Day 5: Zurich Day 3 - Rapperswil

Today we got moving around 8am. Mary refuses to get up any earlier. We had more Swiss yogurt with musli for breakfast; Jeff had hazelnut and Mary had vanilla. The hazelnut yogurt had chunks of ground hazelnut throughout, and the vanilla had actual vanilla bean in it - the yogurt here is amazing! 

Once we were ready to head out, we headed to the boat pier to check out the schedule, and found that the boat was not going to arrive for approximately one hour. So we had time to go buy lunch. We walked 5 minutes to the Coop City and bought a pre-made BLT sandwich and some carrots. The BLT sandwich is pictured below:

We boarded the boat and sat near the front. Mary took her ginger motion sickness pill in advance. Once the boat was moving we found that it was pretty stable near the middle, so we stuck where we were. The trip was approximately 1h 45m. Between Zurich and Rapperswil the boat stopped at several different locations. Mary found the entire trip rather chilly, except for when we stopped, as the sun was warm (and gave us both a bit of pink in our cheeks!). Still, we were able to enjoy the surrounding scenery. A sailboat with distant hills is pictured below:

On the way, Mary and I met a couple from Connecticut. The wife was from Switzerland; the husband was from the USA. They told us many interesting facts about the various stops along the way. They got off on the stop before Rapperswil. Coming into the pier at Rapperswil, we got a wonderful view of the old town and castle, pictured below:

We wandered up to the castle, and through the old town. Eventually we walked over to a wooden bridge that traced back to 1523 BC. Various versions have been put up since. Bear took the opportunity to pose on the bridge:

Rapperswil is known for their rose gardens. Unfortunately, most of the roses are not yet in bloom. However, we were able to find a few plants with flowers that had opened! Here is yet another touch of the season.

We climbed a total of 300 steps in Rapperswil one way. Much easier than the 1000 we did yesterday (if you count one way - we went both up and down 500 steps...). Mary's knees weren't too thrilled with the steps on Tuesday, but the last couple days, they've been doing pretty well :)

When we decided we were finished checking out the old town of Rapperswil, we jumped on a train to get back to Zurich. The travel system is really great over here - trains run to most cities in the country many times an hour, and it's pretty easy to just show up to the station and find a train that will take you where you want to go. Between the trains, trams, and busses, getting around shouldn't be any problem without a car. 

The train ride back was 30 minutes or so, and when we got back, we went to the Coop to get some canned tomatoes to go with our dinner (Lettuce with Lemon & carrot, pasta with tomato, oregano, sausage and grated carrot). Cooking in the hostel is always a bit of an adventure, as the cooking materials are pretty limited, but we manage.

After dinner, we took a bit of a break. Jeff sorted pictures, and Mary had a quick nap. Later on, we went for a quick walk around another part of Zurich's old town that we hadn't checked out yet. We found a park whose name suggested would contain a statue of Escher, but had another statue instead. 

Now we're back at the hostel and getting ready to head to bed.  Tomorrow we plan on heading to Schloss Kyburg and Winterthur. Kyburg has an arms and armour museum. Winterthur has an old town centre with some fortifications still visible and several art galleries. We'll figure out what trains we need to take tonight, and head to bed. Hopefully we'll manage to sleep decently... Mary has finally solved the pillow issue (the hostel only has feather pillows, which Mary is allergic to. The first few nights she slept on clothes stuffed into a pillow case, which proved to be pretty hard and lumpy. Last night, we stuffed one of the pillows into Jeff's daypack, and Mary slept on it that way, and it worked pretty well!), however; there is a band playing just outside our window in the small platz, and it's pretty noisy...