When you visit Switzerland for the first time (first part in the series)

I was more excited than my 7-year-old son, it was my first visit to a destination I had only dreamt about.

I attribute all my desires and dreams to Yash Chopra for shooting his movies in the most exotic locales. I grew up on images of snow mountains with beautiful Indian actresses clad in flimsy chiffon sarees braving the cold. I was not romantic enough to try that though.

When the day arrived I was jittery and jumping at everything (remember have always been like that before a school picnic).

So when I finally reached my destination I was totally jet lagged and tired mostly from travelling alone with my son (who was very co-operative thankfully).

But all tiredness drained away when the girls (wives of my husband’s colleagues and two female colleagues) suggested we visit Triberg Waterfalls.

The adventure began at Basel station where we bought tickets for Triberg but noticed we were given tickets for Freiburg. After much confusion we realized the Swiss pronounce Triberg as Tree-Berg and not Tri-Berg.

Three trains later when we arrived at the quaint village station it seemed like I was still in a dream.

We hiked up to the entrance of the waterfalls in still a dreamy state. The area around the entrance to the waterfalls is reminiscent of a Fairyland.

The waterfall is the highest in Germany and has an overall drop of 163 metres over 7 cascades. We only managed to see the last cascade.

Ice-cream in the cold is an experience I have always enjoyed and browsing through the local shops selling tourists cuckoo clocks, wood carvings, souvenirs we wandered the streets just losing ourselves in the misty mysterious town. The countryside around Triberg is fascinating.

The Cuckoo clock museum is worth a visit and if you are a lover of souvenirs get a Cuckoo clock, it is one of those things that you will love for a very long time. These are high quality craft products and if you do not wish to carry it along with you for the rest of the trip the shops can arrange to ship it to your home so that you will find it right at your doorstep when you are back.

The trip covered various other places and I feel I cannot do justice to all the places in one post so I am going to do a series of posts.

So keep coming back for a peek into what goes on in a traveler’s mind when you visit Switzerland for the first time.