Charged Batteries Make Life Better

When we flew to Zurich on this last trip, my husband begged me to fly Delta, since he has status with them, and needs all the miles he can get to keep that status. Personally, I never want to fly a US carrier to Europe. I just think that the European carriers are consistently better, especially when you're flying in the back (which is me, most of the time). But this time, I gave in, and rather than flying Swiss, we flew Delta. On the way over, the flight was great--new plane, good entertainment system. But on the way back...it was awful. I sat down, and pointed out to Matt that the seatback had no TV, and mind you this was a 9 hour and 5 minute flight. Thank god I had charged Clara's DVD player, which bought us a solid 5 hours of entertainment. And luckily I had a full bottle of Bach Rescue Remedy, which helped me calm down (even though Matt swears it's just a placebo). The moral of the story is: always bring a DVD player--don't assume the airline will have a functioning in-flight entertainment system, and make sure that DVD player has a full charge. Oh, and fly Swiss if you can.

One Day in Zurich

We had an afternoon in Zurich before we flew back to New York, and unfortunately, it was on a Monday. Learn from our mistake--don't plan on seeing Zurich (well, walking around and shopping) on a Monday, as many shops are closed. We still had a lovely day, and probably saved ourselves some money. See below for our highlights from the day:

The carousel in the square right by the best toy store, Pastorini Spielzug.

Save your bread scraps in Zurich--always a hungry swan nearby.

One of our favorite places to buy teas, Schwarzenbach, but since it was Monday, only the cafe was open.

This is a Swedish store, but we still like to wander into it, even in Switzerland...love the guest and birthday books.

Globus has a nice food hall, and big store, but we like the grocery part of it the most...especially this pizza packaging.

 Very cool store in the old town (Aldstadt).

 How cute is this teddy bear store in the old town?

This is one of our favorite toy stores of all time. Four floors of creative play. 

Very cool home store. We bought a bread board there years ago, and we love it.

Silber is the kind of store like how Ad Hoc used to be in NYC many years ago. Always something you've never seen before. This time, we discovered tongs for tea candles. Love them.

A very traditional spot good for beer and weisswurst.

Sprungli is one of the chicest chocolate shops, and we always bring home a couple of bars as presents. This trip we also discovered the gelato, which was a huge hit.

While they have a couple of these shops in the city of Zurich, you can also find it at the airport. Our favorite find is the Edelweiss head scarf, and there are some really cute wooden toys as well.

While this picture doesn't tell the story of this restaurant, the Kronenhalle is one of the best restaurants we've ever been to. It definitely has the grandest art collection, but what makes us want to go back if we ever find ourselves in Zurich, is the spirit of the room, the staff, and the delicious food. We always get the avocado vinaigrette, and love it every time.

The market across from the hotel (below) has such lovely fresh produce, and we loved the way this farmer put his garden roses into tin cans.

Who Knew--Swiss Lakes...

We stopped in Flims, a well-regarded Swiss ski town, and in the tourist office, saw a brochure that had a picture of this lake, called Cauma See. They said it was a 2 minute drive, plus a 10-15 minute walk from the parking lot to the lake, which seemed perfect, since we'd been in the car for a while (and eaten a huge lunch), so we made the diversion. The walk to the lake was lovely--we passed by streams, wild mushrooms, lovely flowers...and then we got to this view in the above picture. We took the free funicular down to the lake, and couldn't get over how smartly organized everything was. There were paddle boats, a restaurant, comfortable lounging areas, and it was completely uncrowded. If only we had more places like that here--we certainly have enough lakes.

My Idea of Heaven

We always talk about moving upstate, and taking over the bar on the corner of our sleepy road, and turning into a sweet little restaurant. A couple of years ago we were calling that a gastropub, but now that's so overused. Anyway, we never take the leap, but I'm always happy when I get to visit someone who has. On this trip, we were turned on to this restaurant, Casa da Luzi , in the middle of nowhere in the Alps, close to Vals, opened by a former hot-shot Swiss chef, Beat, who moved to the country to get away from traffic and noise, and to open a small restaurant in his home, with four guest rooms above.  It was such a perfect lunch. There was no menu--he just offered us deer liver (his friend had gone hunting the day before) and the most delicious rosti (like hash browns but better--more butter!)...wild mushrooms...and a lovely soup that we started with. For wine he told us to go pick out whatever we wanted from the cellar. A nice example of what we could do in our golden years...