What to do with four days....

We had a long weekend. I'm not sure why, but in keeping with our "take advantage of every opportunity to explore" mantra, we did a little looking around to see what would be fun.

We decided on Switzerland. Die Schweiz, for those of you fluent in German.

We made a three day trip of it-although there was no work on Monday, we did have other commitments we needed to be back for.
We had a general idea of what we wanted to do, packed some hiking shoes and jackets, dropped the dog off to be boarded, loaded the cooler with salami and brötchen and apples, and we were off!

First stop, Freiburg im Breisgau in the Schwarzwald. We hadn't done much exploring in the Black Forest and thought this town looked like a nice place to take a break. The little kid woke up with a cold and a slight fever that morning so we decided to keep things nice and easy.

medieval statue in the center of town (You can see all the criss-crossing cables from the trains) 

The gothic Münster (cathedral) built around 1200 a.d.

Unfortunate pillar placement ;-)

McDonald's in a medieval gate

There were little canals on all the streets. For irrigation and fire-fighting.

Checking out the Lego displays

We had a delicious and beautifully presented lunch upstairs at Karstadt (department stores have such great restaurants here) and then it was back on the road.

I didn't take a picture of the border but it was quite a bustling place! No passports were needed, but we did have to purchase a vignette to put in our window, allowing us to drive on Swiss roads. Kind of like a toll but paid all up front. Crafty, those Swiss are....

The drive was absolutely gorgeous. Beautiful green meadows with a back drop of snow-covered Alpine peaks. Just stunning. 

We made it to our hotel after dark but when we woke up the next morning we got to enjoy this view from our breakfast room!

Our breakfast was a selection of European items with the highlight being cheese, of course...

After breakfast we did some exploring around Lake Thun.

 We stayed outside Interlaken, which, in itself is not the greatest town. But it makes a great jumping off point for other locations and activities. Because the boy was still feeling under the weather,

we took things a little easier. We drove through a lovely little town on our adventures. It seemed like we had stepped back in time...

and we had a very un-Autobahn-like drive on the Swiss interstate through the mountains. There was a lot of this...

and SO. MANY. TUNNELS.

We made it to our stop for the day--the Victorinox Visitor's Center in Brunnen. We had a very expensive lunch (Swiss francs are currently faring better than both the dollar and the euro) at a lovely little restaurant

and made our way across the street in time for our appointment. The guys were getting to make their own Swiss Army knives! Definitely the highlight of the trip, we got to explore the small museum, learn about the history and some fun anecdotes related to Swiss Army knives, and then they assembled their own knives, all the way down to the tiniest little brass fasteners inside. So cool.

They got to choose what they wanted to engrave on their knives and type it in to the computer.

That night we went out for dinner. What to have when in Switzerland? Fondue, of course.
So much cheese....maybe a little more than enough.

We spent a good bit of time walking on the paths by the lake the next day before checking out. The boy was feeling much better. :)

skipping rocks

and we headed to Bern to visit the Bernisches Historisches Museum. We had read great things about it and it did not disappoint!

based on the size of those hips, I'm pretty sure this belonged to one of my ancestors

view of Bern (capital of Switzerland) from the top floor of the museum

very cool modern entrance to the large Einstein exhibit

And then it was time to come home. It was a lovely weekend with great weather and although there were so many things we COULD have done and packed into the week, we really enjoyed taking it easy, just enjoying the views and nice walks and exploring a place we had never been!