After our long hike to the falls we were sure glad to see this sign.

This is a waterfall inside of a mountain! I’ve never seen anything like it before.

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A view from our balcony in Lauterbrunnen. We're close to a beautiful waterfall!

On Monday we boarded the Golden Pass panorama train in Lucerne and took the 90-minute trip south to Interlaken. We reserved first-class seats for this train and boy was it worth it! The windows are huge and we had beautiful

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Just before we reached the top of the mountain we were surprised by this ladder-like climb.

Our big outing for the day today was climbing up Mt. Pilatus. Starting just before noon, we took a boat trip down the length of Lake Lucerne to a little town called Alpnachstad, and there we caught the Pilatus Bahn:

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At dinner tonight we recapped the great day we had together. Best of all, Karen got through the day with much less pain and was able to be with us for everything.

I’m experimenting with this new way to present pictures. Click on a picture for a much better presentation, then press the ESC key to get back here. Let me know (in the comments) if you prefer this new format or the

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The Chapel Bridge over the Reuss River in old-town Lucerne.

We have arrived in Lucerne! All of us were exhausted after a long day of travel that featured two flights (10 hours and 1 hour) plus a train trip. The biggest news of the day is that the pain in Karen’s knee

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Here is our schedule: Saturday, Sept. 12: Arrive in Zurich, train to Lucerne. Two nights in Lucerne. Monday, Sept. 14: Take the Golden Pass (panorama) train to Interlaken, then travel up the mountain to Lauterbrunnen. Three nights there. Thursday, Sept.

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chapel bridge

Back in 1968, I was a high school sophomore who had an amazing opportunity – I got to spend my summer touring Europe! I joined a tour of 50 students from Whittier Union High School District for seven weeks to Germany,

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As soon as we have body, soul and luggage together, we’ll descend to the basement of the Zurich airport and activate our Swiss Travel Passes. We each invested in an 8-day pass, which entitles us to unlimited travel on trains,

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group

Hi, and welcome to our web site! My name is Dave Votaw, and my wife Karen and I came up with the idea for this tour of Switzerland and Italy back in the summer of 2014. We’ve been blessed to

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We are scheduled to land at the Zurich Airport at 1:40 pm on September 12 – almost exactly 24 hours by the clock after we leave PDX. Of course we lose 9 hours flying east, so our real flight time

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