Hi all,

Vicky and I recently returned from a trip to Switzerland and Italy (October 2025). Who knew we would ever travel to such fabulous places. We spent nine of the days in Switzerland and had a really great time. Like many places we visit, I wish I had gone there sooner, but better late than never.

We spent our time in Switzerland in the Swiss Alps and the Swiss Plateau. The Alps were never out of our sight, and we ventured high up several times. We didn't spend time in Zurich or Geneva so it was not the big cities tour, but we did stay in Lucerne and Bern.

Our Swiss guide told us that to think of Switzerland, "just think of Maryland (for size) with 26 states and four languages." There are nine million people living in Switzerland, but we rarely found ourselves in much of a crowd. Their four languages are spoken in different parts of the country and are: German, French, Italian, and Romansh. For my part, English was widely understood.

Switzerland is a land of mountains, chocolate, lakes, tunnels, chocolate, glaciers, water fountains, history, chocolate, rivers, and much more, and did I mention the chocolate?

I'll give you a few glimpses of our trip, just so you have an idea of what we saw and where we went.

Below was in Lucerne which was our first stopping place in Switzerland. We stayed here for three days.

Lucerne is a very beautiful town on the shores of Lake Lucerne and its river outflow, the river Reuss, seen below.

This photo is from Mount Pilatus, looking down on Lucerne and Lake Lucerne.

This is the town of Brienz, a small vacation town on Lake Brienz. The town exceeded the cuteness scale.

This photo was taken at Diavolezza, a glacial overlook at almost 10,000 feet high and on a very nice day.

Here, we're on a hike in the mountains on another beautiful day.

This is the Matterhorn, at dawn, from the town of Zermatt, without a cloud in the sky. The Matterhorn was a trip highlight.