The Big Summer Tour
In the beginning of 1991 I moved from my first apartment in Welten for a more spacious one in Douve Weien, both two wonderful neighborhoods in Heerlen. As that year I had spent a lot on the moving and redecorating my new place I initially decided to skip my summer holiday and stay home. One simply can’t have it all in one go…
But one one of my phone calls with Christoph where I told him I was going to skip my summer holiday this year he invited me to come over for a week or two and enjoy Swiss hospitality. It did not take me long to accept, although I had been to Switzerland twice it had always been in the wintertime and this time I had the opportunity to see Switzerland in the Summer.
So dates were chosen and once again I took the train to Solothurn where I was picked up by Christoph to start my unexpected 2 week stay in Switzerland.
Our first daytrip was the beautiful city of Luzern at the lake of Interlaken. Together with Suzanne and Beatrice we took the scenic tour over there and there was so much to discover.
In Luzern of course we could not miss out on crossing the famous Kapellbrucke which was originally built in 1333 and is without doubt Luzern’s best known landmark.
I was pleased to see that a quite a few of the traditional houses were kept in their original state so the atmosphere of Luzern was preserved as much as possible.
A visit to Luzern would not have been complete without a boat trip over the beautiful lake of Interlaken so we took one of the taxi boats bringing us from place to place whilst we were enjoying the scenery that unfolded around us.
It was Christoph’s father idea to go on a day tour and and visit 7 passes of the Alps. Although the rest of the family said it would be a crazy thing to do as it was far to much to do in one day we stuck to our plan and went ahead anyway. It turned out to be a fantastic day and although I cannot remember the names of all the passes we crossed I can still vividly remember the last stop at the St. Gothard pass where I ordered an ice cream and merengue, it was a holiday after all and the the whole day had been so absolutely fantastic I could not resist against that true holiday feeling.
Next was a tour in the region of Solothurn, I loved the hilly landscape, the flowers, and of course the Swiss cows! They were everywhere to be seen as far as the eye could reach.
We visited several small villages in canton Bern and beyond, I could only say I was impressed by the picturesque building style of the traditional swiss houses, I simply loved wandering around the streets of those cozy villages. Gruyeres was maybe one of the most famous villages we visited but each of them were equally beautiful.
I was having a great time, and not the last because of the wonderful family I was staying with. I truly felt welcome and part of Christop’s family, what a wonderful oportunity to experience true Swiss lifestyle. One of the days we went to the open air museum of Ballenberg. Several landmark houses and farms from the different regions in Switserland were broken down and carefully rebuilt in this open air museum, once again the scenery was to die for and it was a great opportunity to see the different building styles of the individual cantons without traveling all over Switserland. It was a tour which had been certainly worthwhile.
Although it was almost on our doorstep we had not made it to Bern yet, Christoph had saved that for one of the last visits of my stay. Like Luzern it had it’s own typical atmosphere, unique and incomparable. It was worth keeping this for the last.
Although initially I had planned not to go on holiday this year Christoph, his family and friends made sure I certainly did enjoy my summer break. Their hospitality had been fantastic and I had enjoyed the numerous daytrips that showed me Switzerland at it’s best. In the train back home I was already counting the days before I would return on the day after Christmas…