The Hole in This Blog of Cheese is Swiss.

Our Swiss post is not the only hole in our blog but it's definitely one of the furthest behind.  We first trained through Zurich in late September early in our trip on the way from Berlin to Milan.  Having looked at hostelworld.com we decided that Zurich was way out of our budget. The cheapest hostel/hotel we found was 25 Euros per person a night.


Then to my surprise an old friend from Vancouver, Omar, having read on Facebook that we were travelling through Europe, got in touch with  me.  Omar and I had worked together at a few different bars back home.  Last I heard he had moved back to Mexico with his fiancee Belinda who was originally from Switzerland and who'd also worked with us at AuBar Night Club.  Now he was living near Zurich in a beautiful little town on the Eurail path called Wil (pronounced Veal).  The two of them had just gotten married the week before.  The dust having barely settled from the wedding, and the out of town guests, Omar's mom, having left a day or two before.  They again invited guests in the form of a couple weary travellers.  They met us at the train station, drove us to their home, set us up with a bed and Belinda made us dinner having just done a full days work.  Omar walked us around Wil that night as we caught up.


The next day we made our way into Zurich for the day.  At the train station we found a tourist office and a walking map that started near the train station.  It was a perfect walk: time wise and lengthwise.  It worked out as we didn't have a lot of time in Zurich with the breakneck speed we were travelling at and also the sun setting early working against us.   Most of the tour centered around the Limmat River, tiny cobble-stoned alleys and water fountains that may or may not be for drinking.  I had no adverse effect from the water, but a few double takes from other tourists.

We made our way back to the Wil train station where we found the unique, to us at least, women only parking stalls that are located close to the entrance, similar to wheel chair stalls.  They are intended to give women a safer option late at night to park closer to the entrance.  Great idea in my opinion.  We ended our day with a dinner with our hosts at a great Tex-Mex restaurant in a beautiful town St. Gallen about 100 kms to the east.  The next morning we spent what little Swiss francs we had left at a grocer across from the train station, buying mostly the cheapest/best chocolate ever.  Even the "no-name" brand was better than what we're used to back home.  Wish we had more time and more importantly more money for this beautiful country.

Thank you for your more than generous hospitality and kindess, Belinda and Omar.

The Yank