Last weekend, Andres, Philip and myself went to visit the land of watches, chocolate (after Belgium) and cheese; the four languages speaking country, Switzerland!
First, we took the bus on Friday night from Brussels airport around 10 pm.
Spending the whole night on the bus and then arriving at our first destination on Saturday morning around 7:00 am.
Enjoying the day in Switzerland and taking the bus again Saturday night at 11 pm to go back to Brussels.
Arrived on Sunday morning at 9:00 am at Brussels airport.
Based on this plan we skipped two nights of accommodation just by sleeping on the bus (it is not like a five stars hotel but it will be extremely comfortable after a long one-day trip). Also, we skipped the flight ticket price by taking the long bus drive and the transportation budget was also vanished because we have our bus with a great program.
Our first destination was the majestic water falls Rhin-falls, Rhin falls is located next to the small town of Schaffhausen in North Switzerland. These water falls were created more than 14000 years ago during the last ice age and are considered as the largest plain waterfalls in Europe.
The next destination was the beautiful city of Lucerne; Lucerne is located in the central part of Switzerland in the German speaking portion. Lucerne got its beauty and tourism attraction from being located on the sparkle lake of Lucerne with a beautiful view of the Alpes.
We were lucky enough to have our trip in a sunny and warm day, the view of the Alpes with the sun and the lake was an unforgettable experience. We were also extremely lucky to be able to attend the famous carnival "Fasnacht", Fasnacht comes originally from Basel city and it usually takes place between February and March. Fasnacht in Lucerne starts with the dirty Thursday and ends on the Ash day. To celebrate the Fasnacht the local people of Lucene will be wearing a variety of costumes and masks, participants should be fully concealed during the celebration, it is kind of against the protocol to remove anyone's mask to know his identity. The masks usually are representing some well-known characters e.g. politicians, musicians, animals or comic characters.
Our third destination was Zurich; from the first moment when we arrived to Zurich we noticed the Swiss public taste and standards which can clearly appear in all the small details around the city of Zurich. First of all we decided to take a boat trip in the lake Zurich, which is located in the southeast of Zurich. With the sunny weather and the fresh cold wind that comes from the Alpes nothing could be better to relax than just sitting with a drink and enjoy the view.
After that, we had a walking tour around the city, enjoying the old town and some Swiss chocolates.
Later we had dinner, bought some magnets as souvenirs and get back to our bus around 11 pm. We spent the night in the bus on our way back to Belgium; after enjoying the sunrise in the countryside during the return trip we arrived to Brussels airport at 9 am and took the train back to Ghent with our unforgettable Swiss memories.