Friday, 19 April, 2024

Liechtenstein to Zurich and then back to Basel:  What a -- well, let’s just say “full” day! The hotel was really nice, but the room was too warm and had only all-or-nothing duvets, so there was some wakefulness. Night came to an official close when the church bells 

right across the square clanged constantly for 5 minutes at 6 am! I had read for awhile and just fallen back to sleep, so was disappointed to be awake again. We took our time getting started, enjoyed breakfast overlooking the wonderful valley below,

then went for a walk. I realized that I didn’t feel well, so we spent some more time in our room and I tried out ginger gravol, which happily worked well. Larry drove to Zurich on much friendlier roads than the day before, although there were countless twists and turns. The pouring rain didn’t add to the pleasure. Our GPS got us to the computer store, where Larry picked up our new laptop (hence this blog going up). That took much longer than expected, so we dashed off to the meeting place for our tour, arriving just in time.  Of course, we couldn’t park there, so Larry left me and drove off to park. Luckily, he made it back quickly and we caught the tour. It was interesting, though nicer weather would have been welcome. It was chilly as well as raining. We drove around Zurich and walked through the old town,

  

drove along the lake and took a ferry across, then drove to the base of a cable-car ride. It was a very different experience from the day before, and it was snowing and dropping ice pellets and very windy at the top. We had a quick snack, then went down on the lift and back to Zurich. The drive back to Basel involved a broad detour off the main highway, then we had to get to the airport. Finding a gas station, then getting into the airport turned out to be challenging. Eventually we parked, unloaded the car and went into the airport, only to discover we’d parked in the Swiss area, rather than the French one! The kind Swiss attendant programmed the complicated directions into Larry’s phone and I hauled our luggage to the French area. After a very long wait, I decided he must be lost and was using the staff person’s phone to try and call him, when he appeared, soaking wet. He had gotten to the gate with no problem but then spent a very long while trying to get the gate to open, which it finally did, thank goodness. Something about codes and keypads. We finally got into a taxi at about 9pm, with a driver who showed a few symptoms of insanity, but knew right where our hotel was -- no more drama and a comfortable room to flop in.

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