On to Lucerne!

 or...Luzern...in Helvetica type, as Helvetic is Swiss for...uh, well, Swiss....much more appropriate!

We took the train from Zermatt, the trains are very nice, with tables so we could have lunch and do some work as we rode. It's hard to stop looking at the scenery though, and I'm glad we were able to spot a few interesting animals...Buffalo at one point and yaks at another, sorry they went past too quickly for photo documentation! We also saw lots and lots of cows. There were many farms, and what I believe were some vineyards...

                                     Terraced farming                                The Alps

The train ride was about 3 1/2 hours, and we made it to Lucerne by around 1pm. We went to the hotel, Hotel Central Luzern, and they were kind enough to let us check in early.  We had a wander around the olde town and across the bridges.

  

                                     Hey look it's us!!                 A street in the Olde Town

We came back to the hotel for an afternoon of work, and then went out to dinner. Walking back was beautiful crossing the river.

  

On Tuesday it was rainy in the morning, so we went to the Swiss Museum of Transport, since Mario is a HUGE fan! We were hoping for a lot of cars, but found instead more on flight instead. Apparently we missed a huge part of the museum, because I was distracted by the SWISS CHOCOLATE ADVENTURE!! Which we certainly had to explore. It was actually a ride similar to one I've been on at Hershey Chocolate World in Hershey, PA. A very interesting process involving crushing the cocoa into a very fine powder before liquifying it. Now I need to go back to Hershey and compare notes!!

Once we came out of the museum the weather had cleared a bit, so we walked to the Lion monument, a tribute to the Swiss Guards who died in the Storming of the Tuileries in Paris in 1792.

  

     

After the monument we walked back to the center of town and got onto the Lucerne City Train. It was a great way to see the city and learn about the different areas. I especially loved the Lucerne Gate in front of the Railway station from both sides!

   

The architecture in Lucerne is absolutely beautiful, and there is so much to see!

But the view of Lake Lucerne with the Alps in the background is stunning!

  

Definitely worth a trip if you can! That's all for today, next stop in Zurich!

Welcome back to Gordon's Grand Adventure!

 So after a nearly 10 year hiatus, we are back!

The kids have all grown up and are in/out of college, so now it's time for Mario and I to do some exploring on our own. In honor of our 25th wedding anniversary last month we are wandering around central Europe. Our trip will be taking us to Switzerland, Italy, Greece, Germany, and Austria.

To begin, we flew from New York to Madrid, then on to Zurich. After a night there we took the train to Zermatt, a lovely little town at the base of the Matterhorn, which we could see from our hotel room! When we arrived on Saturday the weather was pleasant, but rain was in the forecast for Sunday. We thought briefly of taking the train up the mountain for a better view, but unfortunately it was too late in the day. It would have cost us about $125 for an hour round trip ride and about 15 minutes to take in the view.

            

The Matterhorn from our room            Glacial runoff?                

Part of the town surrounded by the Alps

On Sunday we wandered the town and relaxed, it was our first day without travelling, and we took advantage of it! I even got a massage at the spa at our Hotel, the SchlossHotel Zermatt. A beautiful hotel with wonderful staff! We had an excellent time there and plan to return to explore a bit more. They also had a fabulous breakfast, I thought the honeycomb was very interesting!

Next stop Lucerne!

Scottsdale to El Paso!

On Sunday, January 27th we left Las Vegas and and made our way to Phoenix, Arizona.  The campground  there wasn't that great, but it provided a place to park the car so we could go up to Scottsdale on Friday.  My cousin Ron and his family live in Scottsdale, and own a bowling alley there (the only one in town!), and we had a wonderful time visiting with Ron, Karen, and Izzy.  

 They have a beautiful home, and the kids really enjoyed the bowling. unfortunately we only had Friday and Saturday, as we had to leave Phoenix on Sunday to move on to Tucson.









On Sunday, while we were driving down to Tucson, we saw a wonderful site!  About a dozen hot air balloons taking off and sailing through the air not far from where we were driving!

In Tucson we stayed at the Lazydays campground, which also just happens to be a very large RV dealership!  No, don't worry, we didn't buy anything -- yet!  :-)  We stayed there a few days, and then moved on to another town called Benson.  In Benson we stayed at a very nice campground with a lot going for it -- it even had a small observatory, with nightly shows!  Unfortunately, after one night we knew we couldn't stay.  The campground was just one block from a major railroad track, and the trains came all night long, about 30 minutes apart, and blew their whistles all the way through town!  We were supposed to stay 4 nights, but left after 2!  We continued on to El Paso, to a nice campground that had a tennis court for the kids to play on.  They had a great time, and we enjoyed the quiet at night!!

We stayed a week in El Paso, and enjoyed the are we stayed in.  They even had a pool that the kids had a chance to swim in! Mario and I had a lovely dinner out for Valentine's Day not far from the campground. We left El Paso on Friday, the 15th, and headed to New Mexico and Carlsbad Caverns.  More on that next time!

It's Vegas, baby!

We went to Las Vegas on January 23rd, for a couple of nights to spread out in a hotel.  We got a great rate at the NYNY Hotel, and really enjoyed the place.  Blackjack wasn't very kind to me, but I wasn't there to gamble, and I didn't lose much.  One of the kids' favorite things was the large Lady Liberty made entirely of JellyBelly jellybeans!

 The hotel looked kind of like the Manhattan Skyline from the outside, and the inside was a series of different  "buildings", differentiated by each one's bank of elevators.  It was very hard to tell which building you were in from the outside.  Our rooms were around the back.  The kids discussed going on the roller coaster - which weaves in and out of all the buildings and outside as well, with a few loops worked in, but they decided against it.  Maybe it was the way Mario and I said, "Not a Chance!!" to us going with them!!

On Thursday afternoon the kids and I went across the street to the Coca-Cola store and the M&M store.  Genny, as always, was up for a pose! 



We stayed two more days at the KOA in Las Vegas, which is at Circus Circus, and on Saturday we went over to the Bellagio.  The fountains were really amazing, I think I could have stayed there all day watching them!  The kids had other ideas, they wanted to see the inside...

The chocolate fountain was another favorite, I think the kids liked it even more than the water fountain!

Genny and I loved the Crystal horse, it was beautiful!  They had a garden inside too, that was inspired by the Chinese New Year.  This year is the year of the Snake, which is the same as the year I was born.

 

 That's all for now, next up is Arizona, and a stop in Flagstaff to spend the day with my cousin Ron!

Disneyland and San Diego Zoo

So, okay, it's been longer than I thought it would be.  We moved faster from the last place, so I didn't have the time I thought I would.  Anyway...

On Sunday, January 6th, Mario drove down to Mexico to talk with a hotel about Skyware.  Ryan, the teenager that he is chose to stay back in the RV while the rest of us (me, Michael, Genny, and Jason) spent the entire day in Disneyland.  We had a really great time and it wasn't very busy, so by lunchtime we had gone on everything we had wanted to, and then we split up to do repeats. 

 Having been to Disney World so many times, I really loved the Matterhorn and Star Tours, which I've found out they now have at Hollywood Studios too.  Look closely here on Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, and you can see Genny, Jason, and Michael in the first row of the second car.

 It was the last day that the holiday decorations were out, and I really liked what they did with It's a Small World.  Particularly because they played Jingle Bells in addition to the Small World song, so it wasn't quite so repetitious.

Later in the week we went to a taping of Wheel of Fortune, we were sitting in the center for most of the taping.  They got some really nice footage of the kids (Mario and I are on the far end).  They have it air on three different dates, the first is tomorrow, Thursday February 14th, then Friday, February 15th, and the third day is Monday, April 29th (go figure that one out!)
   
    So be sure to watch for us tomorrow!!


On Saturday, January 12th, the six of us went to the other Disneyland park, California Adventure, which is kind of a combination between Epcot and Hollywood Studios.  So here's the New York City street scene, where we had to get  a photo of the kids.

 They had just opened Cars Land, it featured a ride called Radiator Springs Racers, which was awesome!  Unfortunately by the time we realized how popular it was, the earliest FastPass was for 8:30PM (we got it at 10am) !!  so we only got to go on it once.  Genny, Michael, and I had a great time.

On the following Monday (the 14th) we left Anaheim and moved on to Chula Vista, just south of San Diego.  We stayed at a great park, that we would really like to go back to.  Another of the things I really wanted to see on this trip was the San Diego Zoo.  We lucked out, because they had a new panda born just six months ago, and they had it out for view.  You had to be in line by 11:30am, though, and we found out about it at 11:20, thankfully we were right around the corner, and just made it in line (I think there may have been 10 people behind us)!

 After seeing the Pandas (he was playing with Mom), we stopped to get some lunch.  Then we got on a tour bus that took us around the zoo.  After walking around all morning, we really enjoyed the ride.  We got to see quite a bit of the park, and many of the animals.

We had a really good time, and it was well worth the time.  On January 20th we left Chula Vista for the Palm Springs area, where I did training at a new hotel of ours, the Horizon Hotel.  It's a really nice property built in the fifties.


 After a few days there we went to Las Vegas, for a few nights spread out in a hotel - the NYNY hotel right on the strip.  More about that next time!

New Year's and LA

Okay, so I know this is LONG overdue, so I'm going to do my best to get us caught up over the next week or so. 

 We had an early evening on New Year's Eve, to get up early for the Rose Parade.  It was a beautiful day and we bought tickets in the stands. 

 The floats were really awesome, and we had a great view.  There was a B2 bomber fly over that was so cool!  Ryan even got a picture of it, but it was too fast for me! I personally loved watching all the marching bands.

While we were in the LA area I couldn't resist taking Genny to the American Girl doll store for tea.  It was so nice, they did a wonderful job, and we got some quality girl time together.  At the tea they had conversation starters so we had lots of fun answering questions like, "What was one of you favorite childhood memories?" and "What food would you never give up eating?"  It gave us lots to talk about, and we even found out a few things about each other.

The trip to LA wouldn't be complete without a trip to Hollywood and the Walk of Fame. We saw lots of stars...on the sidewalk!  Michael liked the enormous macaroni from Kraft.  We also had the opportunity to go see a taping of Wheel of Fortune.  We were in the center of the audience, and the filmed us for audience pictures.  You can look for us on February 14th, 15th, and April 29th (they split up the filming so it doesn't look like the same audience).  Please don't worry about the absence of Ryan from these photos, he's been a bit camera shy lately, but I'll have him in some for next time.  So, next up is Disneyland, I promise!  Maybe I'll also get to Chula Vista and the San Diego zoo.  We got to see the new baby panda - just six months old!