Switzerland

Monday Tom and I drove to Little Rock and hopped a plane to Atlanta.  There we met Rebecca and continued on to Stuttgart, Germany.  Dan had been in Germany for business and invited us to come over and tour before heading back home.  It was a long plane trip.  We arrived about 9am.

Dan met us with a car and we loaded up and headed to Switzerland.  I was glad he was driving so I could sleep.  The countryside was lovely.

We drove to the Institute Building in Bern and met Sue and Steve there.

 They fed us dinner and we went on to Uetendorf where we stayed on the 3rd floor of an old house.  It was delightful.  We have great bread and cheese and worst. What could be better?

 We were blessed with lovely views and good weather.  It was overcast, but not snowing or raining.
The GPS took us on narrow roads to the Cailler Chocolate factory.

 Bur we saw lovely scenery.

Wednesday we drove to the chocolate factory.  Great Chocolate.

Then we drove to the cheese factory.  We passed the walled city of Gruyere on the way.

Then we went to Bern and Sue and Steve gave us a tour of the old town. Here are roofs near the river.

 After, they came to our house and we made roclette for dinner. Here was scenery on our way home.

Thursday we went to the temple in the morning. Then we went to Spietz to see the old fort, the church and the lake.

Spitz scenery

Lake  Thun

Spitz castle and the keep where our friends the Springs have an apartment.

Tom at Lake Thun

 We wandered around Interlocken for a little while.  I wanted to go up the valley to Wegenbanne.  But the GPS and us did not agree.  It kept sending us into these tiny hillside towns with narrow, twisting roads.  We crossed single lane covered bridges and scrolled down twisted, stone sided mountain lanes with no place to pass oncoming traffic.

While it was historic and lovely, it did not seem to be getting us to the valley floor, smoother road I recalled.  And the driving was a little hair-raising.  So we just drove back to Uetendorf on the north side of the lake.
 Sue and Steve came over for dinner again and we had worst, red cabbage, and ressti.

Every drive we saw gorgeous mountains and green fields.

Friday we left for Italy.  We stopped in Lucerne and enjoyed swans and the old wooden bridge.  We hiked a bit looking for the lion statue... but were conscious of the meter ticking on the car parking and headed back.
Here are pictures from Lucerne.

 We had a long drive to Italy and didn't want to arrive late in the afternoon.

We drove through mountains.  Lots of tunnels!  One was 17km long. When we got out on the other side, we were in Italy and there was LOTS of snow!!