Swissland in a Smart Car!

Well, as most of you know, Nathan came to visit me pretty early on in the semester. I decided it was time to return the favor and head to Switzerland myself! It was a great decision :)

Right before I left Nathan and I decided we were going to rent a car and drive it around Switzerland. No, not just any car. This car:

Shocking as this may be, it was a slight nightmare getting from Aix to Lugano, Switzerland. The issues started early- the Italian train workers were on strike. My first train was fine, but my second train was deviated to a terrible regional train that was packed full of people. The third train was decent, but ended up being nearly 45 minutes late. They apologized for the 20 minute delay. Apparently the other 20 minutes I should have expected? Anyway, as a result, Nathan and I missed the 'good' route to Lugano and had to wait in Milan for about an hour before taking "nasty Italian regional trains" into Switzerland. I'm pretty sure it was about 3am when we got to his apartment!!

We got up in the morning and decided to walk to Italy! Ha! So much fun to say. Actually we took a little train to the border area and walked across from there, but still cool. The goal was to go to this market in Ponte Tresa; however, for some reason it wasn't happening that day. No worries, we ate amazing authentic Italian pasta instead!! Yay for real carbonara.

The next thing we did was plan out our day. We had a car. A real live car!!! After being in Europe, carless, for 3 months, the possibilities seemed endless. We quickly worked up a route and decided to head out for the day.. in a car!! Did I mention that ???

Here is where we ended up going:

Lugan-->Vaduz, Liechtenstein-->Feldkirch, Austria-->Davos, Switzerland--> Lugano

It was so weird to be in a car again, especially when that car was a teeny, tiny smart car. It's actually quite roomy in the front and, unless you look behind, it feels like a normal car!! It was a great day to travel around a site-see. The GPS was set for 'shortest distance' not 'fastest route' so we accidentally took some amazing mountainous roads. The best part about having a car? The ability to see things you'd never see otherwise and the ability to stop whenever you see something amazing. On the way back to Lugano the first night we stopped in the mountains, turned the car off, and looked at the stars. I've never seen more in my entire life. It really was quite beautiful. Here are a few snapshots from the day.

Just your average view from the road... we saw a castle or waterfall
just about ever few miles. It was incredible. 

Made it up the windy mountain roads! The GPS route looked like
silly string because of all the switchback turns!

The center of Vaduz, Liechtenstein. It was small, but awesome.
They're important enough for a McDonald's and their King is actually
one of the wealthiest leaders in the world!

Feldkirch, Austria. The hills were definitely alive. It was stunning :)

Driving around was really great. I loved getting to see all of the different places. Nathan was/is an awesome road trip partner and his driving skills aren't half bad! There are a shocking number of tunnels in Switzerland so we set up a tunnel tally and it was over 12 before we even got back to Lugano. Speaking of tunnels... there was one I think Nathan will remember. Perhaps the one where a blinding red laser attacked us!!! Why? Nathan was speeding. Hello Swiss Speeding Ticket. Fail

We got back to Lugano a little after midnight, a successful day! 4 countries in one day isn't bad work at all!! All that was left was to wake up the next morning and get back out on the road. After our first day, I was really excited to see more of the Swiss Land. The day's itinerary was pretty packed, but we achieved most of it. Here is where we went:

Lugano->Lucern->Interlaken->Grindelwald->Lauterbrunnen->Thun->Lugano

First stop: Lucerne. We got here and walked around a little bit and found this fairly cheap boat tour of Lake Lucerne. It was great! Really relaxing and a bunch of amazing views... though some of them were blocked by Nathan's ridiculous Rapunzel hair!!!! He still hasn't cut it... Anyways after the boat ride we drove through Interlaken. I can honestly say it was one of the most beautiful places I've seen. Here's a look at our day in pictures! Enjoy :)

Famous bridge in Lucerne... it's actually pretty neat. Part of it burnt down in 1993.

Views from our amazing boat tour!! The whole place was just breathtaking... can't wait to go back. 

Just a random place we stopped to take pictures. Look at that water!!!!

We stopped here, too. It looks like a postcard. Really amazing.

This is near a tiny town we stopped at just to take pictures. The colors all around this place are just so bright and pretty!

Nathan and I took a lift up a mountain in Lauterbrunnen Valley. We went over half way up.
The ski run on this mountain is the one where they filmed the James Bond movie "On Her Majesty's Secret Servicse". Actually if you squint you can see our tiny yellow car which I drove through that very valley!!

View from the mountain! Much colder up here... It was a neat little town up there and we spent way too much money at this one gift shop we happened to find. 

The view from behind Thun Castle. Just another breathtaking view in Swizterland... ahhh

I did not include this part in the google map pictures, but when driving somewhere new there are always complications... We tried our best not to take the same roads to and from Lugano. This required a lot of 'tricking the GPS' which went our way- most of the time. On the second day when we left Thun, we tried a zillion roundabout ways to get a new route home. We ended up on some crazy mountain road with no lights and no cars for over an hour. The GPS kept telling us to turn around, but we thought knew our choice had to be right! Right? Not so much... we figured that if we kept driving the GPS would find a new route using our new direction. It never did and soon the gas tank was getting low. It was either take a road we used before or get stranded in Switzerland's version of Kentucky lol! We picked the safe bet and turned out!! Oh well, maybe next time the pass will be open.

As you can see, my Swissland Roadtrip was fabulous. It was a great way to get to see Switzerland, and I even got to practice my German when we stopped for dinner on the first night! :) :) I got up reallllly early the next morning and had yet another charming, delightful, super long journey back to Aix.

Thank you Swizterland and Nathan for a wonderful trip!

See you all soon

Love,

Liv