Cuyahoga Valley National Park

Cuyahoga Valley National Park is Ohio’s ONLY national park and I had never been before this weekend! 

We made it a girls (and dogs) trip and had a great time! 

The park was established in 1974 and then designated a national park in 2000. It’s unique in that is has no entry fee. It is kind of funny because part of the reason I wanted to go was because I have an all parks pass for all the national parks in the country. We bought it in Utah and I wanted to make use of it before it expired by going to Cuyahoga. Jokes on me, I guess! 

We drove up Friday afternoon - about 3 1/2 hours. Since we had our doggos with us, I used the site Bring Fido to find places to eat with our dogs. I stumbled upon The Doodle Drive In which is honestly a whole vibe! It’s set up kind of like Sonic so you can eat in your car or place an order and take it to a table. They have a whole fenced in area  for doggies and their humans. Dogs must remain on a leash, but it was a great set up! When we arrived they also had live music. Highly recommend this place!

Saturday:  We started the day at Station Road Bridge and walked some of the trail there. 

We then went to Brandywine Falls which I think is one of the top things to see at the park.

After that we did some of the Ledges trail. This was cool because they had some unique rock formations and an “ice box.” I guess the technical icebox cave is closed due to conservation, but if you go in some of the cracks, you can feel how cool (temperature wise ) it is!!

We stopped at Green valley brewing company for lunch and then Handel’s homemade ice cream for a midday snack.

We then hit Bridal Veil Falls before taking a little rest at the hotel before dinner. 

The Richfield brewing company was great for dinner and allowed us to dine with our dogs on the patio. They even provided buckets of water for the dogs which was cute! Good food too! 

On Sunday we drove to Kendall Lake before heading home. There’s a nice trail (actually multiple trails) that you can choose from! Very pretty! 

Zermatt

Day 7:  We left Lucerne, had a lunch break/stretch in Interlaken and headed for Zermatt! (Mike, my dad, and I stopped in Interlaken for a couple days on our last trip and really enjoyed it-we even went paragliding!) Due to timing, we didn’t get to spend a lot of time there this trip, but it is a lovely city if you ever plan on visiting Switzerland! 

Interlaken

Did you know you can transport your car on a special train in Switzerland through the Alpine tunnels?! There is a service called the car shuttle train which allows you to drive your car onto a train and ride through a mountain. We were all shocked!!  This is a convenient and efficient way to bypass high mountain passes and get to your destination quicker. 

The train ferry!!

Zermatt: I’ve never been to the city before, so I was excited to add a new destination to my list! Zermatt is a car -free town which means we had to get out at Tasch and take an electric vehicle taxi into the city. 

Zermatt is beautiful and we spent the rest of the afternoon/evening walking around the town.

View of Zermatt from our room

Zermatt

View of the Matterhorn from the church 

On the ceiling in the church

The Parish Church of St Mauritius

Hotel: The Pollux

Day 8: We took the Gornergrat railway to get some cool views of the Matterhorn. It climbs over 1,400 meters from Zermatt to the mountain summit. The Matterhorn, for those of you who don’t know, is famed for its iconic peak and Toblerone chocolate logo! 

We had a nice visit and got some great pictures! They have a few stops along the way where you can get out and hike. They also had an interactive museum called ZOOOM which we stopped in briefly. 

Day 9: We had to make our way to Geneva for our flight the following day. On our way to Geneva we stopped at Chillon Castle which was pretty cool! This castle is ranked among the best-preserved of medieval European castles. It is situated on the banks of Lake Geneva and is said to be the inspiration for Prince Eric’s castle in the Little Mermaid. 

I really loved that you could wander around in the castle at your own pace. There was so much to explore and we didn’t even get to probably half of it due to time constraints. They do sell audio tours for an additional charge which we did not do because of time. There was a place to eat right outside the castle which was also nice. 
Hotel in Geneva: InterCity Hotel which was very close to the airport. They offered a complimentary shuttle the next morning for our departure. 

Shout out to Pub Goudale located just around the corner from our hotel. The food was excellent and probably my favorite from the whole trip! 

Lucerne & Mt Pilatus

After Liechtenstein we had the afternoon to explore Lucerne. This marks my third time being in the city!

Lucerne has so much natural beauty and everything about it is lovely. It’s situated on the lake surrounded by the Alps … what more could you want?!

We stayed at hotel Des Alpes where we stayed before. Lucerne is such a great city to walk around- we were right next to the chapel bridge and church. 

The Chapel Bridge is pretty special. It is the oldest wooden covered bridge in Europe, as well as the world’s oldest surviving truss bridge. As you walk along the bridge, you’ll notice interior paintings dating back to the 17th century. 

The famous Jesuit Church got its claim to fame for being the first major baroque style church built in Switzerland north of the Alps.

Lucerne is also famous for the lion monument. I did not see the monument this time around, but I’ve seen it two other times before. It commemorates the Swiss guards that were killed in Paris during the French revolution. If you look at the statue, the lion has been pierced by a spear, which symbolizes their loyalty and sacrifice.

Day 6: we went to Mount Pilatus. Last time we were here we went to Mount Titlis. (I think I liked Mount Titlis better.) 

There are many ways to travel to and from Mount Pilatus. We took the Panorama gondola and then cable car. Mike and I stopped and did the summer toboggan on the way up.

Some views from the top:

We then took the world’s steepest cogwheel railway back down. (Reaches a maximum gradient of 48%)

We probably spent 4 hours in total - going up, stopping for the toboggan, walking around at the top, going back down… We were lucky to have such a nice day with clear views! It was still pretty warm even being up that high. I think Mount Titlis had prettier views and they had really good ice cream! LOL 

I think anyone visiting Lucerne should spend at least two days there- one exploring the city and one doing an excursion like Titlis or Pilatus.

Must do while in Lucerne: watch the sunset 

Next up: Zermatt! 

Liechtenstein

Day 5: I was most excited about this DayTrip adventure (Füssen to Lucerne) because we would be stopping in Liechtenstein!! (Country #35 for me!!) 

Fun facts about Liechtenstein:

-Around 37,000 people live there

-It’s a semi-constitutional monarchy headed by the Prince of Liechtenstein 

-It’s the 6th smallest country in the world (62 sq miles)

-It has one of the lowest crime rates in the world 

-It’s the worlds leading manufacturer of false teeth

We stopped in Vaduz which is the capital. We drove up to see the castle, but it is not open to the public as the Prince actively lives there!  

We then ate lunch, I bought my country magnet, got an official Liechtenstein stamp in my passport, and walked around the town! 

They have a postal museum (which we did not go in), but it was fun to see all the stamps like this one on the streets! 

We only spent a couple hours here, just walking around the town and having lunch… Lichtenstein

is a very small country so I imagine most people don’t spend a whole lot of time here. 

After our stop, we drove the rest of the way and enjoyed the rest of the afternoon/evening in Lucerne!

Next post will talk about our afternoon exploring and the next day visiting Mt Pilatus from Lucerne! 

Neuschwanstein

Day 4:  We left Rothenburg and we used DayTrip again for our private transfer to Fussen. We stopped in Ulm along the way. Ulm is famous for having the tallest steeple in the world. Ulm Minster stands at 530 feet tall. 

Ulm was mainly just a lunch stop, time to stretch our legs, and restroom break, but I did go inside the church and snap a few pictures. I probably could’ve spent more time in Ulm, but we had a tight schedule to get to our next stop.

When I went to Europe roughly 20 years ago (yikes!! I swear I’m not that old!) we went to Neuschwanstein and took a tour inside the castle.

I don’t remember a whole lot about it because it wasn’t really of interest to me. 
We had people in our group this time around though that wanted to stop there so we added it to our itinerary. Unpopular opinion: I think it’s slightly overrated. 

Do to unforeseen cirumstances I did not go inside the castle this time around, but some of the others did.  The key takeaway I got from them was that it was hot inside the castle and the tour was rushed. (so I’m not really sad that I missed it)

My husband also added that they were not many rooms to see, and that only a small fraction of the castle was ever finished. Going into it, he thought he would be able to see more of the castle than he did.  

Seeing it from the outside was good enough for me! (And technically I did tour inside 20 years ago even though I don’t remember much about it.)

A little bit of history: Neuschwanstein castle was built for King Ludwig II. The construction started in 1867 and it was nearly completed in 1886.  (almost 20 years later!) The castle was intended to be a personal retreat for the king. It has over 200 rooms. Neuschwanstein has also significantly impacted pop culture -the sleeping beauty castle, which is located in Disneyland was inspired by it.

Our hotel in Fussen was called Hotel Hirsch. It was a lovely hotel and they had a fantastic restaurant! The waiter helped rate our Deutsch speaking abilities. Sadly, he only gave me a 6.5 :(

I did, however, have my favorite meal of the trip here! It was a Swiss wurstsalat! So yummy!! Not what I expected at all, but delicious!!