Buon giorno!
We have a longer post again this week, so if you are short on time here’s the story in a nutshell…
We went to Switzerland to visit the Swiss side of the family, Nathan’s sister’s family, and our nephew. We had a great time with the fam, ate lots of good food, experienced crazy spring weather, and did some hiking.
Here’s the story in more detail…
We did the one thing we could do to feel “at home” without going home—we spent time with family and it was so much fun! It’s amazing to think that we have been in Europe for seven months, but we didn’t spend any time with our family who lives here until now. What made us change that? Nathan’s sister, Shelley, and her family flying to Switzerland from Montana! We decided it would be a great opportunity to meet up with them, visit Nathan’s uncle and aunt and their whole family, and track down a missionary while we were at it.
A bit of backstory for those who don’t know:
Nathan’s dad Max was born in Zürich and immigrated to the US in the 1960s. He met Nathan’s mom, Barbara, and they married and started their family. Max’s dad, mom, and brother were still in Switzerland, although Max’s dad also immigrated later after the death of his wife. Max’s brother, Kuno, stayed in Switzerland, married Margrit, and they raised their family there.
Day 1: Off to Lausanne and Bern
We were bound for lands northeast of Zürich, but since we had to travel through the rest of Switzerland to get there, we knew it would be a great time to stop in Lausanne, where our nephew, Kimball, is serving a mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. We left Torino fairly early on a rainy morning. Well…it was colder than we were expecting, so as we ventured further into the Alps and the elevation climbed, the rain was more like sleet and then snow. The roads were cold and the snow on the roads was accumulating. Nathan is an experienced winter driver and we have snow tires on our rental car, but we definitely had a few hairy moments in a couple of the small towns as other vehicles were having trouble making it up (and sometimes sliding back down) the steep hills. However, we finally made it to one of my favorite things about the Alps: tunnels. First, there was a portion of the road that was covered (a protection against avalanches) and then we bypassed the high mountain pass by going through the St. Bernard Tunnel and entering Switzerland. It was a welcome break from the dangerous road and it was smooth sailing after that, as the weather on the other side was better. Lausanne is on Lake Geneva, or Lac Leman. We have visited Geneva and other sights around the lake, but never Lausanne. It is an absolutely beautiful city with an amazing view of the French Alps across the lake. We wandered around the hilly lake town for a few minutes, but we had a lunch date with Kimball and his companion, so we headed over to a burger place called Holy Cow. Of all of Max’s children and grandchildren who have served missions, I think Kimball is the first to serve in Switzerland. It was great to see him and give him some big hugs. He has been in France and Switzerland for over a year and a half, so it was so fun to catch up in person. It’s always fun to hear what family members remember from when they were young. Moments that you don’t even remember might have really impacted them. After a delightful hour and stuffing our bellies, we said goodbye and drove to Bern.
Bern is the capital of Switzerland, but it is really rather small. However, what it lacks in size or population, it makes up for in charm. It sits on a bend in the Aare River and the old town is well-preserved and lovely. We spent the evening walking around, visiting sights like the clock tower (cute, but underwhelming), the many fountains (old watering holes with carved figures, some of which are cool, some…well…disturbing), and the bears. The legend is that the city is named after the first animal that some noble guy found while hunting, and that was a bear. So they have a bear on their flag and they keep bears in a beautiful habitat next to the river. Lots of people were visiting them there as they lounged in the sun and snacked on the bushes.
It’s been almost five years since we were last in Switzerland, so of course we had to have something delicious for dinner. We chose…Mexican 😂. Along the main street in the old town, there are arcades with shops lining the road. Below those shops are the old cellars and many of those are restaurants. So we ducked into one run by obvious Mexican expats for an excellent snack (we were still pretty full after eating the entire Holy Cow at lunch). We then turned in at our very nice, very modern hotel for the night.
Day 2: To Basel and Wildhaus
We woke up to a very quiet Bern the next morning. Not just quiet, but eerily quiet. Then I realized it was Good Friday and that is a national holiday in Switzerland. After the excitement of driving the day before, having lots of the population still home and in bed was nice as we continued north on very peaceful highways. The green hills and snowy mountains of Switzerland never get old. It was a lovely drive. This day, we were headed to Basel, since neither of us had ever been. But really, we were going because of the city’s favorite cookie, basler läckerli. The Mueller family has some Swiss traditions, and one of them is the Swiss cookies we make at Christmas. Basler läckerli are another European “gingerbread’, made with nuts, honey, and candied lemon/orange peel. They are yum yum yummy! However, although we had scoped out some good-looking bakeries beforehand, the problem was quickly apparent…it was a holiday and lots of places were closed. We toured around the old town, enjoying the spring weather and learning some of the history of the place. We finally found a bakery on the main market street that was open and selling the coveted cookies. We bought some for us and some to share and (it being Switzerland) the total cost was hair-raising. But worth it! 🤪
We drove on across the country toward Uncle Kuno and Aunt Margrit’s mountain cabin in Wildhaus. Another great thing about Switzerland: it’s small and compact, so driving across the country doesn’t take very long. And, of course, there is beauty out your window along the whole route. We spent a delightful afternoon catching up with Kuno and Margrit and then were joined by Nathan’s cousin Ursula and her family for dinner. They pulled out the raclette oven and a giant slab of cheese, so we had a traditional Swiss feast of raclette with potatoes and lots of pickled veggies. Shelley’s family and cousin Iris’s family had jetted off on an adventure for the day to… Germany! They had visited Neuschwanstein Castle, so they were late getting back. But we stuck around to say hello and hug the kids before scooting off to our AirBnB for a welcome rest.
Day 3: Konstanz and more Family Time
Since the families with kiddos were in search of snow and an open ski resort (and we’re not really outfitted for that), we decided to enjoy the nice temperatures with a German outing of our own. Ursi and her husband, Phillip, recommended a lovely cafe for breakfast, so after sleeping in, we stopped there and it was delicious. Our AirBnB was near Lake Constance or the Bodensee, so we decided to drive over and see the sights there. The weather was not on our side…it was warm, but the wind had carried sand from the Sahara Desert and the air was murky and you couldn’t even see the blue sky and definitely no mountains. Also, it was a holiday weekend and a Saturday, so the traffic crossing the border into Germany was pretty bad. But we got through that and drove across a causeway to Reichenau Island.
It’s an island of former monasteries that now has some nice museums and lots of farms. They have lots of visitors who like to bike and walk around the island. We enjoyed walking around and seeing the beautiful spring flowers. We then drove back into the town of Konstanz. We had stopped there briefly before, but we decided to find an early dinner and enjoy a stroll around the city. We loved sitting at a restaurant right on the river and having fish, steak, and beautiful salads that were farmed on the island we had just visited. We then walked along the lake and back through the old town.
We spent the evening at Kuno and Margrit’s house and Nathan’s cousin Thomas and his family joined us. Their two girls were little the last time we saw them and now they are teenagers. Time flies! We really loved catching up.
Day 4: Easter Sunday
Easter Sunday was a welcome time to worship the Savior and to visit with our family. We started the day by driving over to cousin Iris’s home so that we could join in on the fun of the Easter Egg hunt with all the kids (Shelley and Tom’s three and Iris and Guido’s four). Unfortunately, the rain had pushed the hunt inside, but the kids still seemed happy. However, the rain was welcome, as it washed all that dust out of the air and we could see the mountains again! Then, we jetted off to church in Frauenfeld. For the first time during this trip, the missionaries offered us headsets and they translated the meeting into English…so nice!
After church, we went to the home of cousin Maja and her husband Bastian. Their four kids are about the same ages as ours, so they are all grown now. We had lunch there with the crowd and Shelley’s kids really enjoyed jumping on the trampoline and collecting salamanders in the garden. We enjoyed watching Maja’s two grandchildren and it made us homesick for our own grandkids. Kuno and Margrit joined us later that afternoon.
We ended the day at Ursi’s home for a simple dinner of spaghetti and salad with Shelley’s family, too. It was our last evening with the family and we really loved talking and laughing. The kids were absolutely wiped out after their week of travel, bless them. It was so good to see everyone and we were sad to say goodbye with hugs all around.
Day 5: A rainy Monday through the Alps
Since we chose the western route through the Alps going into Switzerland, we chose the eastern route to return to Italy. We didn’t want to deal with the tolls in Austria, so we chose to stick to Swiss roads and head straight toward the Italian border. Since it was raining again, we were wary of having a repeat of the snowy drive from Thursday, but it seemed warm enough that the roads wouldn’t be too bad. There were a few signs on the map that there were traffic slow downs, though, so we were curious about that.
Let this be a cautionary tale to you all…research your route. We were expecting that we would be passing through another long tunnel. We could even see it on the map (they are usually indicated by an uncharacteristically straight line where you would expect a winding mountain route). However, as we approached the line for the toll plaza for the tunnel, there were a lot of cars waiting. We have passed through tunnels before where it’s only one direction at a time, so we thought that maybe that was the case here. Then we noticed on the map that there were train tracks through the tunnel. Huh? And then the Google Navigation said, “Take the Train.” Huh? Then we figured it out. This tunnel is rail only, so cars are loaded onto train cars, just like a boat, and ferried through the tunnel for about 20 minutes. It was crazy and cool, but we really should have done some research beforehand so that we were prepared. Also, the lineup of cars on the other side of the tunnel headed back into Switzerland after the holiday went on for miles! We were glad we didn’t get caught in that mess.
We were bound for Bolzano or Bozen in South Tyrol. The region was part of Austria until about 100 year ago, but now it’s in Italy. They still speak both Italian and German and the culture still feels very Germanic. The draw for us, besides the unique culture, was the mountains: The Dolomites. But remember the rainy Monday bit? Yeah, we were thinking that all that glorious alpine goodness would be hidden behind clouds, kind of like our trip through Slovenia and Austria.
We finally got into Bolzano and the rain had cleared a bit. We hopped into the car again and drove into the national park area. We were catching glimpses of the peaks in the mist and decided to take an impromptu hike. It was a fun trail with lots of cute things for the kiddos and a well-preserved castle ruin. We were on our way back down the mountain toward the car when the rain returned. The green grass of all those alpine hills doesn’t happen by accident. But we weren’t carrying our umbrellas, so we pulled up the hoods on our rain coats and ran down the mountain! It was actually pretty fun, but we were happy to get to the dry car. We drove into the city for a little stroll and a bite to eat.
Day 6: Back home, but first, mountains
The forecast for Tuesday was more favorable, so we decided to drive back to the national park to see if we could take another little hike and see those mountains. Success!
It was a perfectly gorgeous spring morning: blue skies, green fields, wildflowers, and some of the craziest mountain peaks we have ever seen! We were in the town of Santa Maddalena and the views of the Dolomites there is simply stunning! We hiked around for a couple of hours, stopping periodically to stare at the view. It was so nice to be in the mountains again…we have really missed it. We are thinking we will definitely have to return there in the summer sometime in the future. When the clouds moved in again and it was threatening rain, we decided it was a good time to move on.
We weren’t done, yet, though. We stopped at the town of Garda on Lake Garda. Again, stunning! It’s a beautiful Italian town on the gorgeous, big lake at the foot of the mountains. The weather there was lovely, so we took a stroll along the water and stopped at a lakeside cafe for a pizza and salad. It was dreamy. But it was late afternoon and we still had a few hours of driving ahead of us to return to Torino, so we reluctantly climbed back into the car. We jammed to a road trip playlist as we traveled westward across Italy. We have done that drive a few times now. However, this time we were caught up in some bad traffic in a couple of places, especially around Milan, so that was not fun. We also got into the wrong lane entering the toll booths at one spot and had a few moments of slight panic as we didn’t have the right radio device for that lane. It was a mess, but it worked out in the end. We were happy to pull into our own little parking place beside our own little Italian flat at the end of a long travel day.
After that whirlwind, it’s been a pretty normal week of catching up on sleep, laundry, grocies, and our regular routine. We are here in Italy for about three more weeks, so we are making plans to explore a few places and then for making our way back to Germany.
Let me know in the comments if you have any questions about traveling around in Europe, whether it’s about our typical life here or tips/ideas/suggestions for what to do here. We would love to answer your queries!
