Just got back from vacation, and the massive amount of work that I had to get done in order to go on vacation. But it was definitely worth it. I spent about a week and a half touring Switzerland with the girl. Spent about 6 days of that walking around the Berner-Oberland area. (And yes, this is where the dogs get their name. And yes, there are a lot of them around. And yes, it made me want one ever more than I did before.)

My wife's cousin runs a hiking company, and guides some of the tours himself. I don't mean to turn the Mint into an advertisement, but really, Alpine Hikers does a great job setting the whole thing up and going on some fantastic hikes. They set up the hotels, cover all three meals, and we had the owner do the guide work on the hikes. We had a varying level of tolerance for hikes in the group, but Troy (the owner) made sure everyone had options to do more or less, depending on their interest level.

If you have any interest in seeing Switzerland, or like hiking in the high mountains, this is worth every penny. You start in a town up in the Alps that you can only get to by cable car, and get to walk around this picturesque mountain farming town. The hikes head everywhere, including these great cabin-like places called "huttes" that serve homemade food, beer, coffee, and have bunks for sleeping if you want. I'd have liked to do a bit more hiking higher up and stay in one or two of the huttes, but we'd paid for nights and dinner at hotels, so didn't want to waste it. Still, it was about 7 hours of hiking every day, and good parts of it were pretty damn steep (and next to sheer dropoffs -- several places had rubber-covered wire through posts into the rock so hikers can keep from pitching over the side). Try walking downhill on a steep grade of rock for about 3 hours and see how your thighs feel the next day. Of course, that this should be seen as a positive factor shouldn't come as a surprise to readers, seeing how much time some of the Riders spend with a bike seat wedgie.

Like I said, I don't mean to sound like a commercial, but if you like hiking at all, I can't think of a better place or guide.

Switzerland itself was a lot of fun, as well. We spent a couple days in Lugano, which has a decidedly Italian feel. After the hiking we went to Lucerne, which is the big tourist city in Switzerland. Fun, despite it being a bit mobbed. Lucern also provided us with the cheesiest thing we did the entire time. After walking up and down mountains and walking around the city seeing statues, museums, shops, and more, we found a place that (it turned out) caters to bus tours for retirees. Incredibly cheesy review of "traditional" Swiss culture such as alpinhorns (think Ricola ads), yodeling, and more. The food was decent, and being able to sit and drink huge steins of beer while being utterly entertained ended up being a lot of fun. I think it kills a little bit of the native Swiss soul every time the show is performed, however. And finally one night was spent in Zurich. Didn't get to see a whole lot of it, but it seemed like decent place. Lots of variety, good mix of the German, Swiss, French and Italian influences. And had a fantastic meal at a very moody Spanish restaurant.

I should get some of my shots up, but I'm on my linux box, and don't have decent editing software that I know how to use. Maybe I'll just dump them all onto a Flickr account. In general, the shots are what you'd expect from a point-and-shoot digital. Decent detail, but not much control in the outcome, so I have a lot of really grey shots and things that kind of get washed out. Plus -- and this really isn't just an excuse -- on sunny days the display on the back of the camera (there is no viewfinder) is almost impossible to see. So framing shots was pretty much random.