Tori-Books: June 20 - Off to Switzerland

            We caught our very nice comfy air conditioned tour bus at 7:15 am. Gotta love the Zebra painted bus. Our Stefan Tours bus driver/tour guide was dressed up in Traditional Bavarian clothes. We were the only English speaking people on board but our guide did a great job of speaking in two languages making sure we were never left out of conversations. Our bus ride took us from Oberstaufen, Germany over the boarder into Austria, then over the next boarder into Switzerland. We traveled through Chur, the oldest city of Switzerland. Once we reached Tiefencastel we all boarded the Bernina Railway train, the first electric driven tourist railway train that goes over the Alps to Tirani in Italy. It was the smoothest train ride ever. The views from the train were spectacular and reminded me a lot of Banff and Jasper in Alberta. At the end of the train ride we had reached St. Moritz, Switzerland, where we had 1 1/2 hours to shop (power shop in my case) or go for lunch.  St. Moritz, Switzerland is a lovely place but very expensive. This town is where the rich come to ski in the winter, shop, bank and many have homes. Following this we meet our guide and our Bus back at the train station. He took us to a gorgeous viewpoint of the white glaciers like Piz Palu, 3904 meters, Piz Bernina, 4049 meters and Piz Morteratsch, 3750 meters. From there we continued our journey through the national park Engadin-Ofenpass to the Fluelpass, which is 2383 meters high, and to the spa town Davos with the healthy climate for a coffee or hot chocolate break. Our home journey went through Klosters - Prattigau - Rhine Valley and back to Allgau (our stop Oberstafen). This was 12 hours well spent.

          Tidbit: #1. Switzerland has an unemployment rate of only 3 percent which is very low.
          Tidbit: #2. When traveling in Europe be sure to always have change with you as the toilets are often not free of charge to use.
          Tidbit: #3. If you drive here or ever decide to live here, buy a small car. It's the only way to get around and find a parking space easier. We found Smart Cars in every city. Love the orange one in the photo below.

          It is now 7:30 am on Friday morning June 21st. I am sitting here sipping on my cup of tea, eating my daily delivered freshly homemade bread and vanilla/chocolate sweet buns from a local bakery, while looking outside the big open window from our dining room table looking at the most majestic view, while listening to the beautiful singing of the many birds here and listening to the cow bells clang in the background as the cows walk around the fields grazing and having their breakfast. It's true, German bread is a heavier bread, delicious and filling. Yup, gonna be hard to leave tomorrow. Our stay here has sadly come to an end. Time to start packing our bags. Sorry to say it, but this will be my last blog for awhile. Hope you have enjoyed following me through Europe. Take care. Ciao...Tori