Switzerland was great except for one thing: the lax smoking laws which meant people smoked almost anywhere they liked. With the exception of the airport, the air quality in the great Swiss outdoors was marred by second hand smoke, comparable sadly, to the streets of Chinese cities.
Otherwise, we had a really good time in Lucerne and Zurich. They’re such kid/family friendly places. The hotel we stayed at in Lucerne even prepared a kids’ bath kit with a Kai sized robe when they received our booking.
Plus, the fact that you can have a kid in a pram and make your way up 2100m above sea-level for lunch on top of a mountain overlooking most of the country speaks volumes of accessibility.
Our picks of this trip:
1. The Swiss Transport Museum, Lucerne
2. Mount Pilatus
3. The Glacier Museum, Lucerne
4. Carl Franz Weber’s Toy Museum, Zürich
5. The National Museum of Switzerland, Zürich
6. Viadukt Market Hall, Zürich
7. Chocolate shops in the Lindenhof neighborhood, Zürich
The other thing of note is that Swiss food is harder to come by than you think. ‘Fleeced’ might be a bit harsh to describe how we felt after the first few meals in Switzerland, with the main culprits being the scores of restaurants on the shores of Lake Lucerne, but I now refer to these establishments as the ‘Boat Quay F&B outlets of Switzerland’.
We did manage to find two good places we enjoyed – the Wirsthaus Galliker – a family owned old style restaurant in Lucerne I read about on TripAdviser, and who took my calls on Sunday and Monday to tell me they were closed on those days; and a surprisingly good restaurant in Zürich called the ‘Restaurant zum Weissen Kreuz‘, which was a mere ten steps away from our hotel, and which we settled on because we were exhausted from walking.
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