To Klosters

Monday 5 August

To Klosters

After a very good breakfast of cold meats, cheeses and croissants, washed down with good coffee, my kinda breakfast, we packed a picnic lunch and hit the road.  We were heading for Zurich en route for Klosters.

We had a good trip and made good time on the lovely Swiss motorways.  The countryside became more and more Swiss (!) - think of any picture you have seen of Switzerland, wooden chalets with red geraniums hanging out of window boxes high up on the mountains,

 

a patchwork of meadows with a few cows, high craggy peaks as a backdrop, some with small patches of snow, and you have got it.  

We arrived in Zurich in good time for lunch. A nice looking city, didn't do too much driving around as we were looking for a picnic spot on the lakeside.  Saw someone coming out of a packed car park so drove in to find their spot.  Another piece of incredible manoeuvring by James and we were in.  So we all piled out and stretched our legs.  What an amazing place, so pretty, we could see over the the car park (we were high on the road and this road is wall to wall houses) and over to a playground and onto the lake.  Such a beautiful lake, so big and blue.  Couldn't wait to get down there.  Found the steps and looked for the entrance to the park.  There were high wire fences all around, the toilets said 'Private', so that wasn't a good sign, then we noticed people were going through a sort of turnstyle and paying at they kiosk.  So, it dawned on us that there was no free access to the lakeside.  Really??  

Undaunted we went back up on the road to see if we could find a pathway down and so marched along in single file, it was a very busy road and not a wide footpath.  Not long after we started we came across what looked like the walled entrance to a park, the gates were wide open, and there were some notices in German, which we couldn't translate (there's a great app which translates any language into English - or any other language) but apart from the 3 mail boxes on the wall,  it looked like a park with some charming old houses in it - and there were an assortment of people in there sitting on the grass.  

So with a confident air we walked in and the path took us down to the waters edge, obviously people had been swimming and were now spread eagled on the grass drying off.  Perfect.  So Rachel, Hannah, and I went back to the car to fetch our food, and left the others to choose a good spot to have our lunch.

 

It only took 10 mins and when we got back Jasper had already had a swim and we had a lovely spot under a tree.  

So it was all good, more people came in with bikes and dogs, so it must have been a public area after all and we were just lucky enough to find it.

So feeling refreshed we headed back to the car, and on the way we passed the Lindt chocolate factory...

 

Or we didn't exactly pass it, we saw the factory shop and made a beeline for it.  Wow what a shop, chocolate assortments packed all the walls and display cabinets in the centre.  As we went in we were offered a gorgeous caramel chocolate prettily wrapped in gold paper, well that was a good start.  So much to choose from, thank goodness we had had lunch or we would have bought even more.  Maybe we will go back??

So onwards and forwards, we drove out of the crowded car park where there was a queue of cars hoping to get our park and on the road again.  Another pleasant drive, about an hour and a half to Klosters.  We had explicit instructions from our tour guide, Les, about how to get there and what to look for, so keeping a wary eye on Ken mainly to see if he got it right, we arrived at Klosters and made our way to our apartment in the most picturesque house ever.  Can't believe how lucky we are.  Klosters must be one of the most beautiful places in Switzerland, wonderful views which ever way you look, it will take a while to take it all in.

After we unpacked our thoughts turned to food.  So we went down to the local Coop Supermarket and stocked up on rations for the next couple of days.  OMG everything seems to be double the price...  So we went round quickly before we ran out of money!