Switzerland (Round 2)
Background
For months, I had been looking forward to my Mom’s trip to visit me in Paris. After a couple of health scares in the summer which she fortunately recovered from, my Mom arrived in Paris on a chilly October morning. We had a busy itinerary – spending a couple of days in Paris (mainly so she could get over the inevitable jet lag), 5 days in Switzerland, 4 days in Provence, and then a couple more days in Paris.
Switzerland
In 1972, my Mom spent the summer after her junior year of high school with a Swiss family. My grandfather, Barton Siebers, was a chemist for Nestle and traveled to Switzerland for work as Nestle was headquartered there. After numerous visits, he formed a friendship with Gian Carlo Schubiger, a fellow Nestle chemist who lived in Switzerland. As their friendship developed, it was decided that their daughters would do an exchange – my Mother would spend a summer in Switzerland and Gabrielle, Gian‘s daughter, would spend a summer with my Mom’s family in New York.
46 years later, my Mom and I went to Switzerland to spend 5 days with Gabrielle and her family. Gabrielle and her husband, Pierre-Andre, welcomed us into their home and showed us everything that Switzerland had to offer. And what a week we had. From pretending we were auditioning for the Sound of Music to filling ourselves with Gruyere cheese and Nestle chocolate, our trip to Switzerland was unforgettable. We visited numerous small towns including Bern, Grindelwald, Iseltwald, Bulle, Fribourg, Gruyère, and Montreux. We hiked the Moléson Mountain located in the Swiss Prealps and took the Jungfrau Railway to Jungfrau, a 4,158 meters high summit in the Bernese Alps. And perhaps the highlight for me was staying at the Grand Hotel Giessbach, a beautiful hotel situated on Lake Brienz.
