Mt Toblerone

This entry comes a little late after events but as with all blogs it's 'better out than in'! This time compasses pointed south east to a land of bank accounts and chocolate - Switzerland!

Switzerland is a happy place. Everything is green, the streets are clean, grafitti is done in inconspicous places with correct spelling and flowers grow in neat little rows. You'll also find that all forms of public transport run ruthlessly on time and if for whatever reason something is operating below it's capacity you'll be duly compensated with free chocolate because life here is happy. It's a happy place.

It's certainly different from eastern Europe where packs of wild dogs deprive you of your chocolate bar whilst you are waiting for a late train.

A cross roads of culture and language - Switzerland is where French, German and Italian histories meet in a rather remarkable whirlpool. The main port of call was a beautiful little town called Zermatt, buried amongst massive mountains and surrounded by lush, pristine forests. The people here are happy, the houses are colourful, the birds sing, the sky is blue and the electric cars make absolutely no noise whatsoever. This makes zermatt a very happy, beautiful pedestrian deathtrap.

To say the Alps are inspiring is really the understatement of the century. The peaks soar far above you, looming and forbidding to even the most foolhardy. You can spend hours just staring up studying every nook and cranny, trying to comprehend or understand their scale in some way. Drinking many beers while doing this helps because the beer here is really good. It's a happy place.

Some of the finest hiking you could imagine is available in these here hills, crossing grassy plains, rivers, canyons, summits, snow and ice. If you like you can take cable cars up many of the summits to several of Europes highest viewing platforms. Hiking at 4000 metres is quite a challenge though, where the wind blows right through you, deep breaths feel strangely unfulfilling and it's so bright even the dogs wear sunglasses (which I have been since reliably informed are called 'doggles'). It's so cold up that high that no one would surely wear short pants ... except dumb Australians.

A truly amazing thing is walking inside the Matterhorn glacier itself which is even "cooler". Surprisingly you can buy wine and beer inside the glacier, which didn't really seem to me to be an overly practical place to set up shop and could probably only be trumped by setting up a chocolate shop in a volcano.

All in all Switzerland is brilliant and should be on everyone's lists. Before I sign off though I'll finish with some last minute tips for you

- The Alphorn is a really awesome looking long Swiss musical horn which surely looks like it could emanate a sound fitting of some massive cavalry charge across a battlefield. Unfortunately it sounds like someone passing wind into an airhorn.

- If you hike up a very steep mountain and encounter a large crossing of snow on the side of the mountain, consider other options before "making a path of stepping stones across the snow"...

- Having a stand up "bath" with a single hot bucket of water at -2 is not very comfortable.

- Swiss money is really cool looking!

- The Swiss supermarket cheese section is a very happy place.

- The Swiss army guards in the airport carry Swiss army knives so big an awesome that they can probably fold little Swiss army knives out of the side of them!

- The world is shielded from an incredible variety of Toblerone flavours and all the more poorer for it.

Until next time stalwart, avid reader!