Summer Vacation-Part 2

We turned in our rental car in Como and got on a train to Naples.  BFF Bev from Chicago met us and the next day a driver picked us up to go to Positano.  Bev had been in the UK and requested that we not see any castles or go to any museums.  So shopping and eating it was!

We took a cooking class in Ravello

Larry Elison's helicopter landing on his yacht

K finds animal friends wherever she goes

Bev's new favorite drink 

Breakfast was served on our terrace every morning

Bev bought so much stuff she had to buy another suitcase

We took the boat to Amalfi one day

View from where we had lunch

Breakfast in our hotel

View looking up from our hotel

Loved the kitchen in our hotel.  Beautiful tiles.

Brief Stop in Como

We were so sad to have to say good bye to Switzerland.  I had to figure out where would be the easiest place to drop our day.  I originally thought we would drop it in Milan but in doing some research I found I could drop the car in Como.  I figured that would be much easier to do than trying to find my way around Milan.  And who doesn't like lunch at Villa d'Este!  The drive from St. Mortiz was mountainous but easy peasy.  I almost felt like I was cheating with an automatic and navigation.  Remembering back to 10 years ago when we drove manual transmission cars and read maps while driving around Europe.

Lunch at Villa d'Este did not disappoint.  The weather did not co-operate.  

St Moritz

Our final stop in Switzerland was St. Moritz.  We had planned lots of hiking but the weather did not co-operate.  We spent a day shopping and eating and took a bus to a town called Soglio, one of the most beautiful small towns in Switzerland.

Kite surfing in St. Mortiz

Cozy flambee dinner on a cold, rainy night

Bus ride to Soglio.  Our bus driver had impressive driving skills.  Our hotel room came with bus passes.

We stopped for lunch in Soglio and our restaurant had the most amazing garden.  There were a pair of these amazing trees.

It was a cold, rainy day in Soglio.

Lucerne

We continued on to Lucerne.  The nice thing about traveling around Switzerland was that our drives were less than two hours.  It was really hot in Lucerne!   I think it must have been unusually hot because our hotel did not have AC.  We had a couple of adventurous days.  On the first day we did Fox Trails again.  We did it last year in Zurich.  You follow the trail of a fox around the city.  It really is hard if you are not at all familiar with the city.  We met a group of wood carvers from Lichtenstein who were also doing the train so we teamed up with them.  The next day we went to Mt. Pilatus.  We took a boat to a cog wheel train which took us to the top of the mountain.  From the we hiked a wild flower trail that went to the very top of the mountain.  It was really fun.  There were hundreds of different flowers that were labeled.  To get back down we took a cable car.  It stopped half way down and we rode a summer bob sled and then continued onto another cable car.  Finally, we took a bus to get back to our hotel.

The woodcarvers

Boat to the cog wheel train

Cog wheel train

Top of Mt Pilatus wild flower trail

That red speck over there is the cog wheel train.  Amazing Swiss engineering.

Cable car on the way down.

Summer bob sled ride

They attach you to cable and you get pulled back up the mountain at the end of the bob sled ride.  Loved going by the cows and listening to their bells.

Grindlewald

Our next stop was Grindlewald.  This is a great place to stay in order to take the train to the Jungfrau Joch (the highest point in Europe).   The train ride to the top is only 2 hours from Grindlewald.

We stopped for lunch in Interlaken on the way from Monreux.  This river really is this color!  All of the lakes and rivers that we saw were this amazing shade of green.

The view from our hotel in Grindlewald.

Train ride on the way to the Jungfrau Joch.  The green was so lush and as your looked out you could see lots of ski area.  I really wish that we would have hiked part of the way down.

We had lunch at the top and I had this special beer hell.  Not bad!

There was a lot of snow at the top and it was really cold.  This was a tough trip to pack for but I was so glad we had our puffer coats.  

This an ice cave at the top also.  The floors are ice, I thought for sure I was going to fall and break something.  

Polar bears and penguins.

One night when we set out for dinner we noticed a festival going on.  It was all locals-no tourists, except us.  We ended up spending the evening, listening to music and eating and drinking.  It was a beautiful, fun, very unexpected evening.