📸 — Zürich, Geneva & the train through Switzerland

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A Little Detour

10 min readAug 30, 2018

Let’s talk about our whirlwind of a trip through Switzerland.

We planned to meet friends the last week of August in Italy and were planning our route from Germany. Olivier really wanted to visit Switzerland to see the alps and go hiking. We ended up in Liechtenstein instead, Switzerland’s tiny neighbour.

So we had the idea of blitzing through the country in 8 days, and man… was it busy.

We started with a few days in Zürich and took the train via the Golden Pass route through the entire country. It stops in several places along the way — and offers a hell of a view of the country as you ride.

It was one of the most expensive European country we visited (Norway being another one), although we would have to agree that Norway is a tad more expensive considering the taxes on booze and prices to get around by public transport. Food and accommodations were roughly the same.

So here is our collection of thoughtful and action shot photography of the beautiful country of Switzerland.

See more on our website www.alittledetour.ca🌏✈️👫

On “Long Street” there was a festival with a not so great band. All the people were drinking so they didn’t care.

Taking a cruise around Zürich’s very large lake.

Everyone escaped to the water to better enjoy the 36 degree weather

Switzerland is a wealthy place, and the houses were pretty incredible everywhere.

Zürich has over 1,400 water fountains in the city. We found 21 of them.

Playing chess online while we relax by the water

Oh sure Switzerland, you are so pretty and just happen to have a bunch of swans that coincidentally swim around.

Fancy water fountains, all over the place

We slept in and didn’t do our typical walking tour, so we adventured around town on our own.

After a few days in Zürich, we went on the Golden Pass train to Interlaken, which started in Lucern.

Quick stopover in Lucern, carrying all our gear

This place felt like the Switzerland Maeghan had pictured in her head. Buildings dating from the medieval era and mountains all around.

The town’s famous wooden bridge with medieval paintings along the inside.

It was just a stop over, so after walking around for 40 min, we ran back to catch our next train.

And this is when the scenery became magical.

The best comparison of the Rockies and Alps we’ve heard is that the Alps are beautifully perfect green mountains, whereas the Rockies are gigantic badass jagged mountains.

The train had panoramic views the entire way, so even though it was a long ride.. it felt like the day went by in a flash.

Action shots — the strangest perspectives with camera / lence reflection.

Screen reflections are a brought to you by ShinyWindows™

The end of the scenic route was in Montreux. It was BEYOND ridiculous with regards to humidity.

We had a three hour layover here, and found out this is where Queen, the band, recorded many of their albums. Montreux was where they could get their work done with some relative peace and quiet. They recorded there, and then decided to simply buy the studio. It is now turned into a small museum that is free to visit, with tons of original costumes, artwork, handwritten lyrics by Freddie, and lots more.

One of two 24 track recorders. This is the studio where David Bowie recorded Under Pressure with Queen one night during a coincidence meeting.

By this point, we were both pretty tired. But Olivier passed out durning the last leg of the trip to Geneva.

We planned to visit a bunch of places during our stay here, but time flies and we needed to get to Italy to meet up with our friends!

So the trip was short, and we felt a bit sleep deprived by the time we left Switzerland.

Our brother-in-law told us to see the water fountain. It’s hard to miss, that is for sure.

It’s intense. 500 litres of water per second are jetted to an altitude of 140 metres. The water leaves the nozzle at a speed of 200 kilometres per hour. At any given moment, there are about 7,000 litres up in the air.

It can be seen from almost anywhere in the city, even over tall buildings.

Le jet d’eau, seen from far away. This thing is huge.

Stopped at the store and to go wine bottles with cups were on sale for 2 swiss franks!

When you ask Oli to take a nice photo… this it what he does.

Backpackers at the United Nations.

A stretched summer dress and run down shoes were all I had, but they accepted me and our tour was so inspiring

😊

Side note: I have the best partner ever because we had to choose between CERN and UN… and he let my inner model UN nerd freak out and see this incredible place. Love you Oli.

One of the conference rooms where human rights, disarmament, refugees and trade are discussed.

Many countries have given gifts to the UN, and this is from Canada.

We decided that we needed a Swiss Army knife to open wine.. or beer.. so we went to the Victorinox flagship store to build our own knife for our travels.

This place was quite amazing, it felt like being at the Apple store, but for knifes.

We’re proud to say, its been used on many bottles already!