the Maggia valley where we went for a walk to Fusio and then down to Prato-Sornico. On the way we passed Mogno where a chapel from Mario Botta stands. At the end we went to see the canyon of the Maggia river.