Switzerland with Our Aunt

A post by Alison, Caroline, and Laura

Laura: My aunt lives in Bern, the capital of Switzerland, and ever since we knew we would be living in Europe, J.D. and I had hoped that we could visit her.  SkyWork Airlines made it very easy for us to do this.  To our surprise, our tiny airport outside of Rijeka (on the island of Krk)--which has one to five flights a day over the summer--has a direct flight to Bern via SkyWork.  We couldn't miss the opportunity.

Alison:  SkyWork Airlines is seriously the best airline I've ever flown on.  It gives you free meals, unlike airlines in the U.S., and they are good meals.  The best part about this airline is that they give you fully loaded iPads with apps, music, and more to use for the duration of the flight.  The view was nice as well.

Alison:  I had never met Aunt Roberta before because I'd never been to Europe.  It felt like meeting a long-lost relative who I had heard about before.  Aunt Roberta and I had a lot in common that was soon to be discovered.  Not long after we arrived, she gave us a tour of downtown Bern.

Caroline, Roberta, and Alison in Bern

Laura:  My aunt has lived in Bern since 1969, and she's a wonderful tour guide of her city and the region.  We really appreciated all she did to show us a good time.  Bern is a small city with a lot going on--great architecture, clock towers, fountains, public transportation, restaurants, and bars.

Medieval clock tower in Bern (it includes an astronomical clock)

One of the many water fountains in Bern

Bears in Bear Park; Bern and bears have gone together since medieval times 

Caroline running through the fountains in front of the Federal Palace in Bern

In addition to Bern, Roberta also took our family to Grindelwald, a village in the Alps, along with Interlaken and the Emmenthal region (home of delicious Emmenthaler cheese).


Alison: The Alps are finally a place we've been to that people from the U.S. know about.  O.K., we've been to other places that Americans know about, but the Alps are famous world-wide, unlike some other places we've been.  I wish we had gone high enough to touch the snow because I miss my snow!     

Caroline: At one of the stops on the gondola ride up the mountain, there was a great playground.  It had ropes to climb on.  When you get to the top of the slide, there's a special window that gives you amazing views of the mountains.  There are also two restaurant/cafes there.  

J.D. at a cafe in the Alps 

When we went back down the mountain, we walked a good part of the way.  The walk was pretty, but it was long. 


Alison: I absolutely agree with Caroline.  The walk was kind of long, and since I hadn't fully broken into my sneakers yet, I got a lot of blisters.  But enough about that.  I'm sure you don't care, but I bet you do care about the views we saw on the way up and down.

Laura & Alison (with Aunt Roberta's scarf) on the gondola ride at Grindelwald

The snow-covered Alps 

Laura: As we went through the Swiss countryside, J.D. and I noted how manicured and green it was.  Not a piece of grass looked out of place!  I greatly enjoyed the beauty of the Swiss countryside, yet my new normal is the much wilder, more arid Croatian countryside, so the differences really stood out to me.

Alison and Caroline:  On our last day in Switzerland, we met some of our cousins (our Aunt Roberta's son, daughter-in-law, and their kids), and we had a lot of fun with them.

Alison: I really enjoyed having a girl cousin, even it's a more distant cousin.  Joel and Zoe are 2 1/2 year old twins who are both extremely adorable.

Caroline: I like that I have boy first cousins.  I agree with Alison that Joel and Zoe are really cute.  It's fun to have cousins who are younger than me because out of all of my first cousins, I'm the youngest.

Alison & Zoe

Caroline & Joel

Alison: One night when my parents went out on a date and Caroline was asleep, I really got to talk with Aunt Roberta about a lot of things, and that's when I realized how much we had in common (like a love of scarves and Mac computers).  I enjoyed talking with her a lot.