switzerland? germany? both? yes, a short 4 days vacation ...
our stops and the pictures below in the same order were:
- lake bodensee CH
- luzern CH
- pilatus CH
- rafz CH
- zurich (zürich) CH
- heilsberg D
- rheinfall / rhine falls CH
- schaffhausen CH
- lake bodensee D
lucerne
pilatus
exhibition in zurich
rhine falls
schaffhausen
well, let's try to sort my impressions from switzerland and from swiss-german border area, my dears.
germany is quite cheap compared to switzerland. for example, as we have entered our hotel destination in the booking website like schaffhausen + 10 km, the first few hits were german hotels. because our first hotel in randegg was full despite booking confirmation, we have landed in the middle of nowhere, in heilsberg. special thanks to german border control which controlled us when we stopped our car at a very unusual place. well, we had no weapons, no alcohol, no drugs THIS TIME, but they were not disappointed too much and offered us a pilot service to the 2 km distant hotel we couldn't find by night by ourselves ... and the best thing there? i have had a great discussions with other guests and the owner (she reminded me on my grandmother, R.I.P) of that small hotel in the hotel pub there about expensive switzerland, cheap germany (besides fuel), swiss frank which they have thought will disappear within the next two years, paper currency, real currency (gold + precious metals + real estate), banks, politics and last but not least about soccer as this was the evening where FC bayern münchen defeated the baden-württenberg's local heroes from stuttgart in the german cup finals 3 : 2 and thus won FC bayern the 'triple' (champions league, german league, german cup).
anything else about switzerland? i liked it a lot, mostly because of its countryside. we have met only kind folks there (at least kind to us), both swiss and foreigners ... yes, there are really many, many foreigners living / working there ... we didn't like their oversized control mechanism (roads, parking slots, cable car ticket controls ...). why do they not trust the people? hmmmmm ...
unfortunately, we didn't see the small city of schwyz which gave switzerland its name back in 1291 even if it is really close to lucerne. btw, lucerne also belongs to the 3 founding kantons in central switzerland which have founded this interesting country and this heterogenous german / french / italian / rhaetian (= rhätisch) nation .... so let's come back soon and let's visit also matterhorn + laggo maggiore in the very south of of the country and you know what? there was not everything exorbitant expensive, you often have a reasonable alternative to the high end hotels, gastronomy ... and unlike some other tourist destinations you usually get also real value for your money, so it was not that bad as i have originally thought based on stories other people told me. any lessons learned? see the world and make your own judgement :-)
eof
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