When you wake up in a hotel room and not sure what day it is, or what country your are in, you know you are in trouble.  I left Seattle, a few days ago, it is something like 3, but it could be 4,  It went something like this, Seattle-Amsterdam-Zurich-Liechtenstein-Lucerne-Zurich-Amsterdam-Minsk.  Safe to say I have been getting around, by air, train, car and on foot.  It’s hard to sleep, but it also hard not to, not sure where I am with that, but seemingly, never tired.  I’m sure that will catch up with me.  It’s 2am and I am watching UK tv.

Flights just need to be over, or that was what I was telling myself as I did the long leg and connection before setting foot in Zurich.  Including time difference it was around 27 hours from leaving home to arriving in Zurich. Undeterred I headed straight out of the hotel door to make it to Zurich via the S7 from Kloten.  The S7 is the regional railway that links my hotel to Zurich in a matter of minutes.

Stepping out into Zurich, a place that I have wanted to go to for a long time, it was an impressive sight.  As you would expect, maybe, it was impeccably clean, and it seems they spend a lot of money on it   It is also a beautiful country and Zurich is a beautiful city.

So, when I say, it has been enjoyable here, it tempered a little.  Switzerland is crazy expensive.  The average salary in Zurich is over 103.000 CHF, over $100,000, so maybe the locals can afford it, but I’m not so sure that’s enough. But it is beautiful, and beauty comes at a cost, as my wife will confirm 🙂

The next day meant a day trip to Liechtenstein.  As a traveller willing to go to many lengths to take in a new country this was an interesting adventure.  I got a GPS which worked, and subsequently “almost” didn’t get lost, and the views of Switzerland on the way are pretty special.  It’s 109km, which is around 68 miles, so not much more than a hop, skip and a jump.  Tunnel, after tunnel, after tunnel on the way there and greeted by short rain showers on arriving in the capital, Vaduz.  Liechtenstein is 15.6 miles long and 3.75 miles wide, so you could walk the whole of it.  Exploring Vaduz and wandering around, finding that National Football Stadium.  Liechtenstein has a population of only 38,000, so it is not surprising they are FIFA ranked at number 182, out of 184, with only Mongolia and Macau coming lower.  This is not a football powerhouse.

I walked up to the Vaduz Castle, which hovers over the place like a peeping Tom.  The views on the way up are terrific.  The castle itself, well, is a castle, and you are not allowed in.  It’s the home of the Prince of Liechtenstein, and he does not want pesky tourists wandering around, can’t blame him really.

There is no border to Liechtenstein, it shares a customs union with Switzerland, so there is no passport control, and anyone can wander in.  In fact, if you care to do so, you can actually have one foot in both countries at the same time.  I jumped backwards and forward.

I headed back into Switzerland and directed the car towards Lucerne.  The picturesque drive took just over a hour and a half for the 131 km.  It was recommended to me, and it is a pretty neat place.  Switzerland is just lovely.

After a few hours in Lucerne it was off back in the car to clock up some more miles, and this is where the getting lost happened.  Well, not lost so much, I just couldn’t find where I wanted to go.  I had written down, Felsenegg cable car, but unfortunately the GPS navigation didn’t like that, so try as I did it did not turn out well.  Never to be denied, I knew the cable car was only just over half a hour from the hotel.  So, I went back to investigate further, and found that it is the Adiswil-Felsenegg cable car, bit of a mouthful, my Sat Nav liked Adiswil, so we were back up and running.  This time I tracked it down and headed off on the short cable car ride that was a steal at less that 5 CHF for a return trip.

The next morning brought pouring rain to the dawn of the day as I headed to Zurich airport, it was indeed a good day to be leaving Zurich.  I am off to Minsk, via Amsterdam. It does seem a bit mad, because Amsterdam is not even close to being on the way to Minsk, but that is the connection, so that is were I am headed.  I am with KLM (Dutch Airline) first and then with the Belarusian National Airline of Belavia, should make for an interesting time !