Switzerland – Day 2

Luckily I got to sleep in a bit, which was followed by me refreshening and then enjoying a quiet breakfast. This was by the way the view I woke up to every morning:

I always have a lot of sights on my list when I go travelling, but I think it`s also important to make sure that my trip doesn`t turn into a stressful experience. In fact I would like to talk about the practicalities first, before I continue sharing my travel experiences with you guys!

In my opinion pacing should be slower than normal during a holiday, so we don`t end up needing another holiday after returning from a trip. Does that sound familiar to you?! I reckon it has happened to all of you before!

After all the main overall purpose of travelling should be something like this:

– to get relaxed by temporarily leaving our everyday life

– being inspired by new places and experiences

– nurturing existing relations & building new ones, meaning catching up with friends or loved ones and/or making new friends.

I hope you all agree with me that non of the above should be a stressful experience 🙂

I always research a travel destination before I go on holiday. I do make lists of potential sights, but I never allow myself to get overwhelmed by everything I should/must see or visit. It`s smart to prioritise, so I always start with the most exciting sights on my list. This way I don`t end up visiting less important sights and not having enough time for the highlights for some reason.

With this in mind let`s continue our journey in Switzerland I say “our” as YOU reading this travel diary have become a travel companion on this journey by now, whether you noticed it, or not.

Our next destination was Stockhorn …almost Stockholm 😉 , but a much smaller very special place, which I marked with red on the picture bellow.

It took us about 5 min with the skylift to practically reach the very top of this mountain. To be honest with you it was a bit of a scary experience to stand in an elevator that was taking us several 100 meters up on a side of a mountain with help of a wire. It`s maybe a bit embarrassing to admit that I was in fact the combination of a scary and exciting feeling, due to the fact that you are locked into an elevator and you just have to trust it that the wire will hold. You basically have no control over what`s happening to you at all…and so I had an adrenalin rush all over my body, which is not a bad thing!  It was for sure not something I would experience in my everyday life.

You can see the opening of the mountain. The skylift was traveling through this area.

Surprisingly there is a well known restaurant at the top of this mountain. It`s called the Panorama Restaurant Stockhorn. Be aware that it`s so popular, that you need to book a table there in advance. We tried some swiss specialties such as the cheese fondue. It`s basically like a chocolate fondue, but you replace the chocolate with cheese. I ate so much of this local speciality, that I almost experienced “death by fondue”! You might understand why after having checked out the picture bellow.

They also served the so called Røsti, which consist of fried potato-stripes and some meat. This is similar to hash potatoes made out of high quality ingredients. Let me tell you this was the feast of the Swiss kings! We also had a great chat with the people sitting at the table next to ours. They were also tourists just like us.

We paid the bill with Swiss Francs, which is perhaps one of the nicest money I have ever seen. These are beautifully designed, including all the colours of the rainbow. Switzerland is known for it`s wealth, so there is a lot of focus on money and the cash they produce shows this. Check it out on the picture bellow.

After having settled the bill, we made our way to see the amazing 360 degree view at this fabulous place 2190 meters above sea level!

We enjoyed a complete view of Thun, Oppligen and several other small towns and villages from up here. It felt as if we were giants looking at ants. I completely forgot about the rest of my life together with all the everyday problems as I was standing there. It all seemed non existent. The air was so fresh that it felt like it was healing my soul from all the previous negative experiences I have ever experienced before. I certainly let go of everything up there. Phew!

After enjoying a precious day at this magical place we drove back to Oppligen to enjoy an intimate family dinner with home made food and I had a much needed exclusive father-son evening with my dad.

Our journey ends here for today, but don`t get too upset. We`ll continue in a few days time. All you need to do is to stay tuned in my friend.

By the way do let me know if you have any questions or comments by writing it in the comment field bellow.

Speak soon