The Big Trip intro

Hi, I thought I'd try this blogging stuff out but unfortunately it's all date driven with the newest stuff first. So if you want to read about our trip to the UK and Switzerland in the right order you'll have to start from the bottom and work your way up.

On the positive side, when I add new things they'll be right here at the top.

I'm also adding bits and correcting my spelling as I go, so check it again after a few days and there may be a few more photos and some other news.

Switzerland

Arriving in Switzerland at 11pm on a Friday night was not a good idea. We failed to get off the train from Zurich Flughafen (airport) at the stop in the city (Zurich HB) as we were tired and in the middle of a 'discussion' and so went half way to Bern. The conductor was kind enough to sell us tickets to go back to Zurich HB on the last train for the night.

Zurich is a beautiful little city (even Adelaide is bigger) with lots of beautiful old buildings. Switzerland is a very tidy and organised place with a strong German influence in the North and French and Italian influences in the South . The German was a little intimidating, it's not the language of the big warm welcome, but after a few days we got the hang of things and never missed another train stop.



Damian outside the company HQ (Credit Suisse building in the background not the tram).


Lunch with Damian. Eye contact when toasting is very important to the Swiss. I just like the beer.


Caroline and Damian.

Damian has been lucky enough to meet a beautiful Swiss woman called Caroline who lives in Montreux, around 2.5 hours south of Zurich by train. Caroline suggested we visit Montreux, and even helped us plan our trip south to include the classic Golden Pass railway. This turned out to be a great trip and Caroline looked after us wonderfully. She very kindly booked us a wonderful room in the Hotel she works in and even took us out to dinner.



Heidi country - near the ski resort town of Gstaad. This is the type of scenery we saw on the Golden Pass railway. The mountains are very steep, much steeper than they look in this photo. We visited in Summer so there is no snow except way up on the peaks.


Chateau de Chillon in Montreux. Byron wrote a poem about a prison kept here, and even signed one of the pillars in the dungeon. The Highway was added in the60'ss.

We returned safely to Zurich for a final couple of days of relaxing and shopping before flying to Singapore and home.



Vanessa, Damian, me andMathiass (hidden by the Grappa selection) after dinner at an Italian restaurant in Zurich.Mathiass works with Damian but otherwise seems very nice.

London visits

While in the UK we made a couple of visits to London. To get to London took about an hour on the train from Haselmere. On our first trip we walked along the Southern Bank of the Thames and visited the Tate Modern but I especially wanted to see the Globe Theatre.


The Globe Theatre, SouthBank, London, England. It's tudor just like our house!


As close as I'll get to performing in the Scottish play at the Globe Theatre.

From Southbank crossed the river and went to St Pauls Cathedral and then up to Covent Garden on the bus. We wandered around a bit but weren't really in the mood for shopping so we stopped in a pub and waited for Amy, a nurse from Adelaide who was working in London.


Blondes do have more fun! Amy and Vanessa.


On our second trip a few days later the weather had improved enough to go on the London Eye.


Getting an Eye-ful. View from the top of the London eye.


Vanessa was refused entry as one Queen of the Castle was enough. Okay, its Buckingham Palace but you know what I mean.

The Big trip

The first leg of our holiday was in the UK. We had a great time with Simon (Vanessa's brother), Teresa and their two sons Patrick and Jed. Surrey is a very beautiful part of the country with many very old buildings still intact. Luckily this included a number of quaint country pubs where I was able to sample ales from far away places like Holland and Australia. Genuine warm English beer is awful.


Boys will be boys. Simon and Patrick have a wrestle.



Vanessa relaxing at Simon and Teresa's.


A quiet drink at an English country pub. With all the locals squashed into the small bar we decided to try the outside seating.


Another pub, another drink.



Prime suspects from a Midsommer Murder. Village Green to the right, local pub to the left, I kept thinking we would stumble across John Nettles at any time.

Welcome

Now we're back from our big holiday I need to get some photos out to friends and family so I'm using this blog.

For those who care, I'm using blogger because it integrates with Google's Picasa photo storage software.