Mazda Road-Trip in Switzerland
On October 2018 a colleague of my best friend has won a lottery of Mazda and he got provided a car to use for a couple of days with no charge. So he asked us if we have time to go for a weekend trip. Fortunately, I got days off from work on that Weekend and I was also able to switch my work shift — Friday till Sunday off so that I have enough time to spend there. The plan arranged. I went to Igis, Switzerland by train on Thursday afternoon right after work and arrived there in the early evening.
Because we will start the road trip on Saturday, so I and my best friend made our own plan for Friday. We went jogging in the morning. Uhh well, he doesn’t like jog tho, so he drove a bicycle behind me while I jogged.
Then in the evening went to the neighbouring city — Chur to the Burger festival. On that day I also had a chance to play sport along with his other colleagues in their weekly event — Sport und Spaß. That was pretty cool actually but I was just annoyed by myself cause I can’t play as well as them. No excuse but in Indonesia, we don’t play that kind of sport.
Nah I just suck. Felt so terrible at that time. But thanks God they didn’t mind that, even though I ruined everything…..
As a closing, we all went to grab drinks in a bar. They were very humorously to talked about some topics and threw some jokes. I really enjoyed that day despite the language barrier with Swiss German.
Altdorf — Biel
As planned we started the journey on Saturday. We went in the morning from Igis to Altdorf, it took about 3 hours driving. Anyway, his colleague — who invited us on this trip, also brought one more person with on this trip, so we’re four people in total. We drove through the famous grand tour track in Switzerland on our way to Altdorf.
The scenery we saw on the way and the fresh air we breathed brings peace and calm feeling. This is one another reason why I really love Switzerland. Just can’t stop to adore the whole natural beauty. For those who easily get nauseated, just be aware of the pass treck. Cause two of us got nauseated there-one of them was me.
In the midday, we arrived in Altdorf. Altdorf (Engl: old village) is a historical and the capital city of Canton Uri — a member states of Switzerland. Altdorf is best known as the place where William Tell shot the apple from his son’s head from 80 m distance. We went for a walk in this small city and explore the history of this famous Wilhelm Tell.
From Altdorf, we drove further to Biel. Bienne (French) is the largest city in Switzerland where German and French to be spoken with equal right. It’s also a traditional watch metropolis, in which the Swiss-branded-watch craft is still maintained, such as Swatch, Rolex, Omega and Tissot. Biel has a good location as a gateway to the three lakes of Lake Jura (Lake Biel, Lake Neuenburger and Lake Murten).
We booked an Airbnb for one night there. After dropping our carriage at Airbnb, we take a walk around in Biel then had dinner in an Italian Restaurant-L’Osteria. By the way, this restaurant was quite unique cause here they serve a huge diameter of pizza as in normal size and it’s literally too big for one person. We just realized it after we ordered and we never had thought that it’ll be that big.
After dinner, we enjoyed the night on the Lake Biel before we headed back to our Airbnb.
Biel — La Chaux-de-Fonds — Basel
In the following day, we continued the journey to La Chaux-de-Fonds. This is the fourth largest French-speaking part of western Switzerland. It also belongs to the most important centre of the watchmaking industry that mostly known as the Watch Valley. Here I just realized that the locals don’t speak German when I ordered something for breakfast and she didn’t understand what I said. Till this moment I’ve always thought that all Swiss do understand and speak German despite all other official languages they have, but no they don’t. So just always put in mind about this.
From La Chaux-de-Fonds, we went to the Etang de la Gruère. It’s a is a dammed, but natural moor lake located in a hollow on the highland plateau of the Franches-Montagnes in the canton of Jura. This lake and the forested area in the surrounding is also the nature reserve that covers an area of 1 km. In this small and beautiful lake, you can walk around and enjoy the pure nature around for relaxation.
Then we headed forward to our last destination, Basel. Basel located in the northwestern of Switzerland on the river Rhine and also at the border between French-Switzerland and Germany-Switzerland. It’s the third-most-populous city in Switzerland after Zürich and Geneva.
We started to explore Basel by walking around through the city, then had a small lunch next to the park. We also visited Tinguely-Brunnen, it’s an artwork from Jean Tinguely where some amusing machine sculptures placed in an enormous pool of water on the site where the stage of the old city theatre was once located.
You can actually enjoy Basel just by a walk through the old city, walk through the park, or sitting around the Rhine river. You can also enjoy the Rhine river by boat. There are some museums and the Zoo here in Basel. We closed the day by sitting and enjoying the view of the Rhein river. That was quite a nice trip to explore another part of Switzerland which I didn’t even know before. On the early evening, I headed back to Stuttgart by a train while my colleagues drove back to Igis through Zürich.
