Swiss Bliss

Last winter when I was in Switzerland, I discovered the most incredible little gems.



Behold, the Luxemburgerli.

I spent a better part of a day wandering around Zurich, looking for specialty pastries and other indispensable quality of life objects to judge a place on. I hit the jackpot when I stumbled into Spruengli. It's a gorgeous grand old European cafe with a heavy emphasis on chocolate. The chocolates were amazing- especially the fresh truffles d'jour that they make every morning- but what I found to epitomize awesomeness were the Luxemburgerlis.



They are tiny macaroons. So airy and light, but intensely flavored with a good amount of sweet-tart in the filling. Heaven.



Bry still has a lot of co-workers in the Zurich office. He tries to hold on to some bargaining power with these to ensure that we get a steady supply. Anyone who is flying to New York MUST BRING LUXEMBURGERLIS and you will be worshiped as the Bringer of All Things Good. There's a franchise in the airport specifically to cater to our needs.

I've scoured New York for something comparable- every time I see macaroons at a cafe, I give them an honest try. They are always too dense, too large, too artificial tasting, too sweet. Always a letdown. I think there probably isn't a huge market for them here (when is the last time you craved one before today?) and they tend to load them up with preservatives so they keep a bit longer. Something is lost in translation here.

They do get stale really quickly though- you wait a day and they become dense and chewy and lacking the ethereal lightness that makes them so amazing.



So, you know, you have to eat them all right away. Polishing off a box of these is not a problem at all.



Speaking of Switzerland, did anyone else catch this APOD photo from earlier this month?

Here's the Linky, I would recommend clicking on it to see it's full size. It's surreal how beautiful and other-worldly it is.

Zurich

I was in Zurich during the World Cup, which was kind of fun, if only too see a lot of Swiss people out partying in the squares.



Too bad they lost. They can console themselves with their amazing scenery.






When the weather is beautiful in Zurich, it's amazing- green and lush with the high alps looking over you. When it's dreary and gray (which seems to be unusually frequently) the city becomes leaden. I switched my camera over to B&W because I couldn't get any color saturation at all against the flat, gray sky.







It's just so story-book pretty.





I love any city that has swans. We don't have them in New York- just Canadian Geese. The swans are prettier.

One day when the sun threated to come out, I went for a hike up Uetliberg, the small mountain just outside downtown Zurich. You can take a train or a funicular, but I opted to hike up a steep trail. The trailhead is right near a tram stop, but as soon as you get there you're in the middle of the countryside.



This is the cutest slug I've ever seen.



The view from the top is stunning- it was too cloudy out to really see the Alps, but you could see their shadowy outline on the horizon.



There were hang gliders everywhere up there! You could see them work their way back and forth along the ridge line. It looked like so much fun.



There were also these hawks everywhere. They would just catch an updraft and float motionless.

I set out and walked along the ridge. It got countrified instantly. This is just a couple of miles outside downtown Zurich:



but it felt a world away. It was a nice, wide footpath and you could take it for several kilometers past farms and cows and lots of dark cool forest before hiking or taking a funicular back down to a train station. How easy is that?



These people were sitting out on their picnic table, looking over the Alps. I hate them so.

When I finally got a full-on sunshine day, I went to the beach.


In New York, you don't swim anywhere near the city. The Hudson, the East River, LI sound, Coney Island. All these are off limits. Well, some people swim at Coney Island, but I've seen enough condoms washed up on the sand to know better. So it's completely novel and amusing to me to have a city around a body of water that is clean enough for people to swim in. Hell, it was downright enjoyable to swim there. It was cold, but having a diving board helped. You just have to go for it headfirst sometimes.

Making the most of it. I hope.

I'm trying to leave Chicago, but the weather is not cooperating. Lots of delays and planes aren't landing. Instead of stressing, I'm going to reminisce about nice, fun vacations that doesn't involve sitting on the airport floor watching an enormous thunderstorm roll by.

While we were hiking around Locarno, we came across these people:

From Ticino, Switzerland

This was pure class. We heard these people coming down the mountain singing at the top of their lungs well before we could see them. The one woman lost her shoe and couldn't get up, and they were laughing too hard to help. Good times.

We went to Ascona. It's a small village on the lake right next to Locarno.

From Ticino, Switzerland

From Ticino, Switzerland

More picture-perfection, lots of stairs to climb and alleys to explore. Safe, clean, non-threatening Swiss alleys.

From Ticino, Switzerland

From Ticino, Switzerland

The scenery was so amazing, it made me almost forget that you can buy nice fat Cuban cigars there.

From Ticino, Switzerland

From Ticino, Switzerland

While meandering around, I found this:

From Ticino, Switzerland

It was an abandoned church and tower (filled with generations of pigeons)with a vineyard and a garden. It was on a steep hill that overlooked the lake. I was about to pay cash for it right then and there.

From Ticino, Switzerland

What a great little fixer-upper.

_____________________________

Well, the sun just came out, which nicely illuminated the oncoming thunderstorms. Miles of them. Simply fabulous. I feel better now.

Ticino

I have a whole arm-chair of knitwear that I've finished but I've been too busy to show off. I'm in Chicago this week (if you are ever here, check out Loopy Yarns) so I'll talk about some recent travels instead.

I started out in Zurich.

From Zurich June 2010

Zurich was so gray and dreary that I switched my camera over to take black and white photos. I couldn't get any color in my photos at all, and the constant cold drizzle was getting me down.

The Man with the Plan had the idea to outrun this depressing weather, so we took a train to the Ticino canton. Ticino is a part of Switzerland that dips down into Italy. It's in the Alps, but situated so that it gets sunny, Mediterranean weather complete with palm trees and balmy weather.

We stepped off the train in Locarno and were instantly charmed by the quaint village, steep hillsides and snowy alps.

From Ticino, Switzerland

It was clean and neat and orderly, as Switzerland tends to be, but more relaxed and friendly, as Italy is.

From Ticino, Switzerland

Instead of climbing up and down the nearby hills on a winding road they had staircases that got you there a bit quicker, passing quaint houses and taking in views of the nearby Alps. You could climb staircase to an ancient church.

From Ticino, Switzerland

From a height, you can see into Italy and far up the valley where there are (surprise!) more Alps.

From Ticino, Switzerland

From Ticino, Switzerland

Naturally, there was knitting involved.

From Ticino, Switzerland

The Travelling Woman shawl came along for some fun. The yarn is Blue Moon Fiber Arts Socks that Rock lightweight in the Footzy Foo colorway. This is part of my A-Z stashdown challenge, a gift, and some super-easy mindless knitting.

More to come- I am in meetings and the internet is too slow to get anything done. I hope my boss finds my blog so he can be informed exactly what I'm doing right now.

Lucerne

I spent a weekend in Lucerne. It's about an hour train ride from Zurich and absolutely gorgeous.



How cool is that, to have a big-ass mountain in your backyard? It makes me think I've spent too much time at sea level.

Lucerne has a quaint medieval old town that had a lot of ritzy upscale shops. This is where the wealthy come to ski and spend money. Still, it had its charms, including the 13th century Chapel Bridge.




There was an enormous city wall surrounding the old town. Unforgivably, it was closed for the season, but the view from the wall is supposed to be amazing.



No matter though. I found Alpacas and Highland cows grazing nearby.







That's the lion monument, which commemorates the Swiss guards who were killed in the French Revolution.


One of these bad boys will get you close to the top of 7000ft Pilatus in about an hour




The nice thing about Switzerland is that any mountain worth climbing has a funicular, a hotel and a restaurant on top. It's -3 with hurricane force winds, but you can be sunning yourself and drinking your coffee while kicking off your high heels for a few minutes.









The mountain really casts an impressive shadow:




The views from the top are spectacular. Nothing but mountains as far as you could see to the south, and occasionally a glimpse of a green valley and a town nestled in there.







There are supposedly mountain goats that roam around, but they head down the slopes to deal with winter.

After having enough vertigo, it was time to head back down to sea level for some fondue and beer and pretzles.



There was good people watching. I honestly thought that guy was Clint Eastwood. Nope.






Lucky me, it was cold enough to wear all my knitwear, all at once:



I'm wearing my clapotis scarf from a couple years ago, my Simply Marylin sweater, and unseen by the camera, my Jaywalker socks. Which is so ironic since I got yelled at for jaywalking while I was there.

A worthy afternoon was spent at the Rosengart Museum. It had a huge collection of Picasso and Klee, and it was the perfect size as to not make your eyes glaze over with a case of museumitis.


------

I have FOs and some new yarn to show off..tomorrow!