Life is Good

Tuesday, September 18, 2012

OMG, I love the Swiss! They have toilet seats, car trains, and AAA discounts. Not to be putting down the Italians, but what is with their obsession about having no toilet seats in the restrooms?? And who knew about car trains? Never saw any mention of them in the guidebooks, either. Good thing we stopped at a tourist info booth in Zermatt to ask about the shortest way to Grindelwald. By the way, Zermatt is a picture postcard village at the foot of the Matterhorn. We now have a very detailed Swiss road map (only cost about $20). We could see a shortcut, but on the map it looked like there was no road between two of the small towns. So we stopped to ask about that and found out about the car train. In the first town, you drive your car right onto the train and remain seated in the car. The train takes you through a mountain, pitch dark in the tunnel. About 15 minutes later you drive right off the train and continue on your merry way. It costs 22 Swiss francs. To have gone the long way around would have added several hours to the trip as well as costing a fortune in gas. We have been spending well over $100 a tank for fuel on this trip, so the cost of the train seemed like a real bargain. Plus, it was a very cool experience. Yesterday we went up a series of cable cars to the top of the Schilthorn. This is not the highest mountain in the area, but this is the mountain featured in the James Bond movie, "On Her Majesty's Secret Service" At the top is a revolving restaurant and views of the Eiger, the Monch, and the Jungfrau. We ate lunch, which was about $50. We couldn't help laughing about that and remembering the $50 lunch we had by accident in Liechtenstein two years ago. Yesterday was by far the better value, and best of all, when we bought out tickets for the cable cars, the ticket lady asked if we had AAA. We never would have thought to ask for a AAA discount, but it saved us about $30. And now you know why we love the Swiss. Not to mention the incredible beauty of this country. The most fantastic thing of all yesterday is that Cindy and Jason called us to relay the awesome news that Jason passed his bar exam.