Lugano (South Switzerland)

Switzerland was very beautiful, it is the most beautiful country I have been in so far, next to NZ of course. The train rides between cities were amazing, the train crawls along the edge of cliffs looking down over green luscious valleys and gorges. Also it goes through tunnels under mountains like you wouldn't believe, I guess you would maybe your imagination is better. Lugano was hilly, surprise surprise and of course expensive. We stayed in a hotel for two nights with a nice view of the surrounding mountains. It rained on our day there for sightseeing. We caught a ferry and went to another small town called Melide where we went to Swiss miniture. Zoe enjoyed looking at the small boats, cars and trains moving around. The small buildings and trees were well done, we got half way around and it began raining again, we got wet - oh well these things happen. We took the boat to another town on the edge of another part of the lake LagodiLugano and while Zoe slept Lyndon and I drank hot chocolate and ate hot chips while reading our books.

Luzern (central Switzerland)

In Luzern we stayed in a cabin in a camping ground called Ausweis. It was cheap accomodation so we stayed for 5 nights. We spent one day catching a boat across the lake to a village where we had lunch and Lyndon and Zoe had a swim in the lake before catching a rail car up the side of a mountain I believe was called Mt Rigi. At the village where we hopped out it was much cooler. We sat on the edge of the mountain and listened to cows jingling their cowbells, it makes quite a noise you certainly know where they are. We then came down the mountain in a gondola it was a big one and held approx 40 people. I got a good view of the surrounding scenery but Lyndon was not so lucky and viewed another man's armpit most of the way down - he was not impressed. That day we were supposed to go up Mt Pilatus but caught the wrong the boat and it changed our route considerably. However it was still a lovely day and nice to go up a mountain in Switzerland.

There was a lake and big park near our camp site and we had to walk through the park which was all the way along the lake front when we wanted to walk into the town centre. We spent lots of time in the park, sunbathing, swimming in the lake (quite dirty really) and walking along the lake front. There were monuments of horses and Zoe enjoyed sitting on them and pretending it was the real thing. One evening there was this rock band playing in the park we went and stood sandwiched in the crowd for a while and listened. There were many stalls along the lake front selling things and we spent a bit of time browsing.  There was two covered bridges across the Reuss river that had paintings in the trusses of the covered walkway which we went and looked at. The buildings in the town were amazingly decorated with scrolled paintings  and patterns almost like wallpaper, except they were on the outside of the building. On the 1st of August it was Swiss national day and after visiting the Lion Monument (very famous piece of carved rock still in the rock face) we got our sleeping bags and sat in the park to watch the fireworks that (the swiss spend a lot of money on) are let off around the lake. (Zoe slept through the loud booms and wasn't upset by the fireworks while she was still awake) at the park an adventrue promotion company called Camel Trophy( a boot manufacture) set up some games so Lyndon had a go on a mountian bike chalange and won a prize then did the same with an automated climbing wall and won two prizes. not bad for a thirty year old!