Day 5: Zippin to Schweiz

Is it really obvious Mrs. Williams didn't help me with this post's title? 😂

I will start with a fun fact and trivia question to set up the next day of our trip: "Schweiz" is the Swiss German term for "Switzerland." For trivia, what are the four official languages of Switzerland (here's a hint: none of them is English!)?*

Today was a travel/transition day as we made our way into Switzerland from France. And how did we make that transition? 

The bullet train! 

Bojan says this train cuts down a six hour bus or car ride into a roughly three hour train ride. The only downside to this exciting way of getting around for us car-loving Americans is our train left at 7:25am, which meant in order to give ourselves decent cushion as a big group, everyone had to be packed and ready to load onto the bus by 5:30am. Phew! Not surprisingly, everyone delivered (a few students MIGHT have blown through the meet-up time and kept sleeping if a thoughtful chaperone hadn't done morning check-ins just to make sure everyone was awake, but hey! We all still made it. ☺️). 

While the train car was a little stuffy, it was amazing to see the beautiful fields and farmland, forests and villages just fly by as we got up to speeds of well over 200 kilometers. Right outside of Paris everything looked very stormy and foggy and it was hard to see for a bit, but as the journey continued the clouds rolled away to reveal the stunning landscape that makes Europe the unforgettable travel destination that it is (the girls sitting with me at our little seat square on the train decided it looked very much like the iconic landscape of the 2005 Pride and Prejudice, and one of the girls (to my delight) proceeded to start reading it (she had downloaded it on her phone for the trip!). A great read for anyone wanting the most classic enemies-to-lovers romance written as far back as the early 19th century. 

We arrived in Basel (right on the border of three converging countries, Switzerland, Germany and France) and immediately took off for Zurich by bus where some of us stayed the afternoon to explore Lake Zurich

while the rest of the group took a detour to the Rhine Falls, the largest Waterfall in Europe (if you don't count Iceland, that is). HERE is a quick video and HERE is another one of their boat tour and some pictures of their hike. One of the students told me it was her favorite place so far by a long shot (she knew it was her favorite because it was the only place where she took a lot of pictures!). 

When the Rhine Falls group returned, we ended the day with a walking tour of Zurich before returning to the hotel in a smaller town outside the city for dinner. 

And while Zurich was absolutely lovely, boy did it warm up since France! It was in the high 70's or low 80's but due to the humidity it felt much more intense in the sun. Still mild compared to how bad it could be here in Europe, but for us Californians who've only experienced a mild, low humidity 75°F or below since October, it has been a lot of heat. 😅

Tomorrow is our Alps and Lake Lucerne day. I can't help but think of THIS...

~Ms. Carr

*Answer: German (or Swiss German, technically, which is quite different from German), French, Italian and Rumantsch.