Europe Drive-By: Liechtenstein, Lucerne, Zurich & Selesat

Everything is soooo close together in Europe. The other main destination on our European adventure was the Bernese Oberland area of the Swiss Alps for 4 days of backpacking. But our journey from Austria to Switzerland and back to our flight in Germany took us through a few other neat areas. Here's your whirlwind tour:

We spent a morning in the country of Liechtenstein, a country of 35k people. Even their capital had a very small town feel, the whole country is surrounded by huge mountains, the Prince (who rules the country) has his very own winery we visited, there's a castle, good coffee, sunshine. Not much more one could ask for.

We spent an afternoon and evening in Lucernce, Switzerland which is (of course?) right on a river and lake. We had a grand old time just wandering around and seeing the sights.

Then we had a day in Zurich, we turned out to be a day of surprises. First, we stumbled across a rad flea market. Then, a giant parade. And a farmers market. And the cutest coffee shop ever. We loved Zurich. And would go broke in approximately 37 hours there. Good thing we only had 24.

Lastly, as we made our way back to Germany for our flight home, we decided to take a route through France since it was the same distance. We stopped in Selesat for dinner. We thought we'd stumbled upon a medeival fair, but turns out (when we got home and checked the internet...) it was Bastille Day. Who knew? Selesat was a cute random little town just off a country highway and we had dinner and some wine, wandered the festival and moved along. The pastry's were good, and no one spoke English. Which was quite the change from Switzerland/Austria/Germany where people literally got offended when I asked 'Do you speak english?'.  'Of course!!'. 

Hiking the Austrian Alps

Austrian Alps were beautiful. Surprise.
Innsbruck was our base for a few day hikes, we stayed at the Hilton courtesy of my hard earned hotel points from all the work travel over the past year. Finally Matt gets some benefit!

The first day, we decided to play lazy (we were still a bit jet lagged) and we took the cable car up to the top of the mountains right behind Innsbruck. The cable cars in Europe are expensive but they do save a lot of work. All the trails across Europe (at least the 5 countries we saw) were conveniently well signed with nice yellow signposts, pointing the way to various villages and giving hike times. We did a nice loop along a ridge, and then back down to one of the lower cable car stations. The alps are BIG. In your face. Pretty epic.

self timer. excited to be in the alps

from the cable car

Innsbruck

gliders taking off

They next day we took a little drive to the Zeller Valley. Our hike started at an amazing clear blue lake, past gazillions of waterfalls, a giant glaciated mountain and....over into Italy for lunch. Oh Europe....where you just walk over to Italy for lunch.  We loved this hike.

Bavaria. adorable.

Schlegeisstausee 

Citroen C4 Picasso...European minivan

idyllic