Europe Summer, 2024, day 3, Zurich and Zermatt

I woke up very excited to be in Europe. We slept with the window open and a police car drive by with the siren on. The European siren with the Doppler effect fueled the excitement.

Out our window we could see a little funicular that come out of a building and went up the hill.

Mike was still sleeping so I went out to grab us breakfast and to scope out the route to the train station. (Didn’t want to learn how to get there while hauling luggage…)

It was overcast but the rain held off as we finished our breakfast and checked out of the hotel. We made the 5 minute walk to the train station and got a locker for our bags so we could hop a train to the Freitag Flagship Store and Tower. The store is actually made from old shipping containers, part of the Freitag ideal of giving things a second life.

I fell in love with Freitag merchandise when Mike and I first went to Gimmelwald. There was a small store in the village above us that sold really cute messenger bags that were made from recycled truck tarps, seatbelts and inner tubes. Freitag. I loved the idea of the recycling and I loved the look of the bags. We each got one. Cut to many years later and I’ve become a little obsessed with Freitag bags. I have…a few. Plus pencil holders, a notebook cover and my wallet, all Freitag. So why not visit the Flagship store when transiting through Zurich?

This was my second visit to the Flagship store and Mike’s first. I’ve had my eye on a certain backpack style since we booked this trip. Even followed a few on eBay. The really fun part is looking through all of the various bags they have on display. Since they are made from truck tarps no two are the same. For the backpack I was looking at I narrowed it down to three that I liked out of around 30-40 bags. I finally chose:

I thought for a minute that Mike might make it out without getting anything. I was wrong. I was paying for my purchase when I got a call from Mike. He was two stories/freight containers above me. I answered and said, intuiting, “you need help deciding?” Mike answered, rather desperately, “Yes, please.” It’s hard to choose!

Notice the little change purse looking thingy in Mike’s hand above. That was a little make-it-your-self Freitag business card/coin holder. There was a bunch of leftover scraps of truck tarp that one can chose from plus the silver button to make these.

The Freitag store isn’t in a bad neighborhood but it’s pretty representational of other parts of the city I’ve visited. There’s a bohemian grittiness to this place. It’s a European city that’s all tatted up.

It’s probably a very real and lovely place to live but when vacationing I like Fairytale Europe a bit more. So off to Zermatt.

We made it back to the main train station with just enough time to grab our baggage from the storage lockers, buy train tickets and get to our train with around 45 seconds to spare. The train was pretty full but we eventually found a seat after trekking through three or four cars. (To be fair the first few were first class and we booked 2nd. I just hopped on the first car I could so we wouldn’t miss the train.)

The journey was lovely and took us by Lake Thun. We’ve been on this part of the track before when headed to Interlaken. In Basel we switched direction and headed to Visp where we switched over to a regional train to Zermatt. The views were Swiss Alp lovely. I love the Swiss alps.

There’s a moment where you can see part of the Matterhorn toward the end of the video above. It’s mostly cover in clouds. (We really hope we get to see it cloud free in the couple of days we’re here.)

We checked into our beautiful room at Hotel Tennenhof and relaxed for a bit.

We were a little hungry so we headed out to explore a bit and find a bite to eat. We settled on sandwiches and some chocolate which we took back to the room and ate on the balcony.

We are currently attempting to hold our eyes open. Jet lag is chasing us both and we are trying to stay awake until at least 8:30pm…? 9pm? to help acclimate a little faster. Jet lag may win this round.

I’m grateful to be on this trip with my husband. Glad you’re following along.