Monday 29 January 2018

Oh well, I suppose all good things must come to an end. My trip to Switzerland is now nearly over. I cannot wait to come back again.

After breakfast we went back into our room and I helped Timbo pack his suitcase. He needs a Bärli's help as he is only human.

Once I had got him almost completely packed I allowed him a little rest while I caught up on my blog. I need to edit it when we get back home and select the best photographs to go with it, then I need to make the photopgraphs look their best with Photoshop, so that it can be presented to the world. I would never want to publish anything that is not worthy of the faith my grown-up human has in me.

We checked out, it was the same kind lady that checked us in. Timbo again spoke German with her. I think he needs more confidence as he seems to manage quite well. We met up with Heidi for a nibble and coffee to say "Auf wiedersehen".

We then got on the number 10 tram, and Heidi came one stop with us. The journey time is about thirty minutes, roughly three times longer than the train, but in some ways it is more relaxing. When you arrive there is a little walk to the airport terminal, but at least you can enjoy the Swiss air just that little bit longer. 

Bärli.
Gepäckli.
Alles in Ordnung.

As Timbo had checked us in on line and we only had hand baggage, we were able to go straight to the security check which went smoothly, and at Zurich it is much nicer than security usually is at London, either Heathrow or City airports.

We looked through the Duty free, and as usual Timbo uttered strange oaths under his breath I could not quite make out. I think I heard him say something like "Overpriced tat" but he might equally have said "Oh, look at that".

We relaxed for a while in the lounge and then a little before the call we went to the gate as Timbo always likes to be there in plenty of time, and he likes planes a lot, almost as much as this Bärli does, that he enjoys being in his seat watching the activity going on outside.

Buckled in ahead of time ready for take off.

Our flight was late leaving as it arrived late, but it was parked at a gate and not out in the middle of nowhere, as the flights to London City sometimes are.

The journey was wonderful and we had our cameras ready. We took lots of photographs and I am only showing you the best ones. I will not tell you which ones are mine and which ones are Timbo's. You will have to work it out for yourself.

Moments after take off we left Zurich behind.

A lovely view of the mountains in the distance rising above the cloud.

No, we did not photoshop in the engine!

Is this photograph better showing us banking and everything tilted or ...

... or is it better straightened out a bit?

We again had the vegan meal, this time we were given cold couscous with spinach in filo pastry, a warm vegetable samosa, in which there was potato but the greens were chopped up and it was hard to tell what they were. To finish off we had a very light chocolate mousse.

Our yummylicious lunch,

As a birthday toast to Laing, we had a glass of champagne, which the very kind steward topped up. Timbo had to ask him to stop. He did not want to be squiffy.

Belated happy birthday, Laing, and belated Australia Day wishes too.

Our arrival was scheduled just before sunset. I think Timbo and I were wise to sit on the left hand side, cameras ready to paw, to take some super shots.

Sunset between two layers of clouds (1)

Sunset between two layers of clouds (2)

Sunset between two layers of clouds (3)

Should I have asked Timbo "Are we there yet?" at this point?

We landed only a few minutes later than scheduled, which is not bad as we left about ten minutes or so late. We were through the automatic gates at passport control in next to no time, and only had to wait five minutes for the DLR. Our connection at Stratford was excellent. All in all, we had a good journey home and were back home indoors roughly an hour after landing.

My next trip is going to be to Bangkok and Singapore. I cannot wait to go, but no matter how much fun it is to go away and see friends, Timbo quite rightly says, there is no place like home, and there is nowhere as perfect as one's own bed.

In my own bed. Lucky me.

Sunday 28 January

Golly! Were we tired! Again! We woke up later than we had intended. This meant we had to have a change of plan for the day. Heidi suggested we could go for a walk around a little lake in Pfäffikon. In German it is called der Pfäffiker See.

 
It was a really lovely thing to do. Even though the day was a little bit cloudy for most of the walk we saw the countryside and it was lovely. There were lots of people walking around too. There were even the usual joggers! Heidi and Timbo were having a lot of grown-up talk. I think Timbo is lucky to have such a good friend.

This art work had no title, but it looked impressive.

Timbo likes to photograph these jetties.
I like this one as he made sure it is off centre.

The landscape was magnificent, lush greenery and sunlight sparkling on the mountains.

Timbo said it was rather early to see catkins.

There is a rather nice café in the small village of Seegräben. It has a very cute tiny church.

The church at Seegräben

The good thing about the café is it is about two thirds of the way through the walk round the lake so the last third seems to take next to no time once you have had some refreshment inside. But we were sitting down having our nibbles and drinks a lady spoke to Heidi. It turns out she only lives round the corner from Heidi. Talk about a small world! 

The light was dazzling when it broke though the clouds.

On the last leg around the lake we saw a stork building its nest, which seems to be made, among other things, from dogwood branches. There were heaps of dogwood shrubs on our walk, not only just below where the stork was building the nest.

A stork on the nest.

A blowup of the stork from the other photograph.

We also saw a lady swimming in the lake. Now I know I have got fur which keeps me warm, but I was not so stupid as to be walking around semi naked. You would not catch me swimming in that lake on a cold day like this.
 

This looks far too cold to go swimming for me.

Heidi took us back to Winterthur through some very nice countryside. Timbo thought the landscape was astounding as we went through valleys gouged by glaciers thousands of years ago. Back in Winterthur we said good bye for a little while. We came back to Zürich, and had a snooze again in the hotel.

Tonight we had dinner with Heidi's sister, Elsa. So on this trip we had met all of Heidi's siblings each evening. The restaurant in the hotel, Swiss Chuchi, basically serves nothing but fondue and raclette. It is not a good idea to bring a vegan friend here to eat. Again we had a wonderful evening with wonderful company. At least this time I do not have so far to go after my dinner.

Saturday 27 January 2018

Today we had a rather lazy start. We had arranged with Heidi to meet up round about lunchtime. Before we did, Timbo took some money out of a bank machine. He withdrew Fr. 300 which is about £225. Timbo was very surprised when the notes came out, instead of the usual set of three Fr. 100 notes he got a Fr, 200 and a Fr. 100 note. So that meant one piece of paper represented about £75 and the other about £150. Now I understand why Timbo tries to get smaller notes as fast as he can in Swiztzerland.

We did something rather crazy because Timbo knows Switzerland quite well he does not need to do all the tourist things like he used to. That does not mean to say he has done all of the things you should do but he has done a lot of the important ones. 

So what was this the crazy thing we did? We went shopping in a garden centre with Heidi! She was going to buy some plants for Alexandra, as well as for herself. She also said there was a wonderful coffee shop in the garden centre.

Alexandra has asked for a surprise, and Timbo suggested we could buy her a tree, even though it would be more of a shock than a surprise as she lives in an apartment. Well, would you believe there was a surprising tree we found and we got it for her?

Bonsai Style Thyme Tree!

When we got to the garden centre I could not believe how big it was indoors. There was more space outside, but of course, as it is winter there were no plants outside to choose from. We then went and had something to drink and a little bit to nibble. We also had to buy some wooden crates. The first place we went to did not have the right sort. So we went to another shop. This time we were lucky. Now we have bought everything it was time to deliver it.

After having been good delivery people, we went back to Heidi's house, where we had a little rest before getting ready to go back out again. This time we went out for dinner at a Chinese restaurant in Kloten (Chloote in Swiss German). We picked up Alexandra and made out way to the restaurant where we were joined by Heidi's brother Willi and his wife.

Timbo did try to speak German but he found it more difficult today. He wishes he could be much better. But that did not stop us from all having a wonderful time with lots of laughs as well as enjoying our scrummy meal.

Willi kindly offered to drive us to the airport which was not far away, so that we could catch the train from there rather than to travel back to Winterthur and then back into Zürich. It is a good idea as there are more trains from the airport than there are from Winterthur.

We could not have had better timing as the train came in only a couple of minutes after we got down to the platform.

Sadly our luck run out at this point. We just missed the tram by seconds. At least it is not very far to walk from the station to the hotel. Once we got back we collapsed onto the bed and had a long sleep. A very long sleep.

Friday 26 January 2018

Poor old Timbo. The bed was a little bit too soft for him. He prefers his bed to be nice and firm. Perhaps I should not say this, but he is a little bit heavier than me and soft beds do not give way so easily under me, so it does not bother me.

We had our breakfast and then we went out with the cameras.

Lindenhof seen across the Limmat from Rosengasse in the Altstadt, or Old Town

We took the tram from Rudolph-Brun-Brücke to Sechseläutenplatz which is a large space in front of the Opera. 

 

Three images of the Opera House
and the Sechseläufenplatz.

Timbo tried to took some fancy photographs. He took the really good ones when I was helping him, showing him how to do it properly. He is rather clever though. When he saw the chairs all over the place in different clumps and in different places, he told me he was going to call them Conversation Pieces, but these are the ghosts of conversations that must have been shared when people were there. That's quite clever.

He was justifiably very pleased with the photos and he then suggested we should get on the number 11 tram that was coming so we could go to the Bahnhoffstrasse. 

Crossing the Quaibrücke on the number 11 tram

The seats at the back of the new trams are great!

By chance we found ourselves outside the Apple store. Timbo had just received a few text messages. I suggested he could use the free Wi-Fi of the Apple Store. He thought that was a brilliant idea. Sometimes I wonder how my grown-up would ever cope without me.

Once he had finished all of his chats, we then made our way to the Lindenhof which is one of Timbo's favouritest parts of Zürich. 

A close up of the spouts at the fountain at the junction of
Rennweg (one of Timbo's favourite streets) and Strehlgasse

Once we had climbed up to the Lindenhof Timbo rested and looked around. He has lots of happy memories being up there. We went back down and walked along Strehlgasse and Storchengasse to the Münsterhof. We did not go in the church this time. We crossed the Münsterbrücke to get to the Helmhaus tram stop. From there we climbed up to the Grossmünster and walked through the old town along Münstergasse and Niederdrfstrasse to get back to the hotel.

Timbo noticed how the high lamp in the street
and the hut had a similar look about them.
He calls this photograph "Echoes across the Limmat".

Timbo downloaded his photographs from the camera to the computer. We went back out for about half an hour and only took a handful of photographs. 

A pompous pigeon giving us a dirty look on the Rathausbrücke

This carving appears under each of the windows of the Rathaus.
He does not look very happy.

Poor Timbo's legs were giving way and his eyes were closing. He was extremely tired, and so was I after all that walking! We went back to the hotel where we both had a nice snooze. When we woke up it was almost time to meet Heidi for dinner. As usual we were at the Brasserie Lipp where we had a lovely light meal.

After dinner we had a nice brisk walk to the opera house where we had a wonderful time. Timbo has written a review of the operas we saw. He knows more than I do about music so I am sure he is possibly right about the operas.

Me posing next to my copy of the programme for the operas

The inside of the Zurich Opera House.
Timbo used his new toy, a fish-eye lens on the camera for this photograph.

We said goodbye to Heidi at the Stadelhofen railway station which is very near the opera. We walked back to the hotel and then went to bed.

Although I have not written very much, please believe me when I say we were very busy all day. Walking around and observing what is there takes a lot of efforts.

Thursday 25 January 2018

Blimey! What a day!

We had to be up early as our flight was at 10.00. Timbo was busy all the day before, washing and drying dirty bedclothes, letting the bed air, putting on clean bedclothes, washing and drying clothes to take with him. You humans are a funny lot. Us Bärlis have our own coat for life. We do not have to replace it when fashion changes.

I got Timbo to set the alarm for 06.30, and when the alarm duly went off at the appointed hour, he slowly struggled to achieve consciousness. This hour of the day is not well known to Timbo as a planned waking hour so I was kind and let him lie in a bit. However, I did get him up not long after and we had some breakfast. We then made our way to the Tube as I made sure he had packed all his things yesterday, just like I had.

Timbo is not used to the rush hour like he used to be, if he ever was, my poor old darling human, but he tolerated it without attempting to maim or murder anybody. He does not like most other people very much when travelling on the Tube, especially at such an extremely early hour.

We changed onto the DLR, and there were so few people my grumpy old grown up cheered up very quickly.

When we got to London City Airport, loads and loads of people were coming out. The airport's IATA airport code is LCY, and Timbo told me he and Laing sometimes called the airport Elsie becasue of this. I cannot but wonder if they were the only looney grown up humans in the world or if all grown up humans are like that. Anyway, masses were coming out but not so many going in which was very good for us. We even got through the horrid security check without the bags being opened and every item scrutinised. This all helped to lighten Timbo's mood.

The incoming flight arrived early and as a result we were called to the gate early. You will not be surprised to learn we boarded early, the doors were closed fifteen minutes before our scheduled departure.

Seat belt fastened ready for take-off

The plane taxied five minutes before the scheduled departure time and we were off! We took off to the west and did a big turn. This takes us just south of home. I waved bye-bye and told the house we will be back very soon.

Not long after take off we had our scrummy yummy noshlings. Timbo had asked for the vegan option. It makes for a change from the usual mixed cold meats. We had cucumber and tomato, melon and orange and grapes, a portion of tofu and a dollop of coarse hummus. We also had a yummy teensy-weensy cold rice pudding with raisins and some flavouring I could not identify.

The special vegan snack

Because Timbo looks after me with masses of love, we were in business class. One disadvantage of flying from Elsie (giggle) is the plane does not usually park at a proper gate. Because we flew in business class we get a bus that drives us first to the terminal. I rather like that.

Hello! I am on the special mini coach!

Timbo went through passport control in next to no time. Bärlis have freedom for travel and do not need them. As we had hand baggage only (nur Handgepäck in proper German) we were through very fast. Timbo drew out some Swiss money from a bank machine at the airport. He bought a train ticket (ordered it in German) and gave me a treat, first class on the train. I do not I expect it all the time, but he is a kind human grown-up. 

Hello! I am on the train!
First Class Bärli, in First Class Sitzli!

Once we arrived in Zurich it was merely a short, brisk walk to the hotel. Timbo had stayed there three decades ago, when he came to Switzerland with Laing for the christening of Alexandra, Heidi's daughter. There is a long story attached to that and I do not have time to go into it now. Maybe another day. Especially if you bribe me with nice nosh.

Timbo impressed me again when he checked in in German. He is always nervous and worried he cannot do it, but the lady did not laugh or tell him off, so the words he used must have been at least 99% correct. German grammar, however, is such a nightmare I think foreigners are always forgiven a lot of sins.

We got in the room, unpacked, rested and caught up with the rest of the world on the internet. 

Testing the bed and guarding the Toblerone

After all that tiring work, we eventually had a little nibble to eat. It was nothing exciting, but we were not that hungry either. We took the train from Zürich to Winterthur for a concert of music from lots of countries, but especially Georgia and Switzerland. The concert was given by the Singfrauen Winterthur (literally singing women Winterthur), and my lovely chum Heidi is one of the singing ladies.

Well! It was really a very lovely evening. The clever singing ladies sang without any help apart from the conducting ladies giving them the notes. Timbo explained to me how they get the notes. They bang a tuning fork which vibrates. When they place it near their ear, or on a bony part of the head they can hear the note of the tuning fork. If that is not one of the starting notes, the clever conducting ladies sing a different note and then they give out the other notes in the starting chord. It is all clever stuff, but Timbo tells me most clever stuff is simple when you know how.

The ladies sang songs from Sweden, Finland, Iceland, and Turkey as well as the Georgian and Swiss ones. It was not very helpful for us that the links between the groups of songs were in Swiss German. Timbo admitted he was all at sea trying to make sense of it.

After the concert we had a few drinks and a chat with Heidi, as well as her sister Brigitte and husband, Felix, who were also at the concert, at a party the choir had laid on. Timbo tried his best to chat in German and he did quite well, I think. He did need to use a few translation tools and his iPhone to say somethings (how many non German speakers know the correct word for the medical ailment shingles, I wonder?) but most of the time he kept going with a little help.

Before we knew where we were it was getting on for 11 o'clock. Heidi was kind enough to drive us to the station. We said our goodbyes and we were on the platform a few minutes before the train arrived.

Poor old Timbo is exhausted. All that chatting in German, plus being in a situation with loads of people around him. It has taken it out of him a bit.

I borrowed Timbo's iPhone to write my first draft for the blog. He is scratching his head trying to work out how the battery ran down so much and so fast! Time for bed, and I hope he does not read my blog or I might be in trouble.