Switzerland: Part 1

Hello Blogland!

How are you?

Time has its way of taking advantage of good intentions. 

I have set blog goals and blog restart days/weeks many times, but never lived up to my own expectations.

I have said many times here, that I started blogging to document my family and it makes me so mad that I dropped that ball for a few years, but all I can do is move forward now and perhaps play a little catch up along the way.  

Hubs and I went on a wonderful vacation this summer in August.  

We spent two weeks in Europe, one in Switzerland and one in northern Italy.

Our flight flew out of Raleigh to Laguardia and after that layover, we boarded our flight to Zurich.

Hubs traded in a lot of his points to gets us the fancy seats up in front.  We ate and slept well. 

We arrived in Zurich around 8:30 and surprisingly, our room was ready for us.

We stayed at Hotel Schweizerhof which was a great location. It is directly across the street from the train station and is on the Bahnhofstrasse -  

("Widely regarded as one of the most exclusive shopping destinations in the world.").

After we rested a bit and showered, we got acclimated with the area around us and that evening we met our guide for a private Zurich food tour.

Peter took us down some of the most beautiful streets in Zurich as we made our way to our three different stops. 

Our first stop was our "appetizer stop".  

Peter ordered us the Swiss version of a charcuterie board and a Swiss beer sampler.  

I wasn't sure how all `three of us were supposed to share the sampler, but he talked and explained about how the Swiss just pass things around and not think about it.  So we shared bevrages with a complete stranger and lived to talk about it.  

(When in Switzerland!)

Second stop was at the oldest Swiss restaurant in Zurich and of course we had fondue as our main course.  Basically, we had a pot of boiling cheese and a loaf of bread for dinner and it was delicious.  

I was given the most authentic recipe for Swiss fondue - maybe I'll share it one day.  

After stuffing ourselves with fondue, we walked to the most unique gelato shop. I had a cup of ginger, black pepper and brown sugar gelato.   

The next day, we wandered Zurich.  Zurich is not a large city and it is very walkable. It may have some history, but Hubs and I did not take it upon ourselves to worry about learning it.  We walked, ate, drank and shopped. We even bought some souvenirs from the fancy designer stores!

Who are we?

SWISS CHOCOLATE 

Yes, absolutely, Swiss chocolate lives up to its name!

We stopped in several chocolate shops while in Zurich, they are everywhere.  

One of the most popular chocolatiers is Sprungli. 

We made quite a few stops in this shop which was luckily very close to our hotel.  Every time we walked by, we would get two pieces of chocolate and share them. As a souvenir for our 3 girls we bought them a box of chocolates and I wish we would've bought some for ourselves.  BUT, no joke, our hotel had a chocolate cart and everyday the cutest little man would knock on our door and ask us if we wanted anything! We were shy and well mannered the first time, but the second and third, not so much! I'm talking HUGE chocolate bars, six different flavors and we were each welcomed to select several each time.  

This picture is from another chocolate shop.

and most of their store was sheets of different chocolate barks.

This Christmas, I will be attempting and experimenting with chocolate barks, for sure!

I didn't know what expect form Swiss food, except for the obvious fondue and potatoes that are served everywhere.  Most of our lunches ended up being a Swiss style charcuterie board. I loved that they serve vegetables with it, especially the pickled pearl onions.  Veal was on every menu we saw. I cannot get over where veal comes from so I had a hard with that, but Hubs ordered it several times.

 I tasted it and it was really good. 

sausage (veal) salad - very common 

a lot of fresh water fish from the local lakes

veal

sliced cold veal with seared tuna app

We went to Swiss Chuchi for dinner, our last night in Zurich.

We hadn't had our fill of fondue just yet and so we went for it.

Yep, a pot of melted cheese and a loaf of bread for dinner again, but at least we ordered the side of pickled veggies to go along with it. That's healthy, right?  

us - after our fondue :)

We shuffled back to our hotel and of course ate one of those big ol' chocolate bars for dessert!

When in Switzerland!