The Confederacy of Helvetia ... aka Switzerland!

Well, Kelly and I travelled to Switzerland in mid-July. We flew from SLC to the ATL then on to Zurich. Switzerland is actually officially known by its countrymen as "The Confederacy of Helvetia". In fact, many cars in Switzerland sport the bumper sticker "CH".

The green, jagged mountains were spectacular!--much different than the mountains of Utah. After landing in Zurich, we took a 3.5 hour bus ride to St. Moritz, a ski resort town in southeast Switzerland, less than a hour from the Italy border. During the bus ride to St. Moritz, I was amazed by how safe Switzerland appeared to be. I had heard that it was a clean country, but I had never heard anything about the availability of medical assistance. Every direction I looked, t

here was a red flag with a white cross in the middle, symbolizing first aid--or so I thought. Then I realized that the flag I was seeing all over the place was the National Flag of Switzerland. . . Well, I was still very confident in Switzerland's medical care.

We spent our first three days in St. Moritz. Host city of the 1928 and 1948 Winter Olympic games, the town of St. Moritz touts an elevation of 7000 feet above sea level and a population of 6000 residents. St. Moritz is a very popular ski destination for European celebrities during the winter months. During the summer it is much more quiet and less crowded. Upon our arrival into St. Moritz, Kelly and I and some friends of our from our trip to Antigua took a sail boat out for a spin on Lake Moritz. Life was good from the getgo!

Day 2 was highlighted by an afternoon trip to the top of the mountain just behind our hotel. We took 2 finicular trains and a tram to the top. The view from above was magnificent! The picture does not do it justice.

Day 3: Kelly and I and our friends from Antigua took a 4 hour hike up a new mountain across the way. But first we took a 10 minute ride on a finicular train half way up the mounain to a place called Muottas Muragl (yes, I did spell this correctly). We hiked 1.25 hours to a glacier run-off tarn (that's a tiny mountain lake, to the lay person). On our way back from the lake our friends took the JV trail, as Kelly and I tore into a very steep trail on way to the Segantini Hutte. This expedition was an idea of some friends of ours in Park City who had travelled to St. Moritz about 5 years ago. The trail was difficult, but very well maintained. We arrived at our destination The Segantini Hutte in a mere 45 minutes, and what was in store for us was well worth the effort. We were now at about 11,000 feet elevation and the temperature had dropped pretty dramatically. As we ordered lunch, a group of German men took the table next to us. One of the men pulled a wooden accordion out of his backpack, passed around some music books and started playing some German folk songs, as the rest of the group sang along. This was the highlight of our trip to Switzerland. We were eating Barley soup, drinking beer, listening to live German music on the edge of mountain, looking down on St. Moritz, the surrounding lakes and towns, and a melting glacier. "It don't get much better than this!"

Day 4: We rode a bus from St. Moritz to Lucerne for 3.5 hours. Upon arriving in Lucerne, we walked around town, got a little lay of the land. We went to Mass in this beautiful, old Church. The entire Mass was spoken in Swiss-German. Swiss-German is the main language in Lucerne and St. Moritz, but other parts of Switzerland speak French and High German. For dinner, Kelly and I and some friends from Utah found an authentic Swiss restaurant called Restaurant Fristchi. Kelly order Raclette, an authentic Swiss, cheese entre, while I enjoyed the best Beef Stoganoff I have ever eaten.

Day 5: We took a bus from the hotel, with a group from Edward Jones, to the base of Mount Pilatus. Once there, we took about a 20-minute gondola ride up the mountain and that only got us about 2/3 of the way we were headed. We then rode a tram for the last 15 minutes to the top of this mountain. We hung out at the top for about an hour, enjoying some of the best Switzerland has to offer. While on top, we also saw some long-horned mountain goats, looked through the window of a cave to see this remote church on the top of this ridge. We noticed the church on the way up the mountain and wondered how parishioners made it there every week. We figured it had to be at least a two-hour trip to get there. On the way down the mountain, we took the steepest cogwheel train in the world. It took us 50-minutes to get all the way to the bottom of the mountain. The views from this excursion were simply magnificent! Upon deboarding the slow train, we hopped on a boat back to the hotel. The entire trip took about 4.5 hours--well worth every minute! Once back in Lucerne, Kelly and I got a bite to eat at a local deli. We then found our way to a group of eight towers that were build long ago to protect the city of Lucerne. This was a do-it-yourself tour. The views from the towers were very nice as well, and Kelly tried to immitate one of the statues we saw. Joe also began wearing his new tourist hat. While making our way down from the last tower back to the city, Kelly and I accidently were both electricuted by an electric fence. For dinner we went with a group out to another great restaurant.

Day 6: We did nothing!--except some shopping, went on a run and simply enjoyed the town of Lucerne. We also did not take many pictures.

Day 7: We took a bus to Zurich, then flew to the ATL (business elite), then back to SLC. It was a LONG day of travel.

The end!



A note from Kelly: The Photo Collection Link has also been updated with the full version of our photos. There are a lot, so be prepared! Enjoy!