2 Planes, 4 Trains, 4440 miles, plus 1km

Mar 30, 2008: Wilderswil, Switzerland

Our Swiss/Italian Adventure Begins

We made it! After traveling via 2 planes, 4 trains over 4440 miles on 5 hrs of sleep over 34 hours we arrived late Saturday (after an afternoon of walking around Zurich waterfront, very pretty) at the Wilderswil, Switzerland train depot. It took 1 more km up a slight grade to reach our home for 3 nights: The Baeren Inn. Weather's been great so far. We have beautiful views of the alps & trekked up to Jungfraujoch. Sunday and took an impromptu tour around Grindelwald. Initial impressions of Switzerland - everywhere looks like the photos you traditionally see (e.g. Swiss chalets, beautiful vistas) and is very clean (including public toilets, compared to the US).

Surprising views from train rides include: graffiti (lots of it), buffalo & tee-pees! Took a short hike and ran into a bunch of llamas. Rain tomorrow...

>Lugging luggage the final km

Departure Countdown

We've entered the 36 hours till departure window. Time to pack and get all those last minute details taken care of (like finishing my presentation for meetings in Milan, yeah the primary driver behind the trip, let's not forget about that while plotting out gelato shops in Italia).
Got the dog's stuff packed for her extended field trip across town, got Buffett & Rick Steve's audio tours loaded in the iPod, camera ready, German & Italian phrase books, Clif bars, maps ...crap missing some maps! What did we do before Google Maps & MapQuest?!?! Gotta run ... will post more from the road.
Ciao!

Welcome to "15 Short Beach Road"

15 Short Beach Road doesn't exist anymore in the real world. It was located in Centerville, MA (Cape Cod) and home of the cottage my paternal grandparents rented all summer, every summer for 30 odd years. Around 2003 the 3 bedroom, 1 bath cottage (with a shower outside) was leveled and replaced with a $1.25 million "cottage" and new address (it was for sale in 2005 when I made this discovery). Many fond summer childhood memories were made here and it was the 1st destination I traveled to.

I'm about to embark on my longest & furthest journey to-date.
In a few days I'm heading to Milan, Italy for business, but unlike my first brief (but fantastic) business trip to Heidelberg, Germany, I'm doing it "right" this time and adding a slew of personal time to travel through the area.

Tee, my girlfriend, is joining me and we've been planning 18 days abroad over the past 4 weeks. I'd recommend planning a trip like this a little earlier than we did! Needless to say, we've been busy, and there is still a lot to do. The plane takes off Friday afternoon, 1st destination: Zurich.
Hopefully I'll have some time to share a few updates before we leave, while on the road and when we get back.

Stay tuned!