The weather was so beautiful and sunny today (although the temperature didn’t quite reflect that), but unfortunately we still didn’t get to go up the mountain because we had time constraints due to our flight this afternoon.
We will have to come back one day to go to the alps.
We DID, however, get to pop to Trasadingen – the town where David grew up – on our way to the airport.
To get to Trasadingen we actually had to pass through Germany.
It seems so bizarre, but there’s a patch of Germany in the middle of North Eastern Switzerland.
We heard about how a lot of Swiss people cross the border to do their grocery shopping because it’s cheaper, even with the regulations around quantities of certain goods they’re allowed to ‘import’.
Once we got to Trasadingen, we popped into David’s second family home (which has a more traditional farm house feel), and ate the last of the summer fruit off the trees in the back garden.
We also got to meet
David’s mum and sister on our wanders through the village – I really enjoyed
the family village atmosphere, where everyone knew everyone and there’s still a
lot of tradition mixed into everything they do.
Part of this tradition is that every year the village has a huge fair that
everyone gets involved in. It is always themed, and they go all out with
decorating the streets to the theme. The fair is used as a time for all the
clubs and groups to fundraise for the following year. This year the fair was
movie themed and we were so impressed by the efforts the whole community had
gone to! We had fun identifying the movies that the decorations came from. It
was here that we got to taste some delicious traditional donut bread things (I
have no idea of their actual name) – the older woman were making them at the
stall on the street. We bought them before the fair had even started and they
were already selling out quickly. To end our stay in Switzerland we had some
local pork and potato for lunch at the fair, along with a locally made fizzy
grape juice (again, I can’t remember what it was called).
We said our goodbyes and David drove us to Zurich airport. We were very thankful he knew his way around – I’ve never been into such a massive car park building, never mind the actual airport!!
Our
flight over the alps was BEAUTIFUL! The plane was only half full, so once the
seatbelt sign was off, we could have rows of seats to ourselves and alternate
between each side of the plane to catch the view.
It’s so exciting to finally be in Italy! Childhood dream
accomplished.
Milano was never on our initial ‘Italy’ list, but here we are.
It turns out Milano is relatively expensive, so our accommodation is a wee way
out of the city but it’s right near a metro station which is super
handy.
It took us a while to work out what ticket we needed at the train station – the
people around were quite rude, and even the guy at the info desk was super
unfriendly and unhelpful. Definitely not what I expected.
We got here in the end though and are looking forward to heading into the city
tomorrow!
KJ xx