MARGARET'S SWITZERLAND TRIP

     (Margaret's account of this trip in 1977 was published in the November 3, 1977 issue of the Coulee City News-Standard.)

 Returns from Switzerland trip

     Margaret Taschereau recently returned from a 24 day trip to Switzerland.  She was accompanied by her sister, Eleanor Manchester of Lake Tahoe.  We are printing some highlights of their trip.
     They arrived in Geneva Sept. 14 and spent a day there seeing the city and taking a boat tour of the lake.
     9-16   Caught the train to Fribourg and then to Flammatt where a cousin, Anthony Bertossa, met them.  Anthony's house is almost a museum with things from over 20 years in the Congo.  His wife is Belgian, whom he met and married in the Congo.
     9-17   Anthony took us to old Fribourg.  Castles, narrow cobblestone streets and huge old bridges over a narrow deep canyon and tiny river.  Sunday they took us to Gruyere Castle and to a cheese factory.
     9-19   Caught a train to Brienz and the house where grandma [Anna Kienholze, 1858-1936] was born.  The house is beautiful, sits on a steep hillside.  Very well kept.
     9-20   Visited the church grandma attended.  A lot of the carvings in it had great grandfather's name [John Kienholze] on them.  At the carving school he established we met a teacher who had studied under him.
     For the next few days visited Luzern, Chiasso and Lagano.  Cousin Emelio and Valeria Bertossa live in Chiasso which is on the Italian border.  They took us to Como, Italy, about a 10 minute trip.  Como looks very beautiful but the lake is chocolate goop and the streets are littered and smell.  They have some fabulous shops, however, which are clean and modern.  We toured the huge old LaDoma church, supposed to be next to St. Peters in Rome in size.
     All the grocery stores we saw in Switzerland had few canned fruits or vegetables, Del Monte mostly.  A big section of coffee, mostly MJB, and cocoa, Nestles.  There are several Nestles plants in various towns.  A big section of soaps, not many with names we knew but familiar pictures and company names.  Large sizes mostly.  Lots of American candy bars and lots of fruit juices, both canned and frozen.
     9-25   Took the train to Zurich.  Took in the zoo, the Landesmuseum (a castle with big rooms of the old years).
     9-27   We took a guided tour to the Rhine River Falls.  A big share of the trip follows the wandering Rhine, Germany often on the other side.
     Next few days visited Basel, St. Moritz (that trip took 4 hours) and Zurich.  Went to St. Moritz on the Schnellzuge, fast train, to Chur beside a lot of lakes.  Then a narrow gauge halfway up the sides of narrow canyons and through a lot of tunnels, a dizzy one hour ride.  I intended to stay overnight and take a ride to the top of an alp but Eleanor wanted to go back to Zurich after we had dinner and walk around a bit.
     Spent 10-1 in Zurich, looked in a coupe of cathedrals and sight seeing, attended a church there the next day.  The church had no name and everything was in German.  They sang the martin Luther hymn," A Mighty Fortress" so we decided it must be Lutheran.  Later we met a girl on a train who had been a Kelly girl at the Seattle Worlds Fair and she explained about the church.  It was the State Protestant Church.  On the Swiss Income Tax forms are boxes to mark for either Catholic or Protestant and the state pays the ministers.
     Swiss road signs are very good, no passing has a picture of 2 cars smashing, some are rather funny.
     10-4   Left Zurich airport for London and wandered around some in the afternoon.  Next day took an all day guided tour of the Changing of the Guards at Buckingham Palace.  Thirty-five busloads of people lined up in the rain to watch some fancy horses and soldiers.  Then the only good English meal we had, a roast beef dinner that was part of the tour deal.
     Afternoon we toured St. Paul's Cathedral, really worth seeing.  then the Towers of London, people usually say the Tower of London, but there are a lot of towers.  The girl guide spent an awful lot of time on bloody history.  The one tower where the crown and jewels are is kept spic and span and heavily guarded.  Mostly not really my cup of tea.  The Tower Bridge is quite beautiful.  London Bridge is not!  The tide rises and falls around 20 feet under the Tower Bridge.
     10-6   Toured the Thames, about a 20 mile drive to the edge of Windsor Castle and the boat.  It was raining but nice for riding.  Went through 3 locks which keep the river level and keep the salt out.  Boys of Eaton were sculling on the river in the rain and almost no clothing.
     Poor old London is a mess.  It has all the troubles of big U.S. cities multiplied, minority races moving in, whites out, old Roman streets trying to handle cars.  London had 8 million people, is down to somewhat over 7 million, but that means the tubes and trains, buses and cars are jammed.  They work staggered shifts trying to help, some places open at 8, others at 9, others 10.  Lots of streets are closed to all but buses and taxis.
     10-7   Up at 7:00 and walked through shops till 12:00.  Took taxi to airport and flew out at 3:00 for 8.5 hour flight to Chicago.  Had to circle for an hour and then run 1/4 mile through the rain to go through customs etc.  Back out in the rain again for what seemed like 1/2 a mile to plane for Spokane.  We got to bed at Cliff's [Clifford Taschereau's house in Spokane] at 2:00 in the morning.  My clock went around twice, Sam figures we were up 27 hours.