2024 and 2025 Trip Planning - July 2023

It seems that post-pandemic travel is on the rise for many. Along with this interest, travel bookings for 2024 and 2025 are either no longer available or have limited availability. Accordingly, we've been making trip reservations over the past several months. Where are we planning to go?

Galapagos and Machu Picchu 2024

On this trip, we'll be traveling on the Celebrity Flora, a 100 guest ship that exclusively sails in the Galapagos. Starting in Quito, we'll travel to Baltra and embark on 12 port stops. Wildlife viewing, hiking and snorkeling are the primary activities for this trip. Leaving Baltra, we'll travel to Lima for a visit to Machu Picchu before finally heading back to Northern California. 

Africa 2024

Our first visit to Africa in 2014 focused on South Africa, Zimbabwe and Botswana. We've always wanted to visit Kenya and recently arranged a custom itinerary with Fish Eagle Safaris.  We enjoyed our 2014 trip arrangements with this company. What might we view on this trip? Common animals are elephants, zebras, buffalo, giraffe, leopard, lion, wildebeest and cheetah. If we're lucky, we might see black rhino, white rhino and/or wild dogs.

Arriving in Nairobi, we'll start with a city tour before flying to Amboseli National Park. We have two nights at Elewana Tortilis Camp, located in the Kitirua Conservancy. From here, we fly to Lewa Wildlife Conservancy for a three night stay at Sirikoi Lodge.

We board a small plane for our final flight to Masai Mara for a four night stay at Elewana Elephant Pepper Camp. This camp is located in the Mara North Conservancy.  With our trip completed, we then head back to Nairobi to start our return flight to the US.

Christmas Markets 2024

We've heard that a Christmas holiday in Europe can be a special experience. Many towns host small vendor stalls selling local snacks and gifts, with live music from local choirs and orchestras. Locals may dress in medieval clothing and serve special regional treats. Some of the markets were started in the 15th century and continue to this day.

Our trip still start in Braunfels and continue on to Nuremberg. We'll board a Rhine riverboat in Nuremberg and continue on to Strasbourg and Riquewihr.

Australia 2025

This will be our second trip to Australia. The first trip included a land tour of Australia, including visits to the outback and the Blue Mountains in New South Wales. We also boarded a cruise to several Australian and New Zealand ports. 

This 2025 trip will be a month long circumnavigation of Australia, aboard a Viking Ocean ship. The itinerary includes port stops in Bali and Komodo. Overall, there are 16 port stops on this trip.

We enjoy the Viking Ocean as the ships are smaller in size and guest capacity (about 450 guest cabins). In addition, we no longer have a strong need for on-board entertainment shows and/or casinos.  

Japan 2025 

This is a trip that we reserved just a few days ago. This will be essentially a month long circumnavigation of Japan, with brief stops in Busan, South Korea and Taiwan. Part of the trip will be on a Seabourn cruise ship. One of the features we are looking forward to is an opportunity to visit smaller islands in the Satsunan chain, between Kyushu and Amami Oshima. 

We anticipate adding some time for personal Japan travel, including a visit with my wife's relatives.

October 2017 Update

Well, we recently sold furniture and household items that wouldn't fit into the smaller house we're building and packed up the remaining items for three month storage in a moving company's warehouse. Given all the work that moving brings, one distinct benefit of this effort is that we have pared down our belongings. Household items that were not needed in our final residence location or little used are now gone.

We're now in temporary housing in a nearby community for three months. The three months should go by quickly as during this time we have a month long trip to South America and a week stay in an acquaintance's mountain cabin.

Source: maxpixel.freegreatpicture.com

Although we still have one more house move to complete, we're starting to plan for 2018 travel. We have a Spring transatlantic cruise that will take us from Fort Lauderdale to Iceland ports and then disembark in the UK. This will be a back-to-back trip and the adjoining cruise will take us to several northern Norwegian ports, including a return visit to Longyearbyen. At the conclusion of the second cruise, we'll take a week for a drive holiday through the UK.


While we're still considering sights to see on this long set of cruises, places on the top of our list include:

• Tour of Lake Myvatn area of Ajureyei, Iceland
• Driving through the "Golden Triangle" geothermal area of Reykjavik, Iceland
• Tour of Castle of Mey in Scrabster, Scotland
• Mountain biking in Flaam, Norway

Source: Publicdomainpictures.net

A little later in 2018, we just booked a trip that will permit us to visit Grand Tetons National Park and Yellowstone National Park. We haven't traveled previously to either of these parks and are looking forward to seeing the area. Other than an early career business trip to Helena, Montana, I haven't been back to Wyoming. I'm a reader of C.J. Box's Joe Pickett novels and will enjoy seeing the parks, mountains, ranch lands and animals that I've only read about. This might be our first viewing opportunity to see a Pronghorn Antelope.

We're still considering a winter ski trip, but not sure if this will conflict with our move into our final residence. Why do I say final? The new house is built for aging in place - including wide doorways and halls and a no-curb shower. While we don't need these features now, we envision a time when they might come in handy. I will acknowledge that this move has quenched any interest in purchasing another house in the future.

Zurich - 2017

As we arrived at the Zurich rail station, it took a few minutes to figure out the walking direction to the Intercontinental Hotel Mgallery Sofitel Hotel. Once there, we found the hotel lobby had comfortable furnishings but as soon as we entered the small elevator, it was apparent that this was an older hotel, likely constructed in the early 1990s. A tripadvisor reviewer suggested the hotel's exterior had the appearance of an older Soviet bloc building. Our room condition was fine for a two night stay but had a dated Swiss style – heavy thick but lightly stained wood furniture, heavy wood armoire and room trim was against stark white walls. The non-smoking room also had a musty odor and we couldn't tell if the source was the room or cleaning products. 

Zurich Rail Station

Zurich on a Sunday

Once settled in our room, we headed out for a walking tour of the Old Town and a lunch at the Sprungli Cafe. As we walked down Banhoffstrass, it soon became apparent that retail stores close on Sunday and the downtown sidewalks were somewhat deserted. In fact, as we reached Sprungli, we realized that only the Sprungli café and restaurant were open and the chocolate and Luxemburgerli counters were closed. Not to be detoured, we decided to stop for lunch, splitting a club sandwich and flaky ham pastry with salads, beer and iced tea (about $62USD).

Courtesy of www.spruengli.ch

On our way back to the hotel, we visited the Fraumunster Church. Entry was $5 per person and included use of an audio player. The player was a great help in describing the history of the church and the meanings behind the beautiful Giacometti and Chagall stained glass windows.  We continued our walk to view the interior of the Grossmunster. Again, we enjoyed seeing the stained glass windows of Augusta Giacometti and the Sigmar Polke windows added in 2009. Leaving Grossmunster, we walked through the Niederdorfstrasse restaurant and shopping area to reach our hotel.

For dinner, we decided to take a very casual approach. We picked up a green salad, roasted chicken pieces, rolls, dessert and drinks from the Migros Take Away and COOP Take Away stores located at the Zurich Rail Station (about $40USD).  We brought our selections to our hotel room and ate there.

Last Tourist Day in Switzerland

At 9:30am, we started our walk in the Old Town to see some sights we missed on Sunday. Our first stop was to activate our ZurichCard ($48 for two passes), which would provide us museum access and rail transportation for the next 24 hours.  We needed a ZurichCard as our 8-day Swiss rail passes expired the day before. The streets on Monday were active with people touring and going to work. This was a vastly different view compared to Sunday when the downtown streets and sidewalks were practically empty. 

After some time searching for and locating the kiosk to activate our ZurichCard, our first stop was the police station. The police station lobby, once an orphanage, has bright colorful murals painted by Augusta Giacometti. Lucky that we had some personal identification as the police officer required us to show it in order to enter the lobby area.

Photos are not allowed in the police station.
This photo came from Flickr

From there we walked to St. Peter, the oldest church in Zurich. With a somewhat plain white interior, we enjoyed hearing organ practice while viewing the soaring ceilings. We continued our walk over to the nearby Paradeplatz Sprungli’s café. Purchasing sandwiches and pastries for lunch ($30) at the Sprungli retail counter, we sat at the outdoor tables and ordered coffee and a cappuccino. Afterwards, we selected five boxes of custom chocolates for gifts and six Luxembourgli for us to enjoy later.

After lunch, we headed over to the Zurich rail station to catch a train to Uetliberger. This train ride takes only 20 minutes from downtown Zurich. Once we disembarked at the Uetliberger station, we were rewarded with terrific views of Zurich downtown and Lake Zurich.

Our afternoon outings were not yet complete. Upon returning to the Zurich rail station, we purchased some additional chocolates for family and friends. Given the warm temperatures, we quickly brought the chocolates back to our air-conditioned room.

Our final stop was the Beyer Watch Museum, near Paradeplatz. There, we enjoyed viewing ancient time devices, old wall clocks, pocket watches and wrist watches. The tour took us about 45 minutes and we then walked over to the Manor Department Store’s Manora Restaurant – which is really a pretty average buffet. While buffet is really busy at lunch (we checked it our earlier in the day), this restaurant looked deserted at 6pm. The food offerings which looked really fresh at noon, appeared a little tired by early evening. 

Leaving Zurich

With an early morning flight from Zurich to Heathrow, we packed the evening before. Since we would miss the hotel breakfast buffet that was part of our room package, we were offered room service breakfast at 5:30am at no additional charge.

At 6:50am, we left the hotel for our ten minute walk to the rail station and caught the 7:14 train to Zurich airport. We made our way to the Aspire Lounge, a generic first and business lounge. Departing Zurich on time, we had a two hour layover at Heathrow, before our flight to San Jose, California. The layover actually extended to three hours due to an engine issue. That was fine with most of the passengers (especially with those without San Jose flight connections to consider) as engine problems over the Atlantic can certainly add unwanted excitement. 

Luzern - 2017

With another three hour rail travel day, we had an early breakfast at our Zermatt hotel and then walked over to the Backerei shop to pick-up ham and cheese french roll sandwiches and water bottles for our later lunch (about $16USD). By 11am, we were in our train seats and on our way to Luzern. 

Our lodging in Luzern was the Renaissance Luzern, a Marriott hotel. This hotel is about four city blocks from the rail station. We received a room upgrade upon checking in and enjoyed a moderate-sized junior suite. 

Our Luzern tour plan was to view a number of museums and visit some of the historic city sights.

Bourbaki Panaorama
Leaving the hotel towards the Old Town, we found Luzern a busy urban setting - very different from our time in the alps. Many cars, buses, tourists and shoppers making a somewhat crowded visual and walking experience. 

Walking over the Chapel Bridge, we made our way to the Bourbaki panoramic painting by Edouard Castres (free admission with our Swiss rail pass) and the Lion Monument.  The Bourbaki circular painting measures 32 feet by 367 feet. It depicts the French Army of the East under General Bourbaki crossing the border in Switzerland. The French Army is being disarmed by Swiss soldiers after fleeing the Franco-Prussian War in February 1871. Almost 90,000 French Army soldiers and officers were interned in Switzerland for ten months. The 1881 painting was completed in Geneva and moved to Luzern in 1889. If you visit this painting, using the free audio iPad provided interesting background information about the painting and the scenes. 

Courtesy of Luzern.com

Lion of Luzern

Exiting the panoramic painting, we followed large groups of tourists towards the Lion Monument. This monument, sometimes referred to as the Lion of Luzern, is a rock relief designed by Bertelsmann Thorwaldsen and carved by Lukas Ahorn between 1820 and 1821. The monument commemorates the Swiss Guards who were massacred during the French Revolution in 1792, when revolutionaries stormed the Tuileries Palace in Paris, the then residence of King Louis XVI. The Swiss Guards were mercenaries, protecting the King. All Swiss Guards were killed and most of their bodies were mutilated.

Walking Along the Old Town Wall

Our Luzern timing was perfect to visit the Saturday morning outdoor market. We passed through tables and portable food cases with breads, cheeses, flowers and fresh vegetables. We always enjoy seeing the colorful available goods, farmers, bakers and morning shoppers. 

Crossing the Ruess River at Speuerbrucke Bridge, we walked down the river until we reached the Old Town wall and the Mannliturm Tower. From the tower, we meandered along the wall and through Wachiturm, Zeiturm and Museggmaur Towers. From Zeiturm, we walked along a three foot wide walkway with one-side of the walkway attached to the high wall of the Old Town wall. The path ultimately led us to the Old Town shopping.

View of Luzern from Old Town Wall

Rosengart Museum

This museum, residing in the Swiss National Bank built in 1924, contains the Modernist and Impressionist paintings collected by Seigfried and Angela Rosengart. The collection includes 32 oils and more than 50 drawings by Picasso and about 125 paintings, water colors and drawings by Klee. We also viewed a smaller number of art pieces made by Braque, Matisse and Chagal, Renoir, Seurat, Cezzane, Nonnard and Leger. We particularly enjoyed seeing the annotated photographs of Picasso, at home reflecting every day life, with his dog, viewing his painting, on the telephone, exercising and getting a haircut.  

Kunstmuseum

With spare afternoon time, we then wandered through the Kunstmuseum (free admission with Swiss rail pass). This museum is located behind the Luzern rail station. The primary exhibit was “10 rooms, 40 walls and  3,500 square feet of art works by Claudia Comte. This was her largest exhibit to date. We viewed pieces reflecting pop art, modern wood sculpture, swings, concrete structures and large wall as canvas pieces. The art pieces focus on distances, height and positioning.   

Courtesy of www.luzernerzeitung.ch

Art by Bertrand Lavier at the Kunstmuseum

As we left the art museum, we walked along Lake Luzern and, finally, returned to our hotel room for some evening reading. 

Dining in Luzern

We tried a couple of restaurants for dinner in Luzern. Zuntfhausrestaurant Pfisturn provides Ruess River-side dining. We ordered a starter of garlic bread, chicken salad and a pan fried fish plate with rice and tomatoes (with wine and beer, about $90USD). Service was a bit inattentive, but food was above average in quality.

For our second Luzern dinner, we ate at Rathaus Breurei, a local brewery also on the Ruess River. Plates of sauerkraut and sausage and roast beef, with asparagus wrapped with bacon and spatzle - with beer from the brewery - were delicious and reasonably priced (about $75USD).

We also succumbed to the lure of Laderach chocolates and ice cream at Backmann's

Zermatt - 2017

The rail trip from Lauterbrunnen to Zermatt required us to change trains in Interlaken Ost, Spiez and Visp. Our final train at Visp was a cog train - likely needed as we were heading toward the mountains. We passed the time watching the scenery unfold and snacking on a hearty sack lunch packed by the Silberhorn Hotel.

Once we arrived at the Zermatt rail station, we must have looked lost again. With guidance from a passing walker, we found our way to the Schlosshotel. This hotel is within easy walking distance from the rail station and to Gornergrat rail station. 

Schlosshotel Lounge

Many of the the 49-rooms at Schlosshotel have a partial or full view of the Matterhorn and Gornergrat rail station. As the Gornergrat rail service ends around 8:30pm and starts around 7am, any noise from the train operation was not disturbing to us. The hotel location was very convenient for both access to rail trains and walking though the village center.

   

With time to explore the village of Zermatt, we walked towards the Matterhorn Museum. We used our Swiss Rail pass to enter the museum at no additional cost. The underground museum exhibits focused on early mountaineers and efforts and equipment used to scale the mountain in the mid-19^th century. Overall, the exhibits were well explained and were very creative. Not only did we learn about the mountaineers and early ascension attempts, but we learned about the challenges of life in Zermatt. We enjoyed our hour visit to the museum and recommend this visit.

Zermatt is clearly a tourist village, with many stores devoted to souvenirs, mountain clothing and Swiss watches. The are several moderate-sized hotels and restaurants; however, many were closed until June 1. One advantage of our shoulder season visit is that the number of visitors is manageable. During the winter and summer peak visitor seasons, it must be terribly busy and crowded throughout this tiny village of 5,800 residents. 

Historic Swiss Cabin
Note Rock Footings for Rat Control

(Too?) Many Hotels in Zermatt

Dinner was at the casual Brown Cow Pub. The food was tasty and plenty for dinner – all for about $50USD. We walked off our dinner by going up the Bahnhofstrasse and visiting the cemetery for fallen climbers. From the headstones, we learned that most of the fallen climbers were young, around their mid-20s, following their passion for mountaineering.

Brown Cow Pub

Gornergrat

There are several ways to reach higher views of the Matterhorn. We decided to take the cog train to Gornergrat for a better view of the mountain. On our rail trip to Zermatt, we pre-purchased Gornergrat rail tickets from the conductor to avoid having to stand in line the next day at the ticket office.

With an early breakfast, we boarded the 8:30am train. This was a great decision as there were very few visitors once we reached uppermost Gornergrat rail station 30 minutes later. We walked up to the top of the viewing platform and enjoyed our panoramic views. The sky was clear and the Matterhorn was in clear sight from each viewing area. Of the three alp viewing areas we visited, Gornergrat was the least touristy - no ice sculptures or watch stores - just spectacular views of the Matterhorn and surrounding mountains.

Gornergrat Elevation is 13,132 Feet

Perfect Location for a Coffee

Alpine Chough

We later moved down to the cafeteria and enjoyed coffees and an apricot Kuchen while on the outdoor patio. Note that if you purchase a snack from the cafeteria, your receipt will provide a wireless access code. An Alpine Chough attempted to snap a few kuchen scraps while we were enjoying our views.   

Once again, we found pleasant temperatures at the top of Gornergrat. The sun was out and there was little wind. I wore only a long sleeve shirt and a light jacket shell. Actually, the weather felt the warmest of all of our Swiss alpine stops. 

We returned to Zermatt in time for lunch. Our afternoon plan was to hike up 1,200 feet in elevation to Pension Edelweiss. However, the climb was particularly steep and rocky and we soon came to a small creek to ford. Not wanting to press our luck with a risk of possible fall, we turned back and walked back to our hotel via the other side of the creek running through Zermatt village. We later learned that we were on the wrong trail and the actual path is partially paved - with no streams to cross. If you try this hike, the correct path is behind the Old English Church. 

Stream and Falls to Cross on Wrong Trail to Pension Edelweiss

A reasonably priced dinner but unremarkable meal was at Grampi’s Restaurant. Pizza and salads for two, with drinks, ran about $50USD.   

With our two night stay in Zermatt completed, the next day we were leaving the alps and traveling to the city of Luzern.