Day 1 & 2
Clara has visited fans all across the nation. She’s graced the northeast. She brought smiles to the northwest. She enhanced the Magic Kingdom down south. But finally, on May 18, Clara set out to show the world (or at least Switzerland) what it means to be the cutest baby ever.
We tried to pack light, so all we carried was a full-sized luggage, Clara’s car seat, a bag for the car seat, a diaper bag, a milk cooler, my laptop bag, a baby bed, an umbrella stroller, and a pillow. After stuffing it all into an Uber XL, we headed to Dulles.
The airport was fairly empty, and we got through Icelandair’s check-in without a hitch. After going through security, we had a few hours to kill, so we had dinner at Wolfgang Puck’s kitchen. Then we engaged in Clara’s favorite airport pastime: walking around while holding onto Mom or Dad’s fingers and smiling at everyone. Clara loves showing off her ability to almost walk. She smiles at just about everyone she passes until they smile back.
We boarded our 5 hour red-eye flight to Iceland. Clara bounced around a bit, then did some sleeping on Dad. We had just a short layover in Iceland. It was cold and rainy, and we had to step outside to get to the airport, but Clara didn’t seem to mind.
After we got off the plane, we found out that our seats for the next leg had been switched during our first flight. This meant that Janet and I were now sitting apart, which is just no good when flying with a baby.
Icelandair wasn’t able to do anything about our seat change (I later realized that they had probably changed airplane types since the plane wasn’t big enough to have our old row anymore). Fortunately, a kind mom that was assigned next to Janet noticed that we were separated and offered to switch seats so that Janet and I could sit with Clara.
After ~4 hours, we landed in Zurich, Switzerland at 1pm Swiss time. We found our luggage, went through customs, and grabbed a taxi to our hotel close to the city center.
Although we were ready for a hotel, the hotel wasn’t ready for us. We ended up hanging out in the lobby for a little over an hour. Clara spent the time holding onto our fingers and walking around the lobby, pointing at lights and buttons. The hotel gave us 3 free drink cards to use at the bar for being unable to check us in on time, but we never ended up using them.
We did eventually check in, and spent a little time looking for a place to eat. Most of the shops and restaurants stay closed on Sunday, but we managed to find a great Swiss restaurant called Zeughauskeller. It took us a moment to figure out if we needed to seat ourselves; fortunately a server came and quickly offered us English menus.
Janet ordered Kalbsgeschnetzeltes nach Zürcher Art (veal with a mushroom sauce and rosti, which is similar to hash browns). I got Aelplermagronen (a pasta with potatoes). Our first meal in Switzerland was one of our favorites!
After dinner, we had a bit of time to walk around the town. We saw the Fraumunster and Grossmunster churches. The Fraumunster church was founded in 853 AD by King Louis the German. The church’s claim to fame are its stained glass windows by Augusto Giacometti (the north windows) and Marc Chagall (the five-part cycle in the choir and the rosette in the southern transept). The Grossmunster church was commissioned by Charlemagne around 1100 AD. In the 16th century, Huldrych Zwingli started the Reformation in Switzerland from the Grossmunster.
After visiting the churches, we walked along the river that runs next to the old city and went to a grocery store to get some water (they only had sparkling), bread, and strawberries (there’s no limit to the amount of strawberries Clara will eat). We also got two chocolate bars, caramel and a fruity/floral flavored one. I love fruit and floral flavored chocolate.
We were pretty tired by then, so we went back to the hotel and went to sleep. Clara didn’t go to sleep right away that first night, but Janet and I managed to alternate sleeping just enough to get a little rest while Clara played and babbled.
Day 3
I spent today working at the BCG office in Zurich. Unfortunately, it rained most of the day, so Janet and Clara were largely stuck in the hotel. But Clara didn’t mind — she slept until 12:45 pm and enjoyed playing peek-a-boo in the curtains, eating strawberries, and watching German cartoons.
Toward the evening, I went with my colleagues to another hotel & conference center where everyone in my program had a chance to learn a bit more about how BCG is organized, then meet the CEO and a few other senior partners in the firm. We followed that with a dinner with most of the other folks in my program.
Day 4
I had to work again today. Fortunately for me, I had organized a chocolate making workshop for everyone in my program. We went to the Lindt factory to make truffles and pralines, which I brought back to share with Janet and Clara!
Clara, once again, slept until noon, even though she went to sleep at a decent hour the night before. Travel takes a lot out of you!
After work, Janet, Clara, and I went with a few of my colleagues to dinner at an Italian restaurant called Santa Lucia. Clara dozed off on the walk there, but woke up halfway through to enjoy some of mom’s pasta carbonara. Everyone was very impressed with how cute and well-behaved Clara acted (even if she did get a little loud toward the end).
Day 5
Work again! Fortunately, the weather was better so Clara and Janet managed to explore the town. Extra fortunately, Clara woke up at 7 am; I guess she just decided to be done with jet lag.
Janet and Clara walked all over the old city, including a jaunt down Bahnofstrasse, a world-famous shopping mile with all of Switzerland’s fanciest clothes, jewelry, and toys. Janet also carried Clara and her stroller up four flights of stairs to get to Lindenhof, which has an amazing view of the old town and a few baby swings which Clara loved. They also visited St. Peter’s church, saw the Opera House, and walked around Lake Zurich.
After I finished work, Janet, Clara, and I went to the Raclette Factory to try raclette, a Swiss dish consisting of different kinds of cheese melted over potatoes, bread, or mashed potatoes. We got a few kinds of cheeses, as well as sausage. It wasn’t Clara’s favorite dish (nothing compares to strawberries these days), but she did like the sausage.
We had a chance to wander the city a little bit after that as well. Our journey took us along the river to get some ice cream, see the Opera House, and window shop at a few of the fancy stores.
Day 6
Work again! Somewhat. Honestly, a lot got packed into today.
It started with laundry. I carried our clothes up the street to one of two self-serve laundromats in Zurich (I get the sense that there might be a total of 5 such establishments in all of Switzerland). I sat there and did some work as the clothes spun in the machines.
When the laundry finished, I went to pick up a rental car. Many people will tell you that it’s crazy to rent a car in Switzerland since the rail system is so good. I’m sure the rails run as smooth as truffle filling, but I didn’t want to experience it while carrying multiple large bags, a baby, and a stroller. In the end, the car gave us some great flexibility in addition to the convenience that we took full advantage of, so I think it was a great choice.
Once I got the car back to the hotel, we packed up, checked out, and drove to Lucerne. Switzerland is not a big place, so we made it to Lucerne in under an hour. We arrived too early to check-in, but we went straight to our AirBnB just in case they had things ready. When we arrived, we saw a moving truck and people loading the unit we thought we had booked. I knew that the landlords had posted the unit recently, so I thought maybe we were the first renters and the owners hadn’t set up the unit yet (though it did make me wonder how they had pictures of the unit already). We decided to just go to the store to get some food, then parked at the Transportation Museum to enjoy a picnic by Lake Lucerne.
We had to dodge huge swarms of tiny bugs all over the park. Clara loved watching Janet try to shoo them away by swinging her jacket at them. We eventually found a nice clearing and had some lunch. After lunch, we fed a friendly swan and walked around some more.
We decided to go to the Kreins station once we finished at the park to try to buy tickets for our next day’s activity. Once we made it, the lady at the ticket office told me that they don’t sell advance tickets. I didn’t mind – we had a nice drive through the city.
We returned to the AirBnB, and found our unit occupied by the people we saw moving furniture earlier. After talking with them and calling our AirBnB contact on the phone, we found out that 3 different units all had the same address. Relieved that we did in fact have a place to stay that night, we unloaded the car and got settled.
We ended the day by walking to the main city for dinner at Rebstock. I had a chögalipaschtetli, which is a pastry filled with veal and vegetables (with a heart shape cooked into the top), and Janet had a veal sausage with rosti. Clara liked Janet’s dinner more.
We only had to walk a few minutes from Rebstock to get to the main sites of the city, so we got some ice cream and went to Chapel Bridge, a very old wooden bridge with 17th century art. It made for lovely pictures.
We ended our day with a hike in the alps, which is to say that we walked up a steep hill on the way back. Switzerland has lots of those.
After giving Clara a bath and doing some work, we went to sleep.
Day 7
For my first day without needing to work, we took a trip up Mt. Pilatus for a stunning view of the real Alps!
Mount Pilatus has gondolas and a cog railway system that make it easy to get to the top. We drove to the station at Kreins, and got tickets for the “Golden Roundtrip.”
The first gondola took about ~20 minutes and brought us nearly to the peak. Along the way, we had gorgeous views and heard classic Switzerland cowbells below us.
The gondola stops at an intermediate station where we transferred to a larger gondola made to hold small groups of people. We managed to get a front-row seat up the last leg of cable up the mountain, and the gondola wobbles just enough over sharp crevasses to keep it interesting.
We had beautiful weather at the top, and we took lots of great pictures of Lucerne on one side and snow-capped mountains on the other. Not all of it allowed for a stroller, so I took a quick run up some stairs to grab a few more pictures.
After watching some skiers, browsing the souvenir shops, and grabbing a pesto sandwich for lunch, we went to the cogwheel train that would take us down the other side of the mountain.
The cogwheel train spends its time going up and down a 45 degree angle along the mountain. Normal trains can’t handle anything close to that, and normal seating would have everyone tipping out of their seats. To solve that, this train used a stair-step style of seating, where each booth sat above or below the ones next to it, angled to the track to keep everyone level.
Clara really enjoyed spinning the handles that opened and closed the windows. We really enjoyed the views, and we spent ~30 minutes slowly making our way down the mountain.
As I mentioned, this brought us down a different side of the mountain. Part of the experience we purchased included a boat ride across Lake Lucerne to get back to the main city. Our train arrived just two minutes before the boat’s scheduled departure, so we raced to the ship. Fortunately, it waited a bit for passengers from the late train. Not that the ship’s crew were otherwise in a rush – we found only one other passenger on the ship before us, and only a handful of other people boarded before we weighed anchor.
We found the 90 minute cruise quite relaxing. Clara fell asleep, and I shortly started snoozing as well. While awake, we enjoyed great views of the surrounding city and mountains. We even managed to spot our AirBnB on a hill.
The boat docked right next to the main train station and bus stop. Our tour included a bus ride back to the original gondola station, but we decided to spend the afternoon in the city before taking the bus back to our car.
We started by getting a raclette-covered pretzel and then walking to the Jesuit church, one of the major city landmarks. The exterior looks nice, but since all of Lucerne’s (and much of Switzerland’s) architecture keeps a bit of a 15th century look, the church doesn’t stand out as much as it would elsewhere. The interior sports a lot of colored marble, especially a creamy rose that I really liked. Regular readers of my adventures know I’m a sucker for colored marble.
After that we walked across Spreuer Bridge, another landmark wooden bridge. From there, we headed to Hofkirche St. Leodegar, another landmark church.
At this point, F-5’s started buzzing overhead. Fighter aircraft don’t fly over my part of the DC area often, so I haven’t heard any for a long time, and they are LOUD. They seemed to be practicing for something since they didn’t just pass once, but repeatedly made passes, sometimes in a tight diamond formation. Janet had a good laugh at me as I carried Clara’s stroller up the stairs to the church since just then the fighters flew in the first diamond formation I had seen and I apparently looked quite excited. But hey, I should be excited; U.S. citizens aren’t afforded a ton of chances to see F-5’s flying around!
We visited the church, then stepped out to feed Clara some strawberries.
We then headed to Lucerne’s famous Lion Monument. The Monument commemorates the Swiss guard that revolutionaries killed during an early part of the French Revolution. It compares favorably with many of the other sculptures we saw across Italy – it’s a really impressive scene.
Before we made it to the Lion Monument, we stopped in a couple of souvenir shops. We considered getting a cuckoo clock. Instead we bought a cute shirt for Clara, a little bell with a cow on it (also for Clara), and a music box that plays Waltz of the Flowers from the Nutcracker.
We gave the bell with a cow handle to Clara while we walked along the street. She LOVED it, ringing it as vigorously as possible, and getting extremely upset if I took it from her. I don’t blame her. She had a fever, and the only prescription was more cow bell.
After we saw the Lion Monument, we went to get dinner at an Italian place next to the river. We got Neapolitan pizza, which was delicious. Clara felt pretty tired at this point and expressed her exhaustion by throwing food to the ground. We came at odd hours, so fortunately the restaurant didn’t have many other patrons.
After dinner, we decided to head back home. It took some time to find the right bus, but once we found it we hopped on without any trouble. Janet found a seat with Clara while I stood with the stroller. A lady sitting across from Janet kept trying to chat with Janet and Clara, which would have been more effective if she spoke in English rather than German!
We had to walk a little ways from the bus stop back to our car. The bad news is that it was uphill; the good news is we saw some cows!
We finally made it back to the car, and drove through the city back to our AirBnb. I did a little bit of work that evening, and walked to the store to grab some croissants, nutella, and strawberries for breakfast. Then we went to sleep to prepare for the next day.
Day 8
The forecast called for rain today, so we decided to do something indoors. This brought us to the Swiss Transport Museum. I had quite a bit of fun here!
The museum features trains, cars, ships, and airplanes/space craft in different sections. It also has an outdoor area in the middle with lots of fun activities for kids (pedal-powered go-carts, earth moving equipment, remote control boats, etc.)
We started by wandering around the open area watching some of the kids play on the equipment. We also took a look at some of the planes and ships outdoors, including an F-104 Starfighter. I’m not sure how it ended up there, especially since it still displays its “US Air Force” designation, but I got a couple of fun shots with it.
Eventually we ended up in the trains section which I enjoyed more than I anticipated. I haven’t had much natural interest in trains, but it had great displays on how the engines work, different kinds of rails, and lots of interactive exhibits.
Once we finished there, we went to a Lindt chocolate tour in the museum. We boarded a ride that brought us to different rooms where videos and moving displays taught us how Lindt makes its chocolate. We really enjoyed it, especially since we had seen a similar one at Hershey that we only sort-of enjoyed. To top it off, the last part of the ride dispensed a bunch of Lindt truffles for us to take. Pro-tip if you ever go: try to get your own car so you don’t have to share the truffles!
After enjoying the chocolate tour, we went to the planes! Janet let me stand in line for an airplane simulator (simulating an F-5) that ended up being pretty similar to one we did at the Midway museum in San Diego. The line didn’t move very quickly, so Janet and Clara ended up seeing most of the main airplane exhibits by the time I finished the simulator.
I took my own tour of the aircraft exhibit, checking out the engines, airplanes, and the like. Then we went upstairs to the space exhibits. The museum has a big rotating cube room as a featured exhibit. You step in one door, then they rotate the cube along its diagonal axis so that you end up standing on what was previously a wall.
The tour guide for the cube told us what to do to ensure we didn’t get hurt. At least I think that’s what she was doing – she only spoke in German, so I actually have no idea. It later occurred to me that I think she started the tour by asking if we all understood German. I guess she took my blank, confused stare to mean “Ja! Super! Ich sprige all the Deutch!” Regardless, I made it through the cube alive by mimicking what the other museum-goers did.
We saw some more space things, then found a “helicopter downwash” simulator. It played a video of a helicopter coming in to land right next to you, while blowing powerful fans in your face. I held Clara in front of it so she could get the full helicopter experience. She always makes the best faces when she encounters wind!
For lunch, we went to the cafeteria and got some delicious Indian food, sausage, and vegetables. Clara ate a lot of sausage, and even tried a lemon (she didn’t like it)!
The gift shop at the museum has a little Lindt shop inside it, and they have chocolate tasting experiences a few times a day. Did we go to one? Yes, we did, and we quite liked it, though the lady again mostly spoke in German. She switched to English to explain the samples she shared, so we caught the important part.
The weather looked nice, so we went to the middle area to let Clara walk around a bit and rides on some of the toys in the area. Clara especially liked going to the boats and threatening to step into the water. She decided that she did not like Dad preventing her from stepping in the water.
Once we finished up with that, we went to see the cars, but didn’t really need to spend much time there (neither Janet nor I have a huge interest in cars, especially old cars). We did, however, need to change Clara’s diaper, so we took care of that.
After the cars, we went to see the ships. It included a view of an old submarine built for passenger tours. It also included a bobsled with a BCG logo. Apparently we sponsored the museum, or the bobsled, or something?
For our last event at the museum, we decided to try to watch a 3D movie about African animals. Unfortunately, my translator didn’t work, and Clara wouldn’t let Janet wear the 3D glasses. We made it ~20 minutes before Clara started fussing, and we had to step out in the middle of a bit about flamingos.
Since we had seen everything, we got ready to leave by taking a quick look in the gift shop. They had a Toblerone ice cream bar we had been keeping an eye out for, so we had one of those before going back to the car.
We drove to our AirBnB for a quick breather, then drove to an Italian restaurant that looked kid-friendly. It was a great find!
We finished our dinner and went home; I did a little more work again, then went to sleep.
Day 9
For our last full day in Switzerland, we went to Engelberg. It takes ~45 minutes of beautiful driving from Lucerne to get there.
Here, we visited their famous cheese-making monastery. We watched the man on-duty make a few batches, then took a few pictures of the area while hang-gliders floated overhead.
We decided to get lunch nearby, in an Italian restaurant associated with the monastery. Janet tried Rivella, a soda made in Switzerland.
Next, we decided to take the gondolas up Mount Titlis. The trip up Mount Pilatus was easy and comfortable, and we expected something similar here. It turns out that Mount Titlis is overrun by large buses of tour groups, so the experience felt a bit different.
The lines were packed and chaotic, and Clara had fallen asleep in her stroller by this point. We saw that the gondolas could fit us without needing to fold the stroller, so we managed to position ourselves to do just that, while still fitting another family into our gondola.
The gondolas had country flags on them, and both on the way up and down, we had one with Turkey’s flag. Judging by the sequence of cars, I think we ended up with the exact same gondola. Sadly, I didn’t leave a note to my future self on the way up (nor a note to my past self on the way down).
The first section of the gondola felt much like the one for Mount Pilatus. We climbed very pleasantly up the mountain on an extremely long gondola. Unlike Friday, we had a cloudy day, so as we got higher we started getting engulfed by fog.
We reached an intermediate station just like we had at Pilatus, and got in line for the final ascent. Here, they had a large, spinning gondola. Someone must have thought that a big, spinning gondola with wrap-around windows sounded super cool, but it just meant that we had to jam a bunch of people into a large, open platform, where most people are not next to a window and don’t have much to hold onto.
We didn’t feel comfortable, but we did at least survive. The structure at the peak has 5 levels of things to do. We wandered through them, seeing the souvenir shops, and other activities. We also got some ice cream just because you don’t get to do that at 10K feet every day. After finishing the ice cream, we took turns going through a “glacier walk”, where they had dug out a tunnel through the glacier for a cold, but enchanting path.
We also went to the top floor to step out and take pictures. The fog was so thick that we didn’t need to take many. Looking into the abyss meant seeing perfect whiteness with no view.
Once we finished, we took the spinning gondola down. At the intermediate station, we made our way to a regular gondola. We managed to get our gondola to ourselves on this leg and enjoyed the views as we went.
Once we touched down, we took a short walk to a nearby lake to see some cows. Clara loved the cows, and a few cows seemed to love Clara. We couldn’t cross the fence, but I suspect the cows would have loved to have the cutest baby on earth give them a few gentle pats.
The cows let us go, so we drove back to Lucerne. Fondue is a Swiss tradition, but they typically serve it with alcohol. We still wanted to try it before we left, so I looked for a good fondue place that included an alcohol-free version on its menu. I managed to find one along the river next to the Chapel Bridge. We drove down, found a place to park, and sat ourselves at an outdoor table. They served some delicious fondue with bread and potatoes, as well as a variety salad. We agreed that our first and last dinners were our favorite meals in Switzerland.
After dinner we took a last quick walk along the river. We passed a gelato shop that had good prices (which you just don’t find in Switzerland), so I got a final treat in Switzerland.
After our walk we got back in the car and drove to our AirBnb. We did what packing we could, then got some rest.
Day 10
We started the day early to pack up and drive to the airport. The drive went without a hitch, after which we turned our rental car in at the airport and made our way to check in for our flight.
We arrived early enough that the check-in line for Icelandair hadn’t opened yet. For ~30 minutes Clara walked us around the check-in area while holding our fingers. Eventually the attendants showed up to let us drop off our bags.
We made our way through security, then set out to find some lunch. It took a while to find food – the first area of the Zurich airport consisted mostly of watch stores and other high-end shopping. We did eventually find a place to get some sandwiches and a big bowl full of strawberries for Clara. After eating our sandwiches, we bought a few more for our dinner on the plane, as well as some pasta for Clara. She didn’t eat much pasta, but she did finish the whole bowl of strawberries before we arrived home.
They eventually announced our gate, so we headed over and found a little child’s play area nearby. We let Clara play on the slide and other toys. She even made friends with a few of the German kids playing. One came up to give Clara a hug multiple times, after which Clara would get excited and start chasing the boy!
Clara loved the slide most of all. She constantly wanted us to lift her up, then help her slide on down. We had to keep her from getting in the way of other kids wanting to play on the slide, but everyone took turns well and Clara had lots of slide time!
We did finally get on the plane to head to our layover in Iceland. Clara again bounced around for a little while, but ended up falling asleep for most of the flight.
Once we landed in Iceland, we went through their short customs checkpoint, then rushed to our next flight. We found that a huge line to our flight had already formed (they didn’t board by any sort of group number). Luckily, they let families with small children through first. We were able to hop to the front and get everything situated for our last flight home.
Once again, Clara slept nearly the whole time, though she waited until after I grabbed a bar of Icelandic chocolate. I shared what I could, but it had lots of crispy rice balls in it which Clara finds hard to eat, so I had to eat most of it myself.
We landed at Dulles, and Clara was exhausted. It was ~7 pm DC time, which would have felt like 1 am to her. She stayed pretty calm though — just looked around at everyone and enjoyed being held in our arms.
Once we made it through customs, we grabbed our bags and made our way to grab an Uber. We stuffed everything into the vehicle, and made it home from our big, Switzerland adventure!
