Switzerland and France

Days 1 and 2 – Zurich, Bubikon & Atzmannig 

Everyone ecstatic! It was our first time to travel together as a family. We would be spending summer in Switzerland and visiting Mickey in France!  But we, especially me, were anxious at the same time because Joaquin’s first ever airplane ride was going to be a 13hr flight which could be too risky for someone with severe peanut allergy. 

But hubby was confident and I was prepared. And Benjamin was sooo excited and Joaquin’s too thrilled!  There was no stopping us now.  Definitely not the peanut allergy.

Thank God for Singapore Airlines! Everything went well on board the A380 and the moment we saw ice-capped mountains, we knew our holiday has begun.

Day 1: It was just our first day in Zurich and we were already having a fantastic time.  Thanks to our kind and accommodating relatives who enthusiastically toured us the moment we arrived.

Day 2:  Less than half an hour away from Bubikon and Zurich city center was Atzmannig.  Oh boy it was the ultimate playground for the kids.  It was chilly that day but nobody cared, we were so looking forward to our first toboggan run.

After toboggan, we took the chairlift again to the mountain-top station. We did a bit of hiking but just the shortest trail because it was just too cold. We were severely underdressed against the bitter wind on top of the mountain.

The trail was paved.  There were colourful, mysterious flowers everywhere. Mysterious to me because we don’t have them in Singapore.

Mid-hike, I almost panicked when I saw Benjamin sitting on a swing that was at the edge of a cliff. There seemed nothing below except a blanket of thick white fog.

 After a short but freezing hike, we knew we had to take shelter at this cottage which luckily sells hot but, as we found out soon enough, mostly alcoholic drinks.

‘House Kafe’ was the natural choice, but who would have thought that it also contained rum??? Ah but it was really cold, so even the rum-flavoured coffee, or was it coffee-flavoured rum, I couldn’t tell, was edible and almost necessary.

 Back at the valley station (at the foot of the toboggan run) was the leisure park which had a boat pond (RC-toy boats), Monza track (mini race cars), trampoline, animal petting station, a playground with three slides and a lot more.  Our boys got to experience single one of them.

 Aside from the toboggan and the leisure park, there was also the rope adventure park but we couldn’t do this because of time (and height for Joaquin) constraints and so we decided to just venture on our own… into the woods…

 And just a few meters away was a stream. Another place for adventure for the boys, a photo-op spot for me. 🙂

Not far from the stream were wooden igloos.  One can be rented for CHF100 a night.

Such a pity we couldn’t stay here for the night, but it’s okay because we said our next summer in Zurich would definitely include a wooden igloo and grilled bratwurst in Atzmannig.

Our summer adventures had just started.  The following day we would be in the Swiss Alps…