Switzerland

My return flight from Japan to Poland stopped over in Zurich, and since it was a holiday weekend, I decided to take the opportunity to spend a few days in Switzerland. I took a bus tour outside Zurich, a boat tour around Lake Geneva, and a couple of train rides, visited a couple museums, and spent hours walking around the cities of Zurich, Geneva, and Lucerne.

Zurich was the cleanest city I've ever seen:


There were cafes all over town. The best part was the way the chairs in front of the cafes all face the sidewalk for people watching. Some of the cafes had tables and chairs 3 rows deep with everyone facing the street. When walking by it seemed like every table was speaking a different language:

Here's a small town call Stein am Rhein that I visited on the bus tour:


Here's some of the countryside from the train between Zurich and Geneva. The whole country looked like this with small village after small village with their red-roofed homes, and each one with a small church with a high steeple:

This is looking down from the train on a vineyard and down into the lake:


Here's the Geneva fountain:

I didn't find the Geneva old town to be nearly as nice as Zurich, but they had some great parks along the waterfront near the UN and the World Trade Organization. It was really fun to walk around and see all of these international organizations.... International Patent Office, World Headquarters of you-name-it. It's all right there.

Giant chess and checkers! Doesn't this look fun?!

This giant 3-legged chair is an advertisement of an international organization committed to removing land mines.

Here's the UN. It was all locked up, so I couldn't visit inside, but to me the funniest thing about the UN was that on the hill behind the building inside the UN grounds, was a herd of sheep. I know how much one little rooster outside my window at the castle annoys me, so I just can't imagine trying to work with a flock of sheep outside my window!


My final stop was in Lucerne, a small mideval-turned-tourist city. It was really nicely preserved, and I got to walk around on top of some castle walls.