Switzerland

Murren, Switzerland was almost indescribably beautiful. I've never spent so much time so close to the mountains. I felt like we could almost reach out and touch them! The Swiss Alps are top notch! It took us almost 10 hours of trains to get to Murren (Florence to Milan, Milan to Montreux, Montreux to Interlaken, Interlaken to Lauterbrunnen, Lauterbrunnen to Murren) but it was 100% worth it. We spent 7 nights in Murren and we enjoyed nearly every minute (other than Peter getting altitude sickness or the flu or something towards the end). We slept in, drank coffee, hiked, when to the pool, and enjoyed late night dinners watching football (soccer).

We stayed in what Rick Steves called "a creaky old woodpile" but it was clean and simple. Shared bathrooms and showers, although I'm not sure we ever saw anyone else use either. Had to do again, we would have paid a more for an apartment. I leaned on this trip that cheaper doesn't mean you'll save money. We totally blew our budget in Switzerland because we didn't have a kitchen for a week. Breakfast was included but only served until 10am which really didn't work with our schedule very well (worked OK for me but basically not at all for Pete). Renting an apartment was easily 50% more expensive than the hotel room we rented, but we ended up spending more than that on food because food in Murren (a resort town and captive audience) is so expensive. Delicious, but expensive. Even with a grocery store meal here, take out from the Chinese restaurant (surprisingly delicious -- we went there twice!), it was still wicked expensive.

We took an rather epic hike (at least for us -- we're more walkers than hikers), that took us through gorgeous alpine wild flowers, waterfalls, and of course, cows. I was pretty jazzed about the cows, although the mountains were cool too. ;) We opted for a slightly longer hike that took us down and under / through a waterfall. This was SUPER cool but more than a little dicey. We were probably not wearing the best shoes and the hike down to the waterfall was super super steep. We made it but to do again I would definitely have hiking poles and proper shoes.

I can't wait to go back!