Mallory and I were able to squeeze in a trip for just the two of us to a dream destination of ours: Switzerland! We spent nine days in this gorgeous country exploring new places, skiing, indulging in Swiss chocolate and cheese, and traveling by train through the countryside. It was everything and more!

Wednesday, November 16th – Geneva:

Our flight to Geneva was early at 7:30 am. Mal and I had both gotten back from other trips the day before so, needless to say, we were exhausted as we rolled up to the airport. When we went to check in for our flight they told us that we didn’t have seats yet because our flight had been overbooked. We were on standby and would have to wait and see if they could get us on our flight. We did not need the stress and uncertainty of not knowing whether or not we could actually get on our flight. There were actually a lot of people on standby for our flight, but I think everyone was able to get on the flight. We had a quick flight and then took the bus to our hostel where we stored our luggage before heading into the city.

By this point, it was around 10:30 am, but we had a really hard time finding any restaurants or cafes in Old Town that had open kitchens. We found that most places didn’t start serving food until 11:30 am. We were starving though, so we kept wandering and hoping to find a cafe that was serving more than just coffee. Eventually, we found a brunch restaurant where we both ordered avocado toast and shared an acai bowl as we planned out the rest of our day.

We walked along the Promenade du Lac as the sun came out and admired the beautiful views of the city and mountains in the distance. We spent a good amount of time on the rocky pier watching the Geneva Jet d’Eau, a massive fountain jet shooting straight up out of Lake Geneva. Since the sun was shining, it was creating massive and vibrant rainbows in the fountains streams. It was so beautiful. We spent a long time watching the fountain in awe and taking pictures.

In desperate need of a bathroom break, we stopped into a cafe to grab a warm cup of something (hot chocolate for me; chai latte for Mal) to take with us as we continued walking around the city. We crossed the bridge to the other side of Lake Geneva and walked along the lakefront. Despite being mid-November, the fall colors were still so bright and beautiful. We loved seeing all the different colored trees in the hills across the lake. We watched swans diving in the lake and took some pictures. We walked to a pier that is home to Bains des Paquis, a public bath house & sauna. Even though it was in the mid-50s, there were still a ton of people braving the cold, jumping off the pier, and swimming in Lake Geneva. It was a beautiful spot, and I can imagine that if I visited or lived in Geneva in the summertime, I would spend 90% of my time on that pier with a book.

We walked back into Old Town to check out a place called Dreamscape that we had stumbled upon in our Geneva research. At Dreamscape, you can sign up for virtual reality experiences. There were three different experiences available. We were interested in one called Geneva 1850, where you would be transported through VR headsets backs to 19th century Geneva and follow characters through the rise of unrest as the citizens revolted. We got some more information from the employees and planned to come back the next day. We stopped to get some macarons at Laduree and took the bus back to the hostel to chill for a little bit.

For dinner, we went to a Chinese restaurant called Kung Fu. We shared vegetable spring rolls. Mal got won ton soup and dumplings, and I got a veggie noodles. It was delicious; we had clearly picked a local favorite based on how many takeout orders they fulfilled while we were there.

We had bought tickets to a dance performance called Compass that night. We didn’t know much at all about the show going into it other than the short description on the website that said it was inspired by Homer’s “The Odyssey” and explored themes of alienation. It was… an interesting experience to say the least. I don’t know how I would classify this performance, but I wouldn’t call it dance. There were only two performers, and they both started the show soaking wet. The entire stage was covered in scallop-shaped chalk drawings, so whenever the dancers moved around, their wet clothes would wipe away the chalk drawings. The beginning of the show was a lot of the dancers just wandering around the space. They ended up sitting side by side along the back wall of the stage, and one of the dancers starts sucking the water out of the other girl’s clothes and spitting it on the stage. This repeated for minutes on end. They then had a breakdance party where props came flying out from under a tarp on the stage. One of the girls was standing on an upside down bucket with a goat horn helmet on her head and stripped fully naked. The other wrapped herself in the tarp and put on a rainbow yarn wig. Goat horn girl (who stayed naked for the rest of the show, keep in mind!) ate canned tuna and poured a bottle of red wine on the floor. Jesus-looking tarp girl stabbed herself in the arm and drew a syringe full of her own blood, which she then mixed with a white substance and spread all over the goat horns. And that’s just the gist of it all… so to say the least, it was a very strange performance. I’m not sure I understand the connection to “The Odyssey” or any of its themes, but the rest of the audience seemed to love it. The performers got three encores. They certainly were dedicated to their parts, but it was just not my style. Mal and I had much to discuss afterwards though, and it gave us a good laugh. The picture below is the aftermath of the stage.

Thursday, November 17th – Geneva:

This morning, we started our day at the Ariana Museum, which showcases different kinds of ceramic and glass pieces. We got to see a lot of beautiful plates and vases. Our favorite part was the section showcasing glassware. There were standard clear glass cups and vases, but they were also colorful and extravagant pieces of art. The museum building itself was also beautiful.

We hadn’t eaten breakfast, so we found a cafe called Le Fix where we both got a soup and sandwich combo for lunch. It was a hummus and mushroom sandwich with carrot and spinach soup. It was very tasty, and it was nice to have a warm bowl of soup on a chilly November day. We then took the tram back into Old Town and had an hour to kill before our VR time slot at Dreamscape. We ended up stumbling across an English bookstore & cafe called Pages & Sips. We browsed through the bookshelves for a while, but had to force ourselves out before both of our already never ending TBR (to be read) lists got any longer.

Finally, it was time for our Geneva 1850 virtual reality experience! We made our way back to Dreamscape and checked in for our appointment where we got to choose the avatar that we would play as in the VR. Our characters obviously fit the theme of the experience, so our characters were dressed in typical 1850s fashion. Mallory and I were the only ones who had signed up for our time slot, so it was just us! David, the employee who ran our session, led us into our room where we got all of our equipment on. We had to strap sensors onto our feet and hands. We also wore headsets and headphones. Once we were fully equipped, David turned everything on and suddenly we were transported into a virtual reality! Mal and I could see each other and ourselves, although we were seeing our avatars! This was where we started cracking up because I knew I was looking at Mallory, but what I was seeing was a woman dressed in a traditional colonial outfit. Think pantaloons, ruffled collars, high socks, low pony tails. We looked hilarious. We could also look around and see ourselves. It’s really crazy! We stood up and walked into the VR room where Mal picked up a prop key, and I picked up a prop invitation. We got into a horse drawn carriage where we could look out the windows at the scenery around us. Our carriage sped away and dropped us off at a building where we eavesdropped on three men discussing how citizens were planning to rise up and revolt. A secret door opened behind us as another man offered us a way out of the building before we were spotted. This, of course, is all fake, but it felt so real! In reality, we were just walking around a black room, but through our eyes, we were walking through secret tunnels and riding on a carriage through Geneva. We even recognized some familiar locations that we had seen in the city like the Cathedral. The story ended with the citizens of Geneva starting a riot with explosions and fighting. Luckily, a woman offered us an escape route on her hot air balloon. We floated away from the chaos and watched Geneva from above as the city transformed over time. It was such a crazy experience, and it’s hard to describe it! We had so much fun though. I’ll link the Dreamscape trailer for the experience we did to try and show what it was like.

When in Switzerland, you must have fondue! We made reservations for a highly recommended restaurant called Restaurant Les Armures. We sat outside, and coincidentally, it was right next to one of the places we had passed in our VR experience. We shared a cheese and mushroom fondue and a mushroom tagliatelle. We both got a glass of white wine as well. The outdoor tables had blankets at each chair, so we both snuggled up with a warm blanket as we enjoyed dipping our potatoes and bread in the gooey fondue while we talked for hours. It was a perfect Swiss meal.

We had had so much fun at the Geneva 1850 VR, that we wanted to try one of the other ones! Before we had left for dinner, we scheduled ourselves for the slots in the Alien Zoo VR later that evening. We joined a family of four for this experience. It was a little different than our first time. In the Geneva 1850 one, we were walking around a lot, but in this one we stayed in the same small area the whole time. The premise of this one was that we were being sent to a different planet that is home to all kinds of aliens. You get taken on a tour of this planet and get to interact with the creatures there from your travel pod. You can reach out to pet them, and you’ll actually touch something! At the end of the journey, one of the not-so-friendly aliens starts coming after us. We each had to grab flashlight torches to fight off the light-fearing alien and retreat to the escape pod. Alien Zoo and Geneva 1850 were so different, but both really fun! I’m glad we got to try both. Again, I’ll link the Alien Zoo trailer.

The Geneva Christmas Market started today, so we went to check it out. It was super cute, but unfortunately, it started raining right as we got there. There wasn’t much shelter from the rain, and Mal wasn’t wearing a waterproof coat. We decided to call it a night and head back to the hostel for a night in before we were set to take off for Interlaken the next morning.

Friday, November 18th – Interlaken:

This morning, we left our hostel and took off on our first long distance train ride of our trip. We had gotten an 8-day Swiss Travel Pass, which gave us unlimited access to all the trains, trams, and buses throughout the country. We were headed to Iseltwald, a small town just outside of Interlaken, where we would be staying for the next five nights. While we had enjoyed Geneva, we were both so excited for this leg of the trip because we couldn’t wait to be immersed in all the nature that Switzerland has to offer! We had both been looking forward to spending the train ride reading or journaling, but we both found that we couldn’t take our eyes off the stunning scenery and spent the entire ride with our eyes glued to the window. For the whole ride, we were blessed with views of mountains and lakes and it was just too beautiful to fathom.

We got off the train in Interlaken and took the bus about 20 minutes to our Airbnb in Iseltwald. From the bus stop, we had a bit of an uphill walk. We took our sweet time on this first walk up because we kept stopping every 30 seconds to turn around and gape at the incredible view. We just could not get over it! When we finally got inside our Airbnb, we ran straight out to the balcony to stare at the view again, and we were so lucky to catch the sun peeking out and casting a gorgeous rainbow over the lake. It was such a surreal moment, and again, we could NOT stop staring. We were obsessed with our view. Our Airbnb was the perfect little home, and we are so lucky that we found it!

Once the rainbow had faded, we decided to take the bus back into town to get some dinner. Although we stopped and had a photo shoot on our way. Once we made it to dinner, we got a magherita pizza and raclette, which is a Swiss dish of melted cheese served with potatoes, pickles, mini onions, and bacon. We stopped by the grocery store to pick up some food to keep in the fridge and then headed back to the apartment where we watched Survivor before going to bed.

Saturday, November 19th – Interlaken & Mürren:

Something we both really wanted to do while in Switzerland was go skiing! Mal has gotten into skiing within the last year and has been able to go quite a bit in Big Bear, California. I, on the other hand, haven’t gone skiing for probably 15 years since my family went to Granite Peak in Wisconsin a few times. I was excited to try again though, and we both thought it would be really cool to do it in the Swiss Alps! Technically, the ski season in Switzerland doesn’t start until the first weekend in December, so there was only one mountain/slope open and it was only open on weekends. We had stopped at the Interlaken Visitor’s Center the night before to get all the info we needed on getting there, renting equipment, etc.

We left the apartment to take the 7:31 am bus into town where we caught a train to Lauterbrunnen, then transferred to a bus to Mürren, where we planned to take the cable car up to the slopes. When we were getting on the bus headed to Mürren, the driver was standing outside the bus. I was a bit distracted trying to pull up my Swiss Travel Pass to show him as I walked on the bus. I didn’t see that the clear door that encloses the driver’s seat had been left open, and I ran directly into it and smacked my forehead on it. It was SO loud and SO powerful. The force with which I hit it makes me think I must have been running onto the bus. Mal and I immediately start keeling over with laughter, and the young girls sitting in the front row of the bus couldn’t keep it together either. The bus was packed, so everyone saw, but hopefully they thought it was funny too. Once we got ourselves to stop laughing, we realized that everyone on the bus had skis with them. We wondered for a minute if we needed to rent our equipment here rather than by the cable car, but the bus was just leaving. We got to the cable car, and we were indeed correct that we needed to rent skis back in town. The man who sold us our ski passes called the sports shop in town to make sure they were open since ski season hadn’t even started yet. He spoke with someone who confirmed that they were open and that we could rent skis there. He gave us directions, and we waited for the bus back into Lauterbrunnen.

Once we were back in town, we followed the directions given to us and found a sports shop, except it was closed until Wednesday. We thought maybe we were at the wrong sports shop, so we walked up and down the streets of Lauterbrunnen, but had no luck. We started pulling out our phones and googling “sports shop near me” and calling around to see if any stores were open and renting skis today. We finally got lucky and got ahold of a place in Mürren that we could rent skis from. To get there, we took a cable car and another train and then walked through the nearly abandoned streets of Mürren.

Finally finding this sports shop was so relieving. When we told the owner that we wanted to rent skis, he looked at us a bit apprehensively and said, “Okay, but do you know how cold it is up there?” Neither of us had snow pants, snow-proof coats, or gloves. I didn’t even have a hat. In addition to renting the skis, we also both got gloves and I got a hat. We trekked through town in our ski boots and took another cable car up to the slope.

Once we got up there, you basically walked right outside and down you went! Now keep in mind, I have very little ski experience… And the ski experience I do have is well over a decade in the past. I was definitely in need of some practice, and unfortunately, there was no room for that. There was a slight drop off to the side, but the slope itself was a steep drop and then a sharp turn. After that, we couldn’t see the rest of the run. I immediately started getting very nervous because I was not ready for that drop or sharp turn, especially without knowing what came after it and while being surrounded by tons of advanced Swiss skiers who have probably been on the slopes since they came out of the womb. Mal and I practiced going down the small slope off to the slide where I tried to “pizza” my skis and stop myself at the bottom. I was unsuccessful… I fully wiped out both times and was realizing that I was probably not going to be able to make it down the mountain. Mal decided to ski down by herself and report back. She said it wasn’t too bad after that first drop/turn, and I was starting to think maybe I could buck up and just do it! But then I went to try and practice on the side slope again and was quickly humbled. I was definitely not in any shape to be going down a full slope when I couldn’t even go down a 20 foot hill. I cried a little bit and was beating myself up while Mal so kindly gave me a pep talk and tried to convince me that I still did “ski in the Swiss Alps” and that I should be proud of myself for even getting that far. I’m just hard on myself. Once I stopped crying, I figured we should at least get some cute pictures before we took the cable car back into Mürren, returned our skis, and lied to the sports shop owner telling him everything went GREAT!

By then, it was 2:30 pm, and we were both starving. We sat outside and got lunch at a cafe that we had passed on our walk to and from the cable car. Despite the cold and the elevation, it was so nice to sit outside. We were bundled up and the sun was really warm on our backs. Mal and I split a spinach soup, cheese and tomato panini, and an open-face mushroom sauce sandwich. It was all so good, and the view simply couldn’t be beat!

We took many cable cars, trains, and buses to get back into Interlaken where we hung out at one of the fancy hotel bars. We got some drinks and desserts to share. Then we got on our final bus back to the Airbnb. One of the stops on our journey was the main bus/train station in town that all lines pass through. There is also a convenience store and a grocery store here. When we stoppe here, the bus fully turned off. Mal looked at the bus screen and loudly announced, “We’re stopped here for 19 minutes. I’m going to the Coop (grocery store) to get a coconut water.” I was hesitant and asked her if she was SURE we were going to be there for 19 minutes. Out of all the other times we had stopped at this station, we had never been there for 19 minutes… Mal said she was sure and ran off the bus leaving me alone with our backpack. Quite literally ONE MINUTE after Mallory got off the bus, the bus turned on, closed its doors, and started driving away. I frantically start calling and texting Mal, and when she didn’t answer any of my calls is when I remembered that her phone is dead. I’m cracking up thinking about how the whole bus heard Mal confidently declare that we would be waiting there for 19 minutes, only for us to leave 1 minute later. (We later figured out that she misread the departure time, which said 19:05, as a countdown haha) The man who had been sitting near us chuckled as he looked over at me, shrugged, and said, “Guess she’ll have to catch the next one!” The funny thing is… the buses only come once an hour. So after Mallory walked out of the store to see the bus was no longer there, she was stuck at the bus stop for another hour. I thought about getting off the bus and trying to catch one back into town to meet her at the station, but since there is only one bus an hour I would have been waiting so long for a bus back into town. I made it back to the Airbnb and turned on all the lights as a beacon to guide Mal home because the walk to our Airbnb is pitch black at night. I was standing on the balcony when Mal walked up the hill. I couldn’t see her, so I didn’t know she was there until I heard an annoyed voice say, “Hi”. I ran down to the door to let her in and we both doubled over laughing. As unfortunate as the situation was in the moment, we were laughing about it for the rest of the trip. It made for a good story!

Sunday, November 20th – Grindelwald & Iseltwald:

Our main goal for today was to see some stunning views, and we certainly achieved this. We spent most of the day in Grindelwald, which was just a few trains away. The town itself was super quiet and empty. There were like two businesses open in the entire town, so there wasn’t much to see or do just by wandering through town. One of the things to do from Grindelwald is to take the cable car up to the top Jungfrau Mountain, which is the Top of Europe. We went to the station thinking the cable car would be included in our Swiss Travel Pass like everything else had been. Unfortunately, our Swiss Travel Pass only gave us a discount, and even with the discount it was still a pretty hefty price tag. We decided to skip it.

Instead, we went to the glacier canyon. We got to walk on a platform through the canyon and admire the incredible glaciers and the running stream below. There was a part of the canyon where a rope web had been strung over the canyon. You could walk on it and stand directly above the canyon. They had some colorful lights there. They even do light shows at night. We also saw people who were at the top of the canyon hooked to cables jump off and swing through the canyon! That was a lot of fun to watch. We ran into a couple that we had met while skiing the day before. They had just done the canyon swing and said it was amazing! We also had a lot of fun setting up Mallory’s tripod and taking pictures and silly videos with the gorgeous view in the background. We walked back through Grindelwald to the train station, admired the amazing views along the way, and headed back to Iseltwald.

We decided to chill at the Airbnb for a bit before heading out for dinner. I read my book for a little bit and a took a quick nap. Around 6:30 pm, we took the bus to the edge of Iseltwald to get dinner at a hotel restaurant along the lake. We both got the creamy vegetable soup, which was amazing. (We have had so many delicious soups here in Switzerland) I got a basil and tomato ravioli and some sorbet for dessert. We also both had a glass of Swiss Sauvignon Blanc. It was a 10/10 meal. We took the last bus of the night back to the Airbnb and binge watched Survivor before calling it a night.

Monday, November 21st – Lucern & Iseltwald:

We left early on Monday morning for another day trip – this time to Lucern. This journey was about two hours of buses and trains. We were able to have some delicious croissants on our way and see Iseltwald from the other side of the lake.

When we got to Lucern, we went straight to the cable car and rode up to the top of Mt. Pilatus. It took about 35 minutes in the cable car to get all the way up there. It was a snowy heaven up there! Down below, Lucerne was still green and lush. Up on Mt. Pilatus, it was freezing and windy and covered in snow. We were surprised to learn that there are two hotels at the top of Mt. Pilatus. We hung out up there with hot chocolates for a while and enjoyed the view before taking the cable car back down.

The rest of the afternoon was spent walking around Old Town Lucerne. We saw Chapel Bridge and the Lion Monument. We also tried some amazing scones at a cafe that we stopped in mainly to use their bathroom. The owner convinced us to try the cheese scone and the pumpkin scone. They were so good that we went back and each got four more to eat on the way home and for breakfast the next day. After our two hour journey back to Iseltwald, we picked up some quick meals at the grocery store. The rest of the night we hung out at the Airbnb.

Tuesday, November 22nd – Iseltwald:

After being so busy and go-go-go for our entire trip, we decided to have a chill day at the Airbnb today. Especially since our Airbnb was so beautiful, we wanted to spend a full day there to enjoy it! We ended up both sleeping on the couch the night before and having a little sleepover. We woke up to the gorgeous mountain view. We stayed cuddled up on the couch and watched Survivor, drank tea, and ate our scones from the day before.

We spent time on the balcony reading our books and journaling with a snack plate of crackers, apples, and brie. Mallory has been making videos for her YouTube channel of her travels, so we filmed a few clips of us talking about our favorite things in each Swiss destination. We decided to head into town around 4:30 pm to order take out from an Indian restaurant that had caught our eye earlier in the week. While we waited for our food to be ready, we walked around town and hunted for magnets. Back at the Airbnb, we enjoyed our Indian feast and watched a movie.

Wednesday, November 23rd – Interlaken & Zurich:

Sadly, we were leaving our perfect Airbnb today so we spent the morning cleaning up and packing. We took the bus into Interlaken and got ready for our exciting activity of the day.

We were going paragliding! All week we had been seeing people paragliding over this region of Switzerland, and we were dying to try it too. We got suited up in snow pants and hiking boots. There were seven people in our group, and we all got in a van to pick up our pilots by the big field in town where they had just completed their last flight. The pilots joined us in the van and talked us through the whole process as we drove 20 minutes up the mountain. When we got out of the van, we paired up with our pilot. I flew with a guy named Matthijs. He is Dutch and was so friendly! I was a little nervous, more so for the take off portion of the flight, but Matthijs really calmed my nerves. He also used to be a teacher, but he fell in love with paragliding and now does it for a living!

After we walked a little bit from where the van was parked, Matthijs took off his backpack and started unloading the wing – the “parachute” part. We were on a hill, and he was spreading it out and elongating all the cables attached to it. In the meantime, Mal and I took some photos and then got on our helmets and gloves. Matthijs helped me get my harness on and then helped me walk down the hill towards our wing. The hill was so muddy and we were slipping all over. It was super funny. Once we were all hooked in, we had to run down the hill to get momentum and wind under our wing. We only had to run a little bit to get the wing up and lifted. From there, we only ran a few steps before the wind swept us up and we were flying! Matthijs helped me get adjusted so I was sitting in the harness properly, and then we were good to go! The takeoff (and the whole flight in general) was so calm and peaceful. I had been scared because I was under the impression that I was going to have to run and jump off a mountain… but really, I just ran a little bit downhill. If I didn’t have the wing on, I could have kept running for a while. But instead, I was lifted up into the air.

Matthijs had a camera on a selfie stick so he was taking pictures and videos the whole flight. He even left me use the handles to steer us for a little bit! Most of the flight, though, I was able to sit back, relax, and enjoy the view. I already knew Interlaken was beautiful, but WOW! From up above, it is truly stunning. It was a gorgeous day, and the lakes and rivers down below were so bright. The lakes in Interlaken are the most amazing blue; the coloring comes from the glacial water. It was just incredible. As we flew, Matthijs and I chatted and he took a ton of pictures for me. At the end of our flight, we did a little “roller coaster”, meaning we basically spun in circles really quickly. It felt like we were doing donuts! It was so much fun. We were probably in the air for 15 minutes. It felt so quick, and the second we were back on the ground Mal and I both wanted to go up again! We were both so glad we were able to fit this into our trip. It was definitely a highlight of Switzerland for me.

Right after our paragliding adventure, we stopped by to quickly see some cows and then headed on the train to make our way to Zürich – the final stop of our trip. We went straight to our hostel in Zurich and settled in for a bit. However, we knew that if we chilled for too long that we would never get up again. We weren’t sure what to do that night, but after some research we found out that there was a circus performing in Zurich! We bought tickets and headed towards that area for dinner. We got ramen for dinner and then walked through the rain to the circus.

The show was amazing! Some of the performances included a trapeze duo, diabolo, juggling, a handstand acrobat, an aerialist, and a trio of tumblers. Mallory and I were both so impressed! We were really glad that we went. By the time the show was over, it was pouring rain so we headed straight back to the hostel.

Thursday, November 24th – Zürich:

We didn’t have anything extravagant planned for our day in Zurich, but we knew we wanted to check out Old Town. We packed up our bags and stored them at reception before taking the train into Old Town. We found a cafe where I got an acai bowl, and we split an avocado toast. We walked around for a little bit and got our magnets. We were both pretty tired so we decided to find a cafe where we could sit and read for a while since we had plans later in the afternoon.

At 2:30 pm, we made our way on the train to the Lindt Home of Chocolate museum. We were so excited for this since Swiss chocolate is so highly regarded. The museum has self-guided audio tours that teach you all about the process of growing and harvesting cocoa plants and how it is produced to become the chocolate we buy in stores. There were unlimited tastings at several points throughout the museum, which was dangerous. It was all so tasty. We were both really glad we did this! We went back to the hostel to get our bags and hang out there for a bit before leaving for the airport.

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This was such an amazing trip! Switzerland was even more beautiful than I thought it would be. We were in awe of the views the entire time. I already want to go back! Switzerland has always been a dream destination for both Mallory and I, so the fact that we got to go on this trip together was really special.