Yodel ay e o

I got from rural Cornwall to Switzerland in 11 hours via rental car, train, underground and plane without setting foot outside from the time I got on the train in Cornwall until I got off the plane in Zurich. Blake picked me up at the airport and drove the 100km to Basel in their new car, which I was grateful for. Switzerland is a new country for me and Basel is a lovely city. It's quite small, just 170,000 people, but has a lot of head offices of big companies and is very multi-cultural. It's picture-postcard Swiss, without the mountains. Blake and Adrianne are in a great temporary apartment, right in the centre of the city which has made it easy to explore on foot. It was lovely to see everyone again.

Blake took Friday off work (he left for a week in Brazil on Saturday) and we drove to Lake Lucerne, about 100km away. The weather hasn't been good - grey, cold and wet most days, but it was still a stunning place and the sun did come out later in the day. We spent hours at the transport museum there, which might not seem a very likely thing to do, but it was amazing. It's the perfect place to take two small boys with so much interactive, fun stuff to do, and it's also extremely interesting for adults.

Bob the Builder in action

So much to do, so little time...

There was a huge bank of interesting vehicles and you could use a touchscreen to request one. A lift automatically hoists it down to a theatre space where there's an audio-visual presentation about it.

There were areas for trains, planes, road transport and ships with piles of activities for all ages, and a planetarium we didn't get to. Blake and I went for a walk beside the lake between showers to try to get Bengy to sleep. There are mountains in the background, evidently.

After that we went for a walk through the very charming old town

Then had dinner in a beautiful spot by the river that reminded me of Venice

The boys were keen to get their hands on that beer

Today is Sunday and all the shops are shut. I made a start on one of the dozens of galleries in Basel. Town was very quiet.

This is the corner of the street the apartment is on, with one of the old gates to the city.

The focal point of the town is a large church overlooking the Rhein. Blake works in the area above, not far from the river. There were people in the river just before the yellow pontoon, floating very quickly downstream (purposefully)

Later today we got a tram to the outskirts of town to go to an ex-pats' picnic. Flynn was delighted to have some new friends to play with. It was a lovely spot with lots of tracks beside a river and into the forest.