Ballenberg

Ballenberg is like a retirement village for old buildings in Switzerland where the whole park of about 60 hectares contains farm buildings from all over the country that were to be demolished.

We left Interlaken at 8:52am and then caught the Lady of Jungfrau Ferry across Lake Brienz to the town of Brienz.

One great part of the Swiss transport system is how well connected it is, when the trains arrive at the stations the buses are waiting.

We caught the bus to the Ballenberg west entrance and this took less than ten minutes.  The park was really good and made us finally feel we were in Switzerland, as up until now we had not totally felt we were.

Walking around the park we dropped into many buildings all being over 100 years old and some being up to 600. They had been relocated from all over Switzerland and have been grouped into the regions where they have come from. For us it was a great way to see the many types of architectural design in one place.  There is such a difference in the design of the buildings between the regions.

There are also many animals on the site, Katie finally got up close to a cow with a bell, something she had been wanting to do for a while. She did get much closer, but I just don't have a photo.

The main concept of the park was great but we were a little disappointed with the lack of Ballenberg staff demonstrating things in the buildings.  The impression given was that we would see people making Swiss crafts and also Swiss foods. The main item we saw was the sausage smoking house, this was a two story house that the bottom floor was full of smoke, we walked inside and looked to the ceiling to see hundreds of sausages/salami's hanging all being smoked. Katie had never been under so many sausages before.

We also saw watch making equipment, apparently farmers would supplement their income by making and fixing watches after working on the farm. I doubt modern day farmers would be able to do this!

and we saw some Swiss Ass. (or should that be donkey)

And of course how could we walk around a Swiss park without some hills. 

Ballenberg is a great place and we would recommend this outing to anyone who is in the area. 

Lake Thun

Lake Thun is on the west side of Interlaken. It is 17.5 km in length and only 3.5 km wide. We departed on a voyage across the lake to the small town of Speiz thus also being a great way to start our lazy and relaxing day.

Knowing nothing about Spiez we disembarked our boat and walked along the foreshore. From the map we knew the main town was a little walk but didn't realise it would be over 800 meters continually up hill.

Looking down the hill.

View from the train station area of Spiez.

After the short walk we decided it was time to have some lunch. We looked at many restaurants but in the end found Migros. This is a buffet style where you put on your plate what you like, then they weigh it and charge you 2.90CHF per 100 grams.

It was really good the food was fresh and quite tasty. We both enjoyed being able to just select what we wanted for a change and not have to worry about deciphering the menu or talking German.

By this time other than walking up from the harbor we hadn't seen any of the town, so off to the information centre we went. There was a very helpful lad but all he could recommend was heading nine minutes up the train tracks to Thun. He advised there was not much to see in his town, even though it was pretty we had seen everything.

So on the train we went, using our 1st class Eurail pass we jumped on and sat down, instantly we noticed we were in a carraige designated a quiet area, no talking, no children and no mobile phones. This was fine for us, we could be quiet for the nine minute journey..... couldn't we??

Well across from us was a sleeping military man. Behind him was a lady in her 80's and it was this lady that would make us come undone. She was getting herself ready for a long journey, firstly she wanted to make a cup of tea, so she pulled out her thermos which was wrapped in a plastic bag. The plastic bag must have been the crinkliest bag I had ever heard. She rattled it getting the thermos, opening the thermos and when pouring the thermos. Then she opened up another bag making just as much noise, we were getting worried the military man was going to wake. I thought that must be it, she had her cup of tea and her bread roll, but then proceeded to slurp every sip of tea, very loudly. Katie and I were ready to burst out laughing and were only just holding it back.

Then all of a sudden she brings out her mail, and starts opening it with a knife making such a noise. It was at that point I left the carriage, as either Katie or I were going to wake the military man and who knows what would have happened!

The rest of the afternoon we walked around the lovely town of Thun.

Jungfraujoch!

After 4 train connections, we arrived at Jungfraujoch - the highest train station in Europe. We were in for a treat! The temperature dramatically dropped as we stepped off the train and we both started feeling a little woozy. Perhaps this had something to do with the fact we were now 3450 metres above sea level?? It took some time to get used to as oxygen didn't come as quickly so moving and breathing were both slower.
We could hardly believe our eyes as we caught our first glimpse of the snow covered peaks...simply breathtaking. Now designed for many tourist vists, Jungfrau is divided in to different sections around a loop, made easy for people to use. Our first stop was the Sphinx - we had to take a lift up even higher to reach amazing views and got to step outside for the first time. Shannon's first time in snow - how exciting! We took delight in crushing it in between our fingers and breathing the frozen air. Then on to the Alpine experience which is new, as part of the centenary celebrations. (100 years of Jungfrau this year) We walked through a tunnel covered in lovely lights...giant snow globes...and information on the history of Jungfrau. The next was perhaps my favourite part..The Ice Palace...We stepped inside a fully enclosed tunnel of ice..and underfoot was ice..around every corner amazing sculptures and everyone squealed in delight. It was breathtaking. The fun didn't stop there...next was Snow fun..we exited a tunnel to find ourselves outside on the snow...ropes to help us not fall..which thankfully I didn't...was a small miracle really because it was so slippery! More beautiful views, which words really can't describe. So instead, some photos..

Swiss Trains

The Swiss train network is just fantastic. It has been designed on the same principle as all their watches, always run on time.



I have also been able to set my watch to the trains as they are just so prompt. One last thing, they are clean, have no grafitti, don't smell like urine.

We love the Swiss trains

Switzerland's National Mueseum

As it was pouring with rain this morning we continued with our plans to visit the Swiss national museum, indoors and around the corner from our hotel. We were able to check out and leave our bags in reception, and also borrow some umbrellas.

With our Zurich pass we were able to save 10 CHF (Swiss Franks) each. This pass also gave us travel from the airport and tram travel around the city. The pass came in quite handy after we toured the night before. The Museum was great, with information in German, Italian and thankfully English, but on occasion we had to search for the English.

The museum is very detailed and very interesting, it covers mainly human aspects of Switzerland with not much covering the geography of the area. 

We went thorough the Museum in about 90 min, but could have stayed much longer. We would have many more photos inside but Katie got caught by one of the stewards and that put an end to us taking photos!

Bahnhoffstrasse - Zurich's golden mile

Gucci, Prada, Louis Vutton, Bulgari, Dior, Jimmy Choo, Rolex, Hugo Boss, Chanel, Tiffany.....
The list goes on...Bahnhoffstrasse in Zurich, proved to be the most expensive street of shops I have ever come across. A feast for the eyes!!
While the majority of things in the windows of these stores had no prices on show, one or two escaped the attention of the staff and they were on show...a lovely pair of diamond and turquoise earrings caught my eye...$35,000 sure! It is certainly a whole different world on this street. Most store doors are flanked by security guards in black suits and dark shades and only allow entry when you press the buzzer, otherwise all doors are kept locked. Eek! Shannon had to just about peel me off some of the windows..oh Jimmy Choo how I adore thee! Ah well we can all have dreams.

Boats & Planes, Leaving Venice

Leaving Venice today we are a little saddened as we are also leaving Italy, but we are sure to return. We left our B&B and headed to the Vaporetto stop to catch the Blue line Alilaguna.  This journey from St Marcs Square was to take
one hour and fifteen minutes. As Katie popped a travel-calm the boat started its bouncy journey across the Laguna Veneta (Venice Lagoon). It was a little crowded and had many people from the cruise ships heading to Murano to look at the lovely glass. We stopped about seven times  for drop offs and pickups and finally reached  Marco Polo Airport, the last stop on the line. From the port there is a seven minute walk to the airport terminal. It was a brisk walk as we needed the rest rooms, this time no charge to use but very hot inside, like a sauna. Most places in Italy have had the Air Conditioning turned off and the bathrooms at Marco Polo Airport are no exception.

Marco Polo Airport is quite nice, about a quarter the size of Melbourne and appears to flow quite well. We have had a bite to eat at the self serve bistro, myself a tuna salad followed by a fruit salad and Katie Penne Ragu pasta (I thought she would have had enough of pasta by now!)

Our plane leaves in around an hour and then we will be in Zurich, a new language, a new country and new food to try!

Venice, different around every corner and across every bridge.

Venice, it is the place where the streets are crowded with people, the canals are crowded with Gondolas and water Taxi, and every where there are people selling masks unless
you get out and about like we did....

It appears most visitors to Venice concentrate on St Marcs Square, Doge's Palace and the Rialto bridge, and although these are great sights and must be seen we were glad we also stepped out of these areas.

Quite often we just walked out from our B&B in no particular direction. On our first afternoon we saw the gardens on the east end of the city, and many local venetians walking, playing and relaxing. Other days we would stumble upon a square with a little cafe and just local workers having lunch, dinner or a coffee.

These places are the memories we will take from Venice (along with the crowds of St Marc's) that we will treasure.

Rialto bridge, Rialto Market and San Giorgio Maggiore

It was much cooler this morning with a light breeze when we started out tour at 8:30 and with our first stop only 3 minutes from our B&B, Piazza San Marco.


Fiona our guide, pointed out the features of the square and also the details of the impressive clock.

• The outer ring in Roman numerals shows the time, in this case 8:50 am
• The next ring is star signs and is currently the Libran scales on its way to scorpion.
• Then directly in the middle is a representation of the globe (earth) and the ball in the upper left region is a representation of the moon and what part of its cycle it is in. 

Moving on we went through the San Marco area and crossed the Rialto Bridge. 

Over the bridge was the Rialto Markets, they were much smaller than we thought they would be but still very interesting. There were many fruits and vegetables we have never seen before and Fiona was able to provide details on them.

One shop I thought I would never see was this particular butcher shop. This butcher only sells Horse and Donkey meat. 

Fiona then guided us through many laneways and over many canals. One of the interesting bridges we saw was Ponte delle Tette (Bridge of the Tit's), below is Katie standing on this bridge, but for full details of the bridge's meaning please visit this link

Later in the day we went to the San Giorgio Maggio island and went up the belfry and had a spectacular view back over Venice.

Crowded Piazza St Marco from the belfry

Massive cruise liners in port.

Burano and Gondola

Today we travelled by water taxi to the beautiful island of Burano. We were met by our guide Fiona this morning, and she travelled with us, explaining the lagoon and islands it encompasses along the way. It was great getting out on the water, mind you it was a tad choppy
and the stomach churned a bit! This was all forgotten when we got to Burano - a very pretty place. The homes and other buildings are painted all the colours of the rainbow and the local story goes, Burano is the place where the end of the rainbow landed - lovely. Burano is famous for it's handmade lace and some very tasty biscuits!

Upon returning to Venice we spent more time wandering the streets of this magical island - a feast for the eyes around every corner. We had decided even before we got to Venice, that a gondola ride was a must and we stumbled upon a driver ready to go without a queue so the decision was made for us. What a beautiful ride it was! There are so many gondolas travelling along the canals at once, but they are very skilled and manoeuvre quite easily through the narrow channels. Quite a way to finish a wonderful day!

Agriturismo La Maesta

Our week in Tuscany has come to an end, and it was sad to say goodbye to Rosalinda and Stefano. We could have stayed much longer in this beautiful place, and have
really appreciated the hospitality of Rosalinda's family.

Highlights for us were seeing the many hill top towns, tasting Tuscan produce, relaxing under the Tuscan sun (and fog) and relaxing with each other.

Our favourite towns were San Gimignano and Siena.

San Gimignano was one of the first towns we visited and was just spectacular being a hill town and also having the many towers. I could really feel how the town would have been back hundreds of yeas ago, it hasn't lost any of its charm to us tourists. We sat in the central Piazza, having Antipasto and bruschetta while watching the many people drinking and eating, we could feel the Italian culture.  The views from this town were also spectacular, with many views from many places.

Siena was also another gem, and while much larger than the other towns it proved to also hold its charm even though many tourists were pounding the streets, this may be due to us visiting on a Sunday but it was lovely. We walked the back streets of the town to the Duomo and it was just a postcard after postcard around every corner. We decided to have lunch on the Piazza Del Campo the main piazza where a horse race is held twice a year. The time we spent here was just so relaxing, Katie loved watching the people and I enjoyed watching the ladies.

In each town Rosalinda would provide us with a map and route through the town and then would advise us of the highlights of what to see. With Rosalinda we were always dropped at the top of the town and walked downhill to where she would pick us up.

The accommodation at La Maeste was like having our own Tuscan Apartment.  We had a kitchen, lounge room and bedroom with ensuite. Every morning we had a breakfast of cereal, toast with jam, fried egg on toast, tea, coffee (espresso) and fresh fruit.

During the seven days we had four dinners with the family all with three courses, cooked in house by Lilla, Rosalinda's mother.  Eating in an Italian family home is special and we were so privileged to be able to.  On our first night, which was also Katie's birthday we were joined by Rosalinda's family who were staying for the night as they were attending a wedding in the area. With 16 people in the room for dinner it was great, there was just four Australians, it made for a great time, discussing differences in culture, food and everything else. Katie was just over the moon when she was able to celebrate her 30th birthday, and receiving the super size cake was just great.

The other meals with the family were quite varied and we could tell they were cooked in a home kitchen, some meals included turkey, mushroom risotto, rabbit and pork.

We could not recommend this place any higher, and we can only hope it won't be too long before we can stay again, but this time longer.

Venezia!

Today we switched our traveller's brains back on after a beautifully relaxing week in Tuscany. We were farewelled by Stefano at the train station and were on our way. We paid a little extra on our Eurail passes to travel first class, to be a bit more comfortable seeing as though
we are using trains so often. We were however, disappointed with our trip from Florence to Venice, with an un-air-conditioned coach! The weather is nice at about 23 today....but the humidity is not pretty!

Here is us on the local train before the high speed train from Florence.

Cruise ship Diva departing Venice

Stepping out of the train station in Venice was something else. We were confronted with a sea of people (literally!) all scrambling to get on Vaporettos (Ferry's). We had pre-purchased our tickets but needed to validate them. We finally worked out we could do this at a ticket office and found a boat that could take us to St Marks Square, where our B&B is ideally located just off the main centre of the city. Being squished in to this boat like sardines is an under statement. We literally could not move and bodies were pressed together in the humidity and the water was choppy. I was counting down the minutes to get off the Vaporetto and breathe some fresh air!


Shannon, ever the map man, got us to our accommodation quickly through the throngs of tourists and cruise ships patrons who had stopped in Venice for the day. We were met by Fabio who gave us an excellent orientation of the island and we were on our way. How nice it was to take the back streets and alleyways and get lost among the canals and winding streets, where locals hang their washing out their windows and yell at each other via their windows four storeys up.



We walked all the way to the Eastern side of Venice and found beautiful gardens and a much slower pace. We sat under the trees with a much deserved cold beer and pinot grigio and watched the world go by. In the late afternoon, the cruise ship guests go back to their monstrous boats, so it was then we decided to head to St Marks Square and take in the sites. We were not disappointed. St Marks Square towers over everyone with it's beautiful gold facades glittering in the sun. The square is lined with shops, much to Shannon's delight haha, and restaurants that cost you a small fortune just to sit down. At around 6pm the orchestras start playing...yes...that's right..orchestras. Magnificent musicians who sit upon small stages in front of the outdoor dining tables and play such beautiful music. This is why you will pay a fortune to dine here. Part of your bill goes to paying for the delight of having the orchestra play in your ear, you also pay to sit in your seat and then prices for drinks and food are through the roof! You'll pay around 10 euro just for a cup of coffee.

So...we ate in another area...a lovely restaurant in a quiet street with great food and atmosphere. We had a nice stroll back around the main square and now it's time to sleep. Because tomorrow we meet our guide Fiona for a guided tour of Murano and Burano.