Picturesque, Peaceful Switzerland: First stop Thalwil

Our first stop in Switzerland was Thalwil, which is not far from Zurich.  Well before we left NZ Natascha (an AFS student from our Opotiki College days) and I had got in touch randomly via a facebook chat and she had very generously invited us to come and stay.  Snowdon and I hadn't planned to go to Switzerland, but after my chat with Natascha, then finding out my friend Sonya is currently living in southern Switzerland AND then finally Snowdon finding a very intriguing Mystic Tantra course being run there - all the signs were directing us to Switzerland!  So we added it as one of our five Eurail pass countries and dropped off Greece.

Boy are we glad that we included Switzerland.  It is BEAUTIFUL.  We loved our time there, and we're pampered silly by our wonderful hosts, Natascha and Gabriel in Thalwil, and Sonya and Mike in Le Chable, Verbier.  It was lovely to spend some time with Natascha and Sonya again, and meet their men!

Natascha welcomed us into our lovely room, in her home in Thalwil, complete with slippers and delicious L'occitane bathing products (that Gabriel brings home from the plane).  Our first taste of the lovely pampering we were to experience in Switzerland.  We felt jazzy in our new slippers.  And they were very fitting as we spent some nice time chilling on the couch and in our mini home theatre bedroom, in Thalwil...

I was delighted when Natascha suggested we start our first day with a sightseeing run by the nearby lake (I was due for some exercise).

Snowdon was delighted to meet Natascha's adopted cat Luna, who was great company (Natascha is a vet).

We had some lovely breakfasts.  I loved trying all the new food.  We thought the colour of these pre-boiled eggs was a bit bizarre though!

On our last night in Thalwil, Natascha made us a traditional Swiss cheese fondue (which I've always wanted to try). Yum! Very rich!

Snowdon and I spent a rainy afternoon in Zurich, enjoying the peaceful feel as we wondered around the city.  Natascha, her sister and Gabriel had thoughtfully had a clothing clean out (it was uncharacteristically cold and they knew that we'd be feeling it).  I scored a cool Espirit jacket and another nice cosy black hoody. Very happy about that.  I'd been freezing in London and Paris.  It was nice to be warm!

We had to check out Luzern, where my pocket nice was made.  Natascha took us over in the car.  We saw the hugest block of Toblerone.  I had to pick it up and marvel at it.  Yes it was very heavy, and very expensive...  We went for the free taste test option (see second pic - yum).

Luzern is a lovely peaceful little town to wonder around.

Luzern has a several gorgeous and very old bridges.  We spent a bit of time on them with our local tour guide filling us in along the way (a lot of it, unfortunately had been burnt in recent years).

Cars are discouraged from entering the city..

We had a wonderful time in Thalwil - thank you Natascha and Gabriel.  They also sent us off with their two man tent, for our next adventure!