Switzerland Diary

30-10-2011 Sunday
Got the bikes out and rode about 1k over a bridge to explore the historical island town of Lindau (Lindau Insel which means island). It's not a place mentioned in the Lonely Planet book but we felt it had a wonderful charm about it and were glad we happened to stop close by overnight. Again there were the typical centuries old buildings and cobbled streets, some of them with the facades being painted with lovely pictures. We rode around to the harbour of Lake Constance and had a late breakfast at one of the charming harbourside cafes. Daylight saving changed back here today and so we gained an extra hour.

We then packed up and drove to out of Germany into Switzerland and down to Zürich. When we crossed the border into Switzerland we were stopped and had to pay something like a tourist tax based on the size of our mhome - about 21 euros (about AUD30). We believe it has something to do with this country not being part of the EU (European Union) and our vehicle being registered in the UK. Anyway we weren't going to argue - they had guns!

Switzerland is a small country and doesn't have a lot of camping parks and most of them seem to close in September/October. One park Camping Seebucht that is 4ks from the city centre, closes in September and there wasn't another one close by to Zurich, so Dave said let's drive there and just see if it is closed as he couldn't believe they would close this early in the year. Anyway when we finally arrived, after a fairly long drive (and I wasn't looking forward to trying to find a place after finding this one was closed), and surprisingly it was open! When we asked, the young man said this was the first year they were staying open for the winter! What a stroke of luck! And the park is right on the water, the west shore of Lake Zurich - a beautiful sight and so close to the city as well.

31-10-2011 Monday
We rode about 4k into the old town of Zürich. It was fairly flat riding in, but the old town is quite up and down with some steep, narrow and winding streets that are all cobbled. We locked the bikes up and walked the 2k route suggested by a tourist map around the old town. There were 4 churches around but we didn't think to go into any of them - we're probably a bit churched out at this point (even though they have been beautiful), plus there was so much else to see and I was busy being chief map navigator (the pressure was on!). The 13th century tower of St Peterskirche (St Peter's Church) the oldest parish church in Zürich, has Europe's largest gold and black clock face - 8.7m in diameter which is exactly the length of our mhome - that's a big clock face! The Limmat River splits the city centre. The main railway station is a very impressive old building.

One shop sold the traditional swisse pocket knives (with a sword as the door handle, naturally), another the swisse watches and I have never seen a shop before that sold only buckles and belts, and I think that was the name of the shop as well. There were so many shops and we only walked around the old town, didn't touch any of the newer part. There were many eateries and varied types of cuisines. We bought some hot chestnuts from a street vendor. The day was quite overcast and cool and there seemed to be a fair bit of pollution. We had dinner at the restaurant attached to the camping sight and found it to be quite expensive. We've heard the cost of living in Switzerland is high - it's a good job we're not staying here for too long (can't afford it!).

1-11-2011 Tuesday
The Melbourne Cup happened today in OZ - hope you all had a win.

We didn't go anywhere today - just had a rest and recreation day to do a few maintenance things and chill from the tourist scene. Dave has the vans' dash panel apart trying to sort out a problem with the security system - he's been in touch with the manufacturers and hopefully will have it sorted today. It was an overcast chilly day and so the best day to do this. If it'd been a nice sunny day we would've probably tried to find one of those boat cruises on Lake Zürich. We'll be on our way tomorrow and hope to cross the border from Switzerland into France.