It finally came time to say goodbye to Switzerland, and to the town of Baden which I’ve come to know and love so much. Baden is a gorgeous little town just outside of Zurich that I’ve called home for the five years I’ve lived in Switzerland, from 1998-1999 and then from 2000-2004.
A panorama of the Altstadt taken from the bridge on my last day in Switzerland.
My apartment for four years was in the Altstadt (Old Town) in narrow building called "Zum Igel" (The Hedgehog) built in 1493. I had a spacious split level attic apartment complete with fireplace for the cold winters. My view out the bedroom window was of the clock tower and up towards to castle ruins on the hill behind the town (see the photo above). Out the living room windows I had a view over the roofs of the town, down the valley and to the Alps beyond.
I’m sure going to miss it all…
The final month was a frantic rush trying to pack my life up into boxes and ship back to Australia, plan ahead for Berkeley, and of course say goodbye to everyone – the work crowd, the rugby crew, and everyone else. I had a spate of farewell dinners and drinks that were great fun, and pretty sad as well.
My Abschiedsapero from ALSTOM: (L) The Turbine Cooling crowd. (R) The Auslaender crew.
(L) Milan sees me off at ZRH airport. (R) Mum and Dad welcome me home.
Shortly before departing Switzerland, I took one last day trip into the Alps. Out of all things I’ll miss once I leave Switzerland, the thing I’ll miss the most are definitely the mountains. Whether it was snowboarding in winter or hiking and mountaineering in the summer, it was great to have such a fantastic natural wonder in my back yard.
I decided to to Engelberg, a village in the mountains south of Luzern. This is one of our favourite ski areas in the winter, and the view from the top of the mountain is always breathtaking. I caught the cable cars up to Titlis, the highest lift station at around 3,000 metres. It was a perfect day – sunny, mild and crystal clear. You could see all the way to the peaks of the Berner Oberland to the west.
I’ve been wanting to get to Florence for absolutely ages. After many long weekend trips from Switzerland I can tick off most of the northern half of Italy – including Milan, Venice a couple of times, Tuscany, the Cinque Terre, and of course Rome. But somehow I’ve always missed Florence. Now that I’m going to be leaving Europe to move to the USA for business school, I decided to head down to Florence over the weekend to see what I missed.
