General comments

1.     Paul, Mary, and Phyllis were on a self-planned, self-guided vacation, not a tour.  We hit 6 countries:  Austria, Germany (for one day), Liechtenstein (passing through on the train), Switzerland, Italy (for lunch), and France. 
 

2.     Photography by:  Mary, Paul, and Phyllis.
 

3.     Paul and Mary did a few things different than on our previous vacations: 

a.     We packed for ten days, to cut down on the number of laundry days (to 3 instead of 4 or 5).  And we did not wash whites in the room.  In addition, we packed warm clothes for the mountains.  Less laundry days were good, but that meant an extra suitcase, and the roll-ons were expanded, so they had to be checked.  And it was more of a hassle to cart the luggage around.  We normally pack for seven days – one roll-aboard and a backpack apiece, so we do not check luggage and it is easy to cart the luggage around.

b.     Paul bought a backup camera, on which he took a lot of pictures just to see how it did compared to his big camera.  It actually did quite well.  Paul also had trouble with Image Stabilization when using the program setting on his big camera, so was taking duplicate pictures on the automatic settings.  This, coupled with the backup camera, meant that we took a lot more pictures than normal, and thus had a lot more pictures to go through afterwards.

c.     We flew business class to Europe instead of economy.  This was close to first class but a lot less expensive.  You still get choice of individual movies, meals were included and were better than economy, wider seats than economy, and the seats laid down – but they were narrower than first class, making it harder to sleep.

d.     We normally watch a lot of the Olympics, but were traveling during them.   Fortunately, we did see a lot of it in the evenings in our rooms, although the commentary was in German, or, in one case, French.

 

4.  The hotels tended to be in the old or most interesting sections of town, making it easy to walk around.

5.  We drove in Austria and Germany, but we took the trains through Liechtenstein and in Switzerland, Italy, and France.  The drives we took and the trains we took were all very picturesque and scenic.  And views from the mountaintops were gorgeous.  Pictures do not do justice.  We do think it would have been even more dramatic scenery if we had gone late spring/early summer when there was more snow on the mountains and flowers in the meadows.  So we plan on going back.
 

6.     Trains in Switzerland are a great way to travel.  On time, and generally come every hour at the same time from the hour.  And the tourist bureaus or train ticket places will give you an itinerary of what trains to catch on which tracks, connections, and timetables.  And whoever would be driving can sightsee as well.  On the other hand, many pictures from the train did not turn out – reflections on the glass, blurry from the moving train, and bushes, poles, and signs getting in the way.  And driving allowed us to stop and explore and take photos often.  This is both a good thing and a bad thing, as it takes a long time to get anywhere when we are always stopping for photos (see the comments below for August 2).
 

7.     We had a Swiss Rail Pass, which came in very handy.  Most of our train trips in Switzerland were covered (not the extra for the special panorama cars on the express trains), and any gondola, cog train, funicular, or cable car between towns was free.  And generally a 50% discount on those that went to tourist sites, top of mountains, etc.
 

8.     It did rain some of the time, parts of 7 days.  But always just for part of the morning or part of the afternoon, and cleared up (or at least was just cloudy) after that.
 

9.     Frequently we could hear cow bells whenever we were on the mountains, whether one could see the cows or not – they are ubiquitous throughout the Alps.
 

10.     Smoking is a lot more prevalent than here.  Ashtrays were on every table in the restaurants.  But only twice, I think, did we have to move because of smokers.