In Berchtesgaden, Germany, the menus clearly labeled any food that contained any artificial ingredient. Surprisingly, much of the menu was clean of asterisks. The Swiss have taken things one-step further. The source of all meat is clearly posted at the entrance of the hostel dining room. The expectation here is that all meat is organically grown and I saw many guests choose the vegetarian course because the dinner’s protein was not Swiss grown.
Today is a travel day to Vienna or Wien, as the locals call it. On the quick trip to Zurich there are many Swiss troops on the move. I thought it just a little ironic that the only notoriously neutral and uninvolved country maintains a standing army. What is even more interesting is the nonchalant show of force by these soldiers in transit who carry their machine guns for the ride.
I had to take a picture of this billboard advertisement because it absolutely captivated consumers. (Cheers to the agency on this one.) The advertisement is for butter and the clothed man holds a sign saying, “I eat butter.” The steroid case holds a sign that says, “I don’t.” The tagline at the bottom says, “Butter. Anything else is unnatural.” This was an awesome multidimensional execution.
The train was, of course, on time. This “is” Switzerland, the only country that has a right to complain about the promptness of German trains. I have a reservation in the “scenic car” with elevated windows and a higher seating level.
This turned out to be more hype than anything and there were neither leather seats, nor electrical outlets for laptops. But I did have the good fortune of sharing 5 hours of scenery with Jess, a lawyer from Seattle, who was on her way to Slovenia for some hiking.
We enjoyed the lakes, ...
mountains, ...
and villages. The time flew by.
Jess headed south at Salzburg and I continued the western tack. It was tempting to bail out and head south. As the trip continued, Austria moved away from the Alpine stereotype into the flat or rolling hill Bohemian countryside.
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