A glimpse into… Switzerland!

Hi everyone! This post has been a long time coming- in all honesty, it was just sitting in my drafts but I just forgot to press the ‘publish’ button (so sad). Anyway, I just thought I would write about my trip to Switzerland I did this summer! I loved it so much, mainly because there is so much to do in the cities, and so much beautiful scenery in the towns near the lake.

Before I actually start on the holiday, I want to take a moment to appreciate Swiss Airlines. I LOVE THEM. The people are so nice, they give you free chocolate and their sandwiches are really nice.

LUTRY

We stayed in a small house in Lutry. Lutry is a small Swiss town that overlooks Lake Geneva. It’s next to other small towns which were within driving distance, so it was nice to take day trips to those towns as well. There are a few things to do in Lutry- cable car rides, hiking, boat trips across the lake etc.

view from the balcony at the house in Lutry

the view after getting off the cable car (there were lots of different hiking routes up here)

LAUSANNE

Lausanne is a small town that overlooks Lake Geneva. There are a few things to do in Lausanne, and one of the them is The Olympic Museum. To be honest, I only went because my sister really wanted to go here, but I’m so glad I did because this place is actually so interesting.

random structure in the museum- I was too busy taking photos of it that I didn’t actually read that panel of writing on the side 😦

They had so much stuff to look at, for example a little sections with little screens, and you could select specific memorable performances from any of the past Olympic Games and watch them, which was pretty cool. They had a massive board with a timeline of all the olympics, some of the clothes worn by the athletes during the games and lots of other things. I really haven’t explained it very well, but I highly recommend going.

GENEVA

Geneva was an hours drive from Lutry, the town we were staying in (10 mins from Lausanne). There is so much to do in Geneva, and we tried (and managed) to get it all done in less than a day, which was great! The first place we saw was the Botanical Gardens. This place was so cool, it was basically a massive jungle/garden with a massive indoor area as well, which was covered by a giant glass dome.

indoor part of the botanical gardens

In Geneva, we also booked a tour of the UN building, which was super interesting. It took so long to get in, but that wasn’t surprising given how much of a popular tourist destination it is. The tour guide showed us around all the different rooms, giving us a history into the architecture in them, and what each room is used for today.

view from one of the massive hallways

one of the room, honestly cannot remember what is was called though! The art installation on the ceiling was amazing though.

close up of the ceiling

What was crazy was that our trip to Switzerland coincided with Genevan independence day, so obviously in Geneva there were loads of fireworks, but it turns out that all the seaside towns take part as well and do their own fireworks show, so we went down to the Lausanne coast and saw them.

random one taken outside our house

at Le Port d’Ouchy (Lausanne)

Another fun thing we managed to do before we left Lutry was go on a boat ride across the lake to France. Our boat ride took us to Thonon-Les-Bains, which is a small costal town in France. It was really pretty, and you could take trains up to the higher parts of the town.

Thonon-Les-Bains

the dog behind me on the boat ride back- it was genuinely so cute and so fluffy.

INTERLÄKEN

After Lutry, we drove to Interläken, the German speaking area of Switzerland. We were only there for one night and I wished we’d stayed longer, because this was honestly my favourite part of Switzerland.

We got to our little hotel, and upon being there for 5 minutes, I realised that the majority of residents there were old people. Obviously, old people go on holiday, but there literally weren’t any people under the age of 65 to be seen- apart from my family, and this small group of 30 year olds clearly on a lads holiday. It turns out, the place we were staying in was a hotel combined with an old people’s home.

Interläken is such a beautiful area, and there’s so much to do. You can get a horse and carriage ride around town, and there’s also an opportunity to go paragliding, which looked amazing, and we would definitely done it had we been staying for another day.

v. bad quality, because it was taken in a moving car- but you can see the paragliders!

There are lots of little shops selling trinkets and souvenirs, and it’s also a great place to go hiking. There are lots of hills, and if you start climbing one of them it leads you to this restaurant, which sells amazing food by the way. The restaurant can also be a pit stop, because you can carry on climbing quite a long way up- which I tried for about 30 mins, but then my sister got tired so we went back down and ate loads instead. Fun fact- the restaurant is halal! This meant I could get a burger, which may or may not have been the highlight of my Interläken trip.

climbing up the hill

restaurant on one of the hills

So, this was my take on Switzerland- I really hope I get to go back in the future because there’s so many other places left to see, and I definitely recommend you go! Let me know what you think in the comments x

Stay Fresh,

Minty xo