Day 15 - Hot

I wish I could think of a better title for this entry, but I am just too dang hot. I'm lying on top of the bed in our apartment in Zurich, freshly showered, with all of the windows open and listening to the blessed rain that began falling 20 minutes ago. Hopefully it will cool us off so we can sleep well tonight. We have a long day of travel ahead tomorrow.

This morning we woke to cool mountain air wafting in our open windows at Chalet Fontana in Murren. After our final breakfast and last-minute packing, we said goodbye to our host Denise and made our way to the station for our final gondola ride of the trip (yahoo!). We then caught a train to Interlaken Ost, where we would switch to another train to take us to Lucerne. Interlaken is absolutely stunning with the emerald waters of Lake Thun and Lake Brienz. If our travels ever bring us back to Switzerland, we might have to split our time between Murren and Interlaken.

We didn't have time to explore, but we switched trains quickly and made our way to Lucerne. Here we ate lunch beside the famous Chapel Bridge and then walked to see the Lion of Lucerne monument. The first rain of the day caught us then, so we quickly made our way back to the river, where we took a moment to get a gelato – our first of the trip! Then we caught the 4:10 train to Zürich. From the train station it was a 15 minute walk to our apartment for the night.

None of our lodgings for the trip have had air-conditioning; however, the heat of Zurich got to us after being in the high, cool mountain air since Monday. Then, add to that our dinner tonight at Zenghauskeller, a restaurant housed in a former 15th-century armory (crowded and certainly un-air conditioned), and we were dripping with sweat by the end of our meal. Even Reed was on the verge of collapse. We stopped by a grocery for drinks on the 20-minute walk home, and I hung out by the frozen foods!

We have a very nice apartment for our last night in Europe, but it sits two floors up from a bar. Zurich clearly has an avid nightlife (we passed restaurants and bars spilling over with people on our walk home tonight), so we will be listening to the chatter from the street below late into the night I would guess. That's similar to our time in Paris. It's fun to listen though because of the language difference...there's no forgetting that we are in a different land.

We leave at 6:30am for the airport, and after flying home through New York City (both JFK and LaGuardia), we will finally be home tomorrow night! I know two boys who are eager for their own beds, wi-fi, air conditioning, and most of all, their dog. Their mom and dad are too!

(Our street in Zurich, taken from the little balcony off our bedroom.)