On to Zurich

Today we drove from Fussen to Lindau, then took an afternoon train to Zurich. 

But first, a little more on soap.

Devoted readers will recall my previous comments on soap. 

This morning, Bee told me that I'm wasting soap because I only used the piece below for one shower. I committed to her that next trip I will slice it thinner, perhaps 6 pieces per bar instead of 4. That satisfied her, and we were able to leave Fussen.

Fussen to Lindau can be driven in an hour via the autobahn. But that's boring, so we took back roads. Here's our route

Magenta is our route, we drove right to left; yellow is the border of Germany (above) and Austria

It was unintentional, but it turns out that this is coincidentally the westernmost part of the Deutsche Alpenstrasse. I was pretty excited about that.

We started by visiting the Lechfall, a waterfall on the River Lech just upstrem from Fussen. The Lech is usually a blue/green/gray color, I assume from dissolved limestone. But today, due to yesterday's torrential rains, it was the color of cement water.

Just upstream the road passes into Austria

And it's beautiful

Castles everywhere! This one is across the river from Vils

Today's weather was perfect. Yesterday's storm moved out and this morning had blue skies with the occasional passing cloud. Perfect top-down weather. Here we're blazing down the road at 100 MPH!

The Austrian Alps far off to our left (south)

When we arrived in Lindau, the car rental place was closed! After a brief panic and some choice words, I collected myself and called the rental company (Sixt, a large & reputable outfit). They told me to just leave the key in the door slot, but there was none to be found. I called back and they told me to sick it in the door slot for the car dealership next door, which I did. Pretty nonchalant for car rentals!

Then the next panic - we're on the outskirts of town. I had assumed the rental office could call me cab, but that's out the window, so I gotta cook something up. We have cellphones, but what # to call?

Across the street from the rental place was a fruit & vegetable market, so we pulled out suitcases over there and asked for help.

This VERY NICE lady who works there and spoke English called us a cab.

It took about 20 mins to arrive, so we bought cherries and strawberries and sat in the shade to eat them while waiting

When the cab arrived, this well-dressed woman came up to me and asked if she could ride with us. Turns out that she just arrived in Lindau for a conference and had EXACTLY the same rental-return experience as we did. So, I said of course she can join us, and it turns out she was staying at the hotel next to the Lindau train station

The weather in Lindau was amazing. Sunny and warm with a breeze

We grabbed a quick bite at a cafe overlooking the harbor 

And Bee wrote some postcards

Boarding the train. Bee's suitcase weighs about 4 tons ("just some shorts and underwear") and she could barely lift it into the luggage rack

The train heads south along the eastern shore of the Bodensee. Lots of boats and swimmers out today

The ride to Zurich took about 2 hrs, and I was surprised that it was quite populatedost of the way. I had expected lots of open spaces.

We arrived in Zurich about 5pm, and it was very warm, in the mid 80s. Here's the Zurich Station

We checked into the hotel, then took the street trolley to the old town by the lake. Tickets are bought with Swiss Franc coins, which is a pain in the ass... the Swiss don't use the Euro (probably to maintain banking independence... the EU would probably not allow the privacy that Swiss bank accounts are famous for). So after obtaining Francs then changing bills to coins, we had to deal with this ticket machine, which Dave couldn't figure out. Bee made it produce tickets in about 30 seconds. You can get either 1st class (2x as expensive) or 2nd class tickets. We got 2nd class and couldn't find the difference on the trolley, but then no one collected or asked for tickets on any of our rides anyhow. Bee suggested that it's the Honor system.

Zurich's old town sits astride the river Limmat which drains the Zurichsee at a pretty good clip

We had a quick dinner just off the river (hard to see the river at the end of the buildings)

Then we walked to the lake. It was also very busy on this hot day

Then the trolley back to the hotel. People smoke here almost as much as in Paris. I find the European smoking rate to be shocking... a reminder as to how few people in the U.S. smoke any more, and how extensively the U.S. limits where it can be done. 

One big difference from Paris is that Zurich cleans up the butts... you see guys all over with these distinctive brooms sweeping the butts and other trash into the street, and I saw several mini street sweepers finishing the job

Tomorrow we catch an early train headed south over the Alps to Milan