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Colleen & Tom's Explorations
After a restful night we had the usual hostel fare for breakfast, although not as good as the St Moritz hostel's spread. We walked up to the tram stop and caught the tram into the central railway station. We walked through the station to the bus terminal over the other side and found our tour operator. There were only 12 people on our tour, six from Australia. There were 3 from China, 1 from India and 2 Americans. Our guide was Costa Rican.
So today's travels started with a tour of Zurich, including a church with stained glass windows by Marc Chagall. Honestly, all the cathedrals/churches are lovely, they have special features or relics that make them individual, but they're still all the same and everyone wants us to see theirs. To be honest the Marc Chagall windows are very nice, but I think I prefer the traditional rose windows. Switzerland is sort of 48% Catholic, 48% Protestant and the rest are Muslim, Jews etc. There was a church on our way today that was shared by the Protestants and the Catholics.
We then followed the shores of Lake Zurich to a medieval village called Rapperswil, where we saw some nice architecture and got ourselves some lunch. Tom and I elected to have authentic rosti and sausage.
After lunch we continued on to Maienfeld, the town where Johanna Spyri was staying when she wrote the story of Heidi, and we glimpsed the house she stayed in at the time. We drove up into the hills to an alpine village which was used as the setting of Johanna's story. There was a house set up as Heidi's grandfather's house, but I didn't want to pay extra to go into it - Heidi was a fiction story. It's as bad as the guide at Green Gables telling us this was the bed where Anne slept - she was fictional too! It may have been the bed where Lucy Maud Montgomery slept when she visited, or in this case it may have been the house of an acquaintance of Johanna Spyri, but it was not Heidi's house! We did however, buy a copy of Heidi, because I don't own one, although my parents owned one that I grew up with.
We then continued on to Liechtenstein and viewed the castle where their prince lives. He is the wealthiest monarch in Europe. Liechtenstein is the 4th smallest country in Europe - being bigger than the Vatican, San Marino and Monaco. We explored the streets there in Vaduz. When we returned to the bus we headed back to Zurich. Tom and I were fortunate, for we spotted our tram stop from this morning and our coach driver very kindly let us off near the hostel, saving us the trip into town and all the way back out.
So today's travels started with a tour of Zurich, including a church with stained glass windows by Marc Chagall. Honestly, all the cathedrals/churches are lovely, they have special features or relics that make them individual, but they're still all the same and everyone wants us to see theirs. To be honest the Marc Chagall windows are very nice, but I think I prefer the traditional rose windows. Switzerland is sort of 48% Catholic, 48% Protestant and the rest are Muslim, Jews etc. There was a church on our way today that was shared by the Protestants and the Catholics.
We then followed the shores of Lake Zurich to a medieval village called Rapperswil, where we saw some nice architecture and got ourselves some lunch. Tom and I elected to have authentic rosti and sausage.
After lunch we continued on to Maienfeld, the town where Johanna Spyri was staying when she wrote the story of Heidi, and we glimpsed the house she stayed in at the time. We drove up into the hills to an alpine village which was used as the setting of Johanna's story. There was a house set up as Heidi's grandfather's house, but I didn't want to pay extra to go into it - Heidi was a fiction story. It's as bad as the guide at Green Gables telling us this was the bed where Anne slept - she was fictional too! It may have been the bed where Lucy Maud Montgomery slept when she visited, or in this case it may have been the house of an acquaintance of Johanna Spyri, but it was not Heidi's house! We did however, buy a copy of Heidi, because I don't own one, although my parents owned one that I grew up with.
We then continued on to Liechtenstein and viewed the castle where their prince lives. He is the wealthiest monarch in Europe. Liechtenstein is the 4th smallest country in Europe - being bigger than the Vatican, San Marino and Monaco. We explored the streets there in Vaduz. When we returned to the bus we headed back to Zurich. Tom and I were fortunate, for we spotted our tram stop from this morning and our coach driver very kindly let us off near the hostel, saving us the trip into town and all the way back out.
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