The second country we visited for the family trip is Switzerland! This is my second time coming to the Swiss land yet I feel equally as excited:) this is because we will be taking charge of our tour this time and we will be driving around rather than following a guide:)
Our base town is in Basel (no puns intended) and whats really cool about this town is that is is located at the edge of Switzerland, bounded by Germany and France. It is possible to cross over to the France and German border by walking through without a passport! And we did get out of Switzerland for two days:)
Arrived at the Airbnb via car and I would say that it is the best bnb I have stayed in! Having the whole house to ourselves, we were able to make ourselves cosy and picked our own rooms:) peering out of the window and we can see the French border!
Opposite the accom was a pizza store, whom the airbnb host told us were from USA. However, when we saw the menu, we realised that it was written is German and the people speak French. We ordered Italian food and this concluded how diverse the Swiss culture was!
On day 2, we took our rented car and drove south, towards Interlaken and Grindelwald, where the Swiss alps can be seen. Xinyi’s mum was rather cautious about driving and she refused to drive above 70km/h😂
En route to Interlaken, we saw the defining view of Switzerland – blue snow-capped mountains, icy fields and sky blue lakes that reflected the colours of the skies perfectly. Breathtaking! We then reached Interlaken and took some beautiful shots at Lake Thundersee. Love the shots I took of Zhiyi and also I have to praise Zhiyi for being so photogenic haha!
Had lunch at Migros restaurant, which concept is really european style. You go to the station, pick what you want and pay at the cashier. Super loving the blackforest cake and so happy that we got two of it:)
We then drove further down to Grindelwald to see the Swiss Alps. The roadtrip is so beautiful that we keep stopping to take photos! Wanted to drive further up to the foot of the mountains but the roads ended up to be too narrow and we decided to head over to Lake Brienz for the sunset instead. Driving at this stretch was the most stressful as one wrong move and we would be tumbling downhill😱
Lake Brienz is gorgeous by the sunset! We stopped by the side of the town Brienz and braved the wind and cold to capture the sunset hahaha! Our roadtrip somewhat became a photoshooting trip because the views are soooo breathtaking and we have 3 photographers and wannabes plus an instagrammer to satisfy😅 also monkeyed around the bank of the lake and we are quite surprised when some swans came to join our photoshoot:)
Our next stop would be Bern for dinner and as much as Bern was supposed to be nice as I have experienced 3 years ago, it wasn’t that meaningful in the night and foggy weather because there was nothing much to see.
The next day, we crossed over to the French border by train to visit a castle in Sélestat! We went to a cafe for lunch and not surprisingly, the waitresses refused to speak English. Annoying bitch, but we tried our best and I spoke French to the best of my abilities to order the food we want. Definitely not helping when they are discriminating against the Asians too. To make up for that, we ordered one buffet set for one person even though Zhiyi and I shared the food. Have to say that the French desserts are so good though haha – we had the Eclair and Apple Strudel!
After lunch, we went to Sélestat station to realise that the bus only comes on weekend:/ wanted to uber to the castle but we found out that Sélestat does not have uber, and the staffs from the train station refused to help us call a cab, knowing that we can’t speak French, nor do we have a SIM card that could help us call locally! Thankfully, a kind lady saw us struggle and decided to help us place the call and that really made our day so much more bearable!
The taxi then came and pick us up to the castle, which was about 20 mins away. The castle visit was kind of boring without an audio guide but it was made meaningful as Zhiyi, Xinyi and I decided to do stupid things like film a MV at the place and making subway advertisements at the rooftop hahaha! Once again, we took a sunset photo at the castle too!
On our way back to the train station via taxi, the driver was also another rare kind soul that spoke kindly to us! She spoke to us in half french and half english and it was quite funny that we misheard sometimes. For example, she said it takes ten hours (heures in French) to fly to Japan, but we misheard as ten years 😂 but she was the best to talk to so far in France:)
On the last day with the family, we went to Lucerne and I showed them around the place, as I have been there before 3 years ago. We visited the bridge, Christmas market and the shopping street I have been to three years back when I was in Lucerne! We went to the exact same shop and bought the exact same things (Lindt chocolates)! Super good and also we became criminals too😏
Travelling with Xinyi’s family made me really happy because it felt cosy and homely, auntie and zhiyi regarded me just like their son/brother. I was very happy to have gotten closer to them and understand them better through this trip. While there are little quarrels and unhappiness here and there, I really cherish all the times we spent together! Those fun times like playing situational puzzle on the train and jamming in the car makes me love the travel and company more and more!:) thank you to the Lim family for making this trip a memorable one! I will see you all in July!
CinqeMinte 