We woke up in St Moritz on our last morning there to find it snowing. It looked beautiful drifting down and we just had to run outside and stand in it. Luckily our hotel was able to provide a transfer to the train station so we didn’t have to walk in it all the way.

A side note on Caitlynne’s suitcase: Last year we travelled with Carmel’s behemoth suitcase, which we named “The Beast”. I made some crack about the physics conundrum we had regarding how can you fit the suitcase in the car when you can fit the car inside the suitcase. Well, this year, Lady Caitlynne’s suitcase makes The Beast look like a clutch. “Brutella” is so large that we could probably hook her up to the train as an additional carriage. Our suitcases cower under her shadow.

We arrived at the train station and after four of us lugged Brutella onto the train like a coffin, we were off toward Zurich. The scenery on the train ride was again spectacular. What a beautiful, picturesque country. The train winds along aqueducts and you pass covered wooden bridges, waterfalls and houses with beautiful Swiss architecture; many of them painted with swirling patterns.

We had to change trains at Chur in order to catch our next train to Zurich. The timetable showed us that we had only 4 minutes between our arrival at Chur and the departure of our next train. Unfortunately, our train was delayed a couple of times waiting for other trains to pass and by the time we rolled into Chur we were 1 minute behind, meaning we had 3 minutes to change. In true Swiss style, they were super organised (or luck was on our side), because we saw as we arrived at Chur that our next train was directly across from us on the next platform. All we had to do was jump off one train, walk across the platform and jump on the other. Rob decided it would be easier to ride Brutella than push her, and he went scooting past on top of her until her wheel buckled and he went sprawling across the platform.

We came bustling onto the train, laughing and chatting, and as we sat an old man started talking to Rob in German. Rob loudly explained that he couldn’t speak German and after a minute of fruitless conversation, a young guy explained that he was trying to tell Rob that we were in the quiet carriage and were being too loud. We sheepishly toned down the volume, although I maintain that he could have turned off his hearing aids and it would have been as quiet as he wanted.

As we travelled, we all took out the snaplock bags we had filled with food at the breakfast buffet that morning and began eating our lunch. In an act of revenge for the umbrella incident, where Rob brained Caitlynne a couple of days earlier, Caitlynne lent forward and cracked her boiled egg on Rob’s head. With a crack like a whip, the hard shell met Rob’s rock-hard head and broke the silence in the quiet carriage.

When we arrived in Zurich it was pouring rain. Being pedestrian only in the old town where we were staying, we put our wet weather gear on over our backpacks and ventured out into the rain. It took 10 minutes of walking to get to our hotel and when we arrived taxis were dropping people off at the front, so we actually could have hired a taxi (for the price of a house) and avoided getting wet.

The rain didn’t stop us from exploring Zurich, which we found to be a city full of character, with ancient buildings lining the Limmat river. We stopped in a café for cuppa and Lidia ordered a Baileys hot chocolate. When it came it was super spicy. I mentioned this to the waitress who initially said that the Baileys hot chocolate has chili in it. This seemed weird to us. When we mentioned that this wasn’t listed on the menu, she said “Yes. The barista accidentally made a chili hot chocolate and then put a shot of Baileys in it!” Just as well Lidia has a high tolerance for spice! She apologised and brought out a proper Baileys hot chocolate.

After our cuppa we parted from the Allens to check into our room and then went out wandering again, where we came across an old pub called Oliver Twist. They had Guinness on tap, so of course I had to partake in one of those while Lidia enjoyed a cider on tap. We may have gone back there the next day with Rob and Caitlynne just to make sure that the Guinness was still OK.

That evening we went to a fondue restaurant, which Rob had pre-booked, and just as well since the queue out the front was huge. We didn’t have fondue, since our concierge recommended we wait until Geneva, where the best fondue is.

On day two in Zurich we visited the Lindt chocolate factory. In the foyer there was a giant chocolate fountain. We toured the factory where they stuffed us full of chocolate and ended in a room where there were about 8 barrels full of different flavoured Lindt balls and a sign saying “Please take one of each flavour”. You didn’t have to tell us twice.

The next day we left Zurich and took the train to Lucerne. When we checked into our hotel, we were all lucky enough to receive room upgrades. Lidia and I were upgraded to the only suite in the hotel and the room was spectacular. It was set in the tower of the hotel and comprised two levels. The bottom level had the bed, two lounge suites and a shower surrounding a spiral staircase leading up to a lounge with bean bags dotted around and a doorway to a private rooftop space with a huge jacuzzi!

We spent the afternoon walking around the stunning city of Lucerne. We crossed the two ancient, covered wooden bridges. The chapel bridge was built around 1300 and is the oldest covered bridge in Europe. There were paintings all along the bridge built into the trusses which were painted in the 17^th century. The buildings on either side of the river were magnificent, many of them with ancient murals painted on their facades.

One of the most memorable activities in Lucerne was the lion monument. Carved out of the cliffside at the start of the 19^th century, this moving sculpture of a dying lion was made to commemorate the mercenary Swiss soldiers who gave their lives working for the French Bourbon royal family in the 18^th century, many of whom died during the French Revolution. We sat and stared at this emotive statue for ages.

After this we hopped on a cruise around Lake Lucerne. This is one massive lake and we cruised for an hour past little villages on the lakeside and houses with old timber boathouses.

For dinner that night Rob had booked us into a famous hamburger restaurant called Anton’s. The burgers were sensational, along with the truffle fries, but we walked away paying $460 Aussie dollars. Did I mention that Switzerland is riDICulously expensive?

The following day was cloudy, but we had planned to take a cable car up to the top of Mt Titlis, so we decided to chance it and go, hoping it would clear before we arrived. It took an hour to get to the cable car station by train, then a cable car up to the first station, then a revolving cable car all the way to the top of Mt Titlis. As we were ascending in the first cable car, we noticed that there were flags painted on the carriages coming down. Apparently, they were put there for the Winter Olympics. The carriage with the Australian flag started coming towards us. I quickly grabbed my camera so that I could take a shot of it with the mountain as a backdrop. The perfect shot! Unfortunately, my camera decided not to work and I didn’t get the shot. A tip for anyone wanting to become a professional photographer: cameras work much better when you take the lens cap off.

Anyway, we were looking forward to the summit of Mt Titlis, because apparently, the views of Mt Pilatus up there are stunning. We hopped aboard the revolving cable car, which was pretty cool, and were at the summit in no time flat. And the view: we wouldn’t know because it was so foggy you could hardly see your hand in front of your face! We braved the snow and slipped and slid up an icy mountain path, enclosed in a wall of white, where I clearly won the second snowball fight with Rob. He decided to make a snow angel, so I waited ages to take the photo, just to ensure that his jeans were thoroughly wet before he stood up.

The trip wasn’t a complete waste though. There was a cave carved into the glacier which was pretty cool. We walked into it for about 100 metres. A fact sheet informed us that the cave shed 4,000,000 litres of water per year!

After descending the mountain, we went back to the train station to find we had missed our train by 2 minutes and had to wait another hour for the next one. This seems to be happening to us a lot on this trip! Anyway, we made the most of it by finding a quaint little bakery in which to have a cuppa.

When we returned to our hotel, we decided to enjoy a glass of wine in our room. The Allens were staying on floor 5 and we were on 6. Rob went downstairs to get a bottle of wine from the restaurant on the ground floor and when he came back he was huffing and puffing like he’d just run a marathon. Apparently, he’d walked up all six flights of stairs because he didn’t have a key for floor six and you needed to scan your key to use the lift. Lidia asked him why he didn’t use his key to get to floor 5 and then walk up one flight of stairs. She got a blank stare in reply.

On our last morning in Lucerne we ate breakfast together, where they had a boiled egg station. You pop your eggs in and take a provided egg timer back to your table. Rob puts his eggs in and comes back to the table with two 3-minute egg timers. He turns one over. I asked him why he needed two. His answer: “I wanted six minutes, so when this one runs out, I’ll turn the other one over….”