Julie Andrews Touched Me

It’si a travel day. We are using the travel days (which will be all train travel except for a ferry to an island later in the trip) as rest days. This worked well for us on this leg.

We took a train from Gare De Lyon to Basel in Switzerland. We had reserved seats and settled in to fast wifi and amazing scenery. It was a speed train and we were on the second story. Kids minds were blown! And they were thrilled it had aircon! Anyway the train journey was 3 hours and absolutely flew by.

In Basel we sat around a beautiful train station for half an hour and ate delicious salami, mustard, egg and salad rolls. We sat on the floor in a huddle

out of the way to eat and used our backpacks as seats.This might become a regular thing. Switzerland is expensive. I have warned everyone that we will be eating out for one dinner and the rest will be supermarket eating. This is part of travel though. And travelling with 5 is just insane. So here’s to creative meals for the next 4 nights bar one reservation we made in the village we’re staying at. Although perusing supermarkets is a fave past time of mine! Some gals like high end fashion, this gal loves a food stroll!

Our next train was also non eventful besides the jaw dropping scenery. Kayden and I sat opposite a lovely Indonesian family. They were from Lombok.They’re practically our neighbours! It’s so good for the kids to see us speaking with people from all over the world on this trip. Or in fact anyone. Life lessons on how to converse coming in hot!

As we pulled into Lauterbrunnen, Isla was excited to be the first person to see snow on the top of the mountains. Lauterbrunnen is special to Mike and I as we visited here all those years ago and just felt like it was a whole different world. It’s just jaw droppingly beautiful everywhere you look. Literally catches in your throat! The birds chirp louder and the cows bells send a rush of joy through my heart. Don’t get me started on the church bells. The flowers are everywhere and the traditional houses have so much detail. There are scalloped edges and the shutters also have love hearts carved into them. Kayden said “this is Nonna Land, flowers are everywhere”. In fact so many beautiful flowers that Kayden got hayfever for the first time in his life haha. His eyes blew up! Luckily we have polaramine on hand to keep my hives at bay. I always get hives here! Not cool.

I’ve started singing the sound of music instead of French tunes. Mike reminds me the Sound of Music is Austrian. Whatever. Don’t ruin my vibe Mike!

The walk from the train to the camping village we are staying in is stunning. Unless your carrying backpacks and then it’s hotttt and hard work. It took 15 minutes and about 1km uphill. We were hurting. I took about 100 photos and videos on the walk. Memories came flooding back as we retraced our steps with our three beautiful children. Three sweaty children. It’s a wonderful feeling to have a place feel that familiar all those years later.

Our cabin was hot. We had to work hard and fast to cool it down. We sat outside the cabin under an umbrella. Isla was immediately more relaxed since arriving here. Switzerland has that effect on people. I wrote another blog while Isla wrote a story. I’m enjoying writing the blog. It’s work but I feel it’s a gift to us all as it’s so easy to forget the smaller things. I’m so glad others are enjoying it as well.

A friend and I chatted about this being my “season” and not the season for others to do trips like this. I’m glad she brought that up. I’m so grateful and it made me reflective. Mike and I became parents really young. Our baby season felt never ending and when our friends were all child free and carefree, we would reassure each other and even spoke on more than one occasion about this time in our lives when we would one day bring children travelling with us. I can’t believe we are here.

We were all shattered but ready for our one and only dinner while in Switzerland. We came for the cheese and all the potatoes! Dinner was expensive. $180 francs. So roughly $360 Australian dollars. We said cheers as we toasted to this next leg of our trip. It was all delish.

After dinner we walked up behind a waterfall at our holiday park. An American group of 4 were coming down when we were climbing up. They looked like a young married couple and their parents. The youngsters looked embarrassed, the older wife apologised. And guess what the Dad was playing on their speaker as they walked? The Sound of Music. The version where Julie Andrews is singing softly about “the hills are alive, with the sound of music la la la-la” the beautiful, gentle part of the song rang through the valley.

I told them I was there for it! I felt it! They were my people. I asked if I could join their group! I took a deep breath and listened quietly as the music faded. I was truly and unapologetically moved. Puffing profusely from the climb. Moved none the less. And when I came down from that waterfall, I played the same song loud and proud on my phone. Much to my families amusement, but it was also for others. Who like me, were touched by this magical valley.

Side note: it is incredible how quickly our fitness has increased in such a short time.

It was a relatively early night for us all. We had an early start the next morning. The snow was calling us. The Rossi’s had a mountain to climb!