Travelin' About

We knew this was going to be several hours on a train, but it was the Glacier Express and we had first class tickets.  We were seated opposite another couple and it gave us the opportunity to get to know John and Laura a bit better.  He was the photographer but she was a wealth of all kinds of knowledge.  Poppy fields zoomed by, gorgeous to see, but difficult to capture. Beautiful scenery as we raced by the Swiss countryside Service on the train was great.  We were served a delicious lunch of chicken curry which was very yummy and came on nice china with bread and rice and dessert.  At long last we arrived in the adorable town of Zermatt. We immediately bought ourselves tickets to go up to the Matterhorn the following two days and then took a cute little electric van up to our hotel where Andrew and I had the following view. That is the Matterhorn in the mountains in the background on the right.  For the next two days we saw it and then we didn't - clouds ...

After a scrumptious breakfast in our hotel, with a delightful coffee machine that you simply pressed "cappuccino" or "latte" to get a smooth, creamy, yummy cup of joe, we took a bus to the funicular, which brought the group of us to the top of a mountain, Muottas Muragl, with breathtaking, panoramic views of the valleys below. The Funicular,  a small cog-wheel train that maneuvers up steep inclines. We were all overcome by the vistas and I, for one, didn't know where to begin photographically. I brought all of my lenses with me and proceeded to utilize them all, taking panos, landscapes, close ups and everything in between of the beautiful scene before us. There was a man soaring in some kind of mechanical sail, I believe it's called paragliding. We saw a lot of these daredevils in the days to come. Our leader, Joe Brady , was happy to be showing us this magnificent view on such a beautiful day. We really lucked out. The restaurant at the top provided u...

Our tour began on a Monday at the Zurich train station where we boarded a first class train to St. Moritz.  The scenery that we passed was spectacular, however very challenging to photograph since we dealt with windows and speed.  The group of us, 15 photographers including spouses, ran from window to window, enjoying the charming European landscape.  Someone located a half raised window and someone else found a car that seemed to be meant for photographers since you could manage the windows more easily, but we still had the speed of the train to contend with, not to mention constant posts we passed and, although things looked beautiful to our eyes, there remained a lot of power lines that were disappointing to see on our images.  And one of our group lost her cell phone as the train sped by. We were excited to see the many clocktowers and church steeples and every now and then the strain stopped for a minute or two and we were able to grab a nice shot. Looking back ...

My husband and I recently had the opportunity to join a group of photographers, led by Joe Brady and his wife, Diane Bollen , to visit five different cities in Switzerland - Zurich, St. Moritz, Zermatt, Grindelwald and Lucern.  Despite never hearing of these places before now, we had such an enjoyable trip that I want to share this experience with you. I plan to write 5 blogs, one for each city, to show some of the beauty we encountered and remember this wonderful trip. We arrived in Zurich very early on a Saturday morning in June. We chose to go straight to sleep in an airport hotel, to ward off jet lag. When we woke in early afternoon, we were right near the trains which were in a giant "mall" building with all kinds of shops. We asked which stop we needed to get off, and proceeded to navigate the train system to see some of Zurich's sites.  The streets were festive with vendors and people shopping.  After walking around and trying to figure out where we needed to meet...