Say (Swiss) Cheese!

Several  years ago to the day, my favorite travel companion and I celebrated his birthday in the beautiful hills of Switzerland.  To observe the big day, we splurged on a rental convertible and spent the afternoon driving through the Alps.

The country is so small, we were able to drive all the way from the top, starting in Zurich, down to the bottom at the Italian border.  At one point we crossed through a tunnel so long it took half an hour to drive through at top speed.  We entered on the German-speaking side and came out so far south the signposts had changed to Italian.

On the way home, we wanted a route with a bit more scenery, so we selected a road on the map which looked like a series of squiggles.  What we didn't appreciate was that the squiggles stood for a set of switchbacks -- and they were steep!

As small as Switzerland was, we were able to detour into one country which was even smaller:

This just about the entire country, right here.

After all of that driving, we were pretty tired of being behind the wheel.  The next day, we set off for Interlaken, Switzerland, but this time, we took the train to enjoy the view.