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Well Bern was pretty uneventful. It was a lovely city with terraced bulidings and cobbled streets. There wasn’t a pile to see there but we were able to take in the city fron the tower of the Gothic Münster catherdral.

We made our way to Luzern the next day to check out the chapel bridge and old town wall. After spending the morning treking up and down tower steps we made our way to trendy Zürich. Our hotel was part of a chain with an adjacent resturant and night club but Susan wasn’t to keen to see me make a fool of myself Salsa dancing. Here we visited Frumünster which was a catherdal with some stained glass windows.

Today we have been in St Gallen looking at its amazing siftsbibliothek (abbey library). We also stubbled across a few cheap swiss cakes which we demolished on the way to Vaduz in Liechtenstien.

There are only about 5300 people in this small landlocked country. There seems to be a lot of wealth here though. May have something to do with the £50 billon in the bank…
Its a very nice place surrounded by mountains and we even went on the cheesey town train ride.

Tomorrow is of to Austria.

We are in Interlaken, have been here for 2 days – a record. It’s positioned between 2 lakes and at the base of all the mountains.
Yesterday we went to Brienz to see some woodcarving shops and to Freilichtmuseum Ballenberg to see hundreds of traditional Swiss houses that have been moved there. There were supposed to be lots of demonstrations but we have discovered we are here in the off season, so lots of things are closed. On the plus side, there aren’t that many tourists.

Today we went up the mountain to Jungfraujoch – the highest train station in the world. The last leg of the train journey goes up through the mountain itself and the station is inside the mountain. You catch a lift up to the top and walk out and all that is around you is snow and mountains – very cool both literally and figuratively. We both now have sunburnt faces, as it was sunny for the first time, yeah!!

Our hostel is really good here. The best we’ve stayed in so far. And as an extra bonus, you get free access to the local swimming pool and gym complex which also has a spa and sauna section. So tonight we wandered down to enjoy our free spa. We got there and discovered that in Switzerland they like to enjoy their saunas and spas minus their swimming costumes!!!! Interesting. We diverted our eyes and enjoyed our spa, and didnt spend too long in the saunas, as Susan wouldn’t stay in one if some not so modest Swiss man came in.

Tomorrow we’re off to Bern, the capital of Switzerland.

We arrived in Geneva last night and did the Webber’s 1 hour whirlwind tour of the city. Not much to see apart from the Lake, which is very pretty, and the strange Jet Fountain (how much electricity do they waste there?

Early this morning (well before 9am, so very early for Susan) we trained to Lausanne and then onto Montreaux. We went to visit the Chateux de Chillion, an old castle fortress on the Lake. Unfortunately we realised that we are maxed out on castles and didn’t really appreciate it. The weather is also pretty bad, has been raining and is cloudy so we can’t appreciate the mountains. When it did clear up for a bit, we were amazed by the mountain range behind the lake, looking forward to tomorrow when we go into the mountains.

Back to Lausanne after the castle visit, where we are staying the night. Walked around in the rain looking for their version of the Notra Dame Cathedral. Susan didn’t have her umbrella and got soaked. James being a gentleman, kept his waterproof jacket on and stayed warm and dry. We got lost trying to get back to the centre of town, and happened across the Lausanne Carnival. Luckily they were selling plastic ponchos to people to keep them dry. So Susan is now the proud (or not so) owner of a red plastic Swiss poncho, with a white Swiss cross on the back. And she got to enjoy everyone laughing at her all day.

There was also a trip to the olympic museum. We arrived at the same time as a big group of business people there for a special visit and didnt have to pay, bonus. The museum was a bit boring though and i didnt work out why it was in Lausanne in the first place, dont think they have ever held the games.

typing this from a swiss keyboard with all the keys in the wrong place, like the z and y are switched around. and no punctuation in normal places.

Or should that be D’oh…
Susan ordered her Sound of music DVD a few weeks ago and it still hasn’t turned up. It’s a bit of a bummer as she wanted to watch the movie before we went to Salzburg.

Today we ordered £1000 worth of foreign currency. Over the last few nights we have been doing the cost estimates and this is probably the most expensive holiday so far. We are going to need to carry a lot of cash and travellers cheques around because most of the accommodation we have booked is in hostels and requires payment in cash. Fortunately from what I have read about Switzerland and Austria they seem to have very little problem with theft.

Today I spent some time investigating what to do in Prague. I think its castle is the biggest in the world. It seems like the capital of the Czech Republic was a great cheap city break spot, until everyone found out about it. Now Prague is still cheap for beer but that seems to be about it. There seems like there will be plenty to do in the two days at the end of our trip. I just hope we have enough energy to get everything in as we are going to be on the road for two weeks.

Tonight our final outstanding accommodation was finally confirmed. Also both our Austrian and Swiss rail passes has arrived, so we are almost good to go! Well apart from the hills in our flat which don’t seem to be alive with the Sound of Music.

Welcome to your Bi monthly dose of what the Webbers have been up to.

The weekend before last we went to Bristol Zoo and also caught Fame the Musical at the Bristol Hippodrome. Sadly that is about as exciting as it gets.

Over the last few weeks work have been quite crazy so apologies that the updates have been few and far between. We have also been quite busy booking accommodation for our Central European Excursion to Switzerland, Austria and the Czech Republic which starts next weekend.

We have booked in for a ‘Sound of Music’ tour in Salzburg and also a Mozart concert so I will let you know how it all goes.

Apart from that live is sweet…
I’m working on a Lyric Quiz at the moment, anyone know the song that features the Lyrics
“Take me on a trip upon your magic swirlin’ ship”…
No looking up on the web.

The exciting new this week is that we have just booked our latest European trip. After brief breaks in many of the Western European Countries, we decided to do a big tiki tour of Central Europe.
As Easyjet doesn’t fly into many of the countries we want to visit we have come up with the following combo.
1 Fly into Geneva in Switzerland
2 Train to Zürich
3 Train into one of Europe’s smallest countries Lichtenstein
4 Train over to Salzburg
5 Then do the same to Vienna
6 Finally Train to Prague and fly back to Bristol

We are going to be away for 13 days in total and many of those days will be in the 2 most expensive countries in Europe. So this weekend will probably be spent organising hostels to try to keep the cost of the trip down.

Susan is stoked as she gets to see Lichtenstein. If you are like me and have never heard of this country….Let me fill you in:
Lichtenstein is a very small landlocked country in a valley, it’s the only country which is locked by two other landlocked countries (Switzerland and Austria). Apart from that it produces valuable postage stamps and people go there mainly to get a stamp in their passport. I’ll be sure to upload some pics and let you know if we can find someone from border control.

This weekend we had look around Clifton Village which is the posh part of Bristol. It is where all this years’ model of BMW congregates with the for show pet poodles outside trendy cafes while the owners sip lattés and read the times. A complete contrast to ASDA in Bedminster let me tell you. While in Clifton Village we found a deli which sells South African food so Susan was kept busy for a while deciding which favour of Mrs Ball chutney to purchase.

Apart from condiments keeping to our boardgame geeky traditional we have purchased another game. It’s called Carcassonne – Hunters and Gathers and is a bit like a cross between Dominos and Settlers. The highlight for me being that I can beat Susan at it… Yeah!

My keeping fit New Year’s resolution is going quite well and I’m managing at least three gym session each week. This dedication combined with the fact that Susan seems to have become the latest GI diet devotee is bound to ensure my success or at least consolidated misery.

All this training has hardly dented my rowing time (dropping by 20 seconds). Last week my time was the worst of the field. Weight and Age adjustments resulted in Susan beating me which as you can imagine made me an easy mocking target for the guys in London today.

Current Rowing time 8:16