I love to go a-wandering, along the mountain track……………..

…………and as I go, I love to sing,
My knapsack on my back.

Val-deri,Val-dera,

Val-deri,

Val-dera-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha,

Val-deri, Val-dera.

My knapsack on my back.

I just thought I’d get you in the right mood to see a few of the photos I took in Switzerland at the weekend when I went to visit my lovely friend Nicki.

This is Nicki with hubby Peter and Tosca Dog.

They made Susan (another friend) and I very, very welcome and took us out and about to show us some of the sights in the beautiful country where they live.

Our first full day (Friday) was spent on a guided tour of the area including stops at the Swiss Army Knife factory and then a visit to the shop at the chocolate factory where Peter’s father was a chocolatier for many years. It’ll come as no surprise to you that I came away with a big bag of chocolate…not all for me I might add…..gifts for the family you understand!

We continued our tour and stopped off in the town of Schwyz where Nicki gave us a bit of a history lesson and pointed out the beautiful painted town hall

that depicted and commemorated the founding of the country and then from here we headed to the shores of lake Lucerne to admire the view and enjoy a cup of coffee.

Our final stop for the day was in Lucerne itself, but first things first…........we had to sort out a bit of a parking problem.

Like all underground car parks there were signs at the entrance with a few parking restrictions.

Nothing over 2 metres in height

No motorbikes
No trailers

And last but not least

No Giraffes!!!

Nicki didn’t actually believe me when I said there was a sign saying no giraffes, so we had to make a point of going back to the entrance to have another look.

Now where were we meant to leave ours while we went sight seeing? Lol!

Now then, back to the reason Nicki had brought us to Lucern.

She wanted to show us the famous Kapellbruecke (Chapel bridge) which is made of wood and dates back to 1333. Sadly last year vandals caused a lot of damage when they set fire to the bridge and some of the 111 17th century paintings were lost. The bridge has now been restored and looks beautiful with all the flower baskets along both sides.

It must take them forever to water all those baskets!

On Saturday Peter drove us up the mountain and we ate and drunk traditional Swiss while taking in the spectacular scenery

and on Sunday we drove out to another lake where we had a picnic breakfast and spent the day enjoying the quite tranquillity and doing some cross stitch before heading back to Nicki’s to pack

for our journey home…..needless to say I didn’t want to leave!

I would have said that my case was lighter going home because on the way out it was full of material for the Kids Company project that Nicki is working on but that would be a lie. If anything it weighed more because of the four big chocolate bars and pack of marzipan that I brought home with me.

Oh well, back to reality now because I have no more planned breaks now until visiting the Christmas market in Reims in December.