Switzerland and France

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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.

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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.

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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.

First stop in Zurich – a meadow dotted with hundreds of oh-so-fascinating dandelions.
Who wouldn’t be mesmerized - wild and beautiful…
I mean look at them, they’re grass, wild and yet so beautiful.
Here’s what we did during the rest of the afternoon
Hello Lake Zurich. Mum, may I touch the water?
Hello there Lake Zurich. “Mum, may I touch the water?”
This is aunty Ditha’s backyard. This was the sight we wake up to every morning while at Zurich.
This was our relatives backyard in Bubikon, and the sight we woke up to every morning during our stay in Zurich.

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.

This was the charilift that brought us up to the starting point of the 700m toboggan ride.
This was just a portion of the run, it goes on much farther.
Benjamin was quite fast and he would have gone faster if Mummy wasn’t in the toboggan behind him.
Benjamin was quite fast and he would have gone faster if I wasn’t bombarding him with “Hey hey hey slow down!” in the toboggan behind him, ha!
Benjamin was quite fast and he would have gone faster if Mummy wasn’t in the toboggan behind him.
“Bye, Mum.”
All of us got to ride...twice!
All of us did it twice!
I managed to capture the entire toboggan run on camera, check it out!

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.

Deciding which trail to do.
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It was foggy and cold but still smiling!
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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.

Joaquin, it's your turn next. Whoa!
“Joaquin, it’s your turn next.”

 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.

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We abandoned the hike and walked towards a lone coffee shop we found on the trail.

‘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.

Cheers dad!
“Cheers, dadda!” chirped our 3.5 year-old.

 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.

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Leisure park
The kids couldn't ask for more, sliding again and again and again.
Non-stop fun. Sliding again and again, and again and again.
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“Who’s the better capt’n?”
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“Here donkey.”
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“Whoa!  But don’t chase the person who just fed you!”  We love this picture a lot, hahaha!

 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…

Hubby’s idea to climb on the logs.

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

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Also hubby’s idea to touch the ice-cold water and walk across stream. I think boys’ adventures were always better because of hubby.

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

Do you see Joaquin in this picture?

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

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