European Adventure

I headed off from Vaduz and caught a train to Basel where my Aunt and Uncle are based and where I was to meet family for Christmas. Basel is a lovely little city but as this time of the year everything is shut, and after a while alone, people seemed to annoy me sooner than usual! But it was great to have Christmas with others and not alone.

Basel had a few highlights, including an outing across the German border in which we had to act unsuspiciously in the car so the German police would think we were locals! We trapsed around a german forest for a few hours before tiredness set in and we headed home act like normal people for a few days. It was the last that I would see famliy for another two months so it was with a bit of sadness that I headed off again - this time for Austria.

Today excited me more than others as I got to see snow for the first time in my life at the age of 21! I was on a tour up to the top of Mt Titlis via a stop over at Lucerne. Lucerne was lovely but a half hour stopover didnt exactly let me experience the city, although the lake was beautiful!

We arrived at the bottom of Mt Titlis and I was already smitten. I touched snow for the first time and although not as fluffy as cartoons make it out to be it was still snow and it made me smile. It took over an hour to get up the mountain - first a shaky little cable car, than a slightly bigger one, then one the size of a room up to the very top. It was absolutley stunning, half way up we cleared the dark foggy level that people at the base were looking at and made it up into clear blue sky - I had not expected this and was thus even more stunned. We had two hours at the top of the moutain including a trip over a glacier in an open ski lift (terrifying for me, and trust me I'm not one who scares easily!) But it seemed that as soon as we got there it was time to go again with another hour to get back down the mountian, then onto the bus back to Zurich.

I arrived back in Zurich after 6pm a just made the Train to Sargans, the last stop before Leichtenstein. Of course the train line runs through it but there are no stops (common sense is obviously not a strong point). I arrived at my hotel after 10pm (after getting of the Bus to Vaduz at the wrong stop thanks to a helpful driver! and then having to wait an hour for the next one!) and found that the proprietoress spoke no english, so I had to check in using school girl german. I was it turns out the only one staying there (perhaps the only one in Leichtenstein - the thought pleasing me greatly) and settled in for a good nights sleep finally in a bed that did not have one above or below it!