This past weekend was my first weekend leaving Italy so far, and my destination was Switzerland. After spending the weekend in both Interlaken and Zurich, my two impressions are that of breathtaking beauty and then my breath being taken away when I look at my credit card statement.

Interlaken was absolutely gorgeous. Though I am not a fan of cold weather and I don’t ski or snowboard, I could still appreciate how amazing the mountains were. I actually chose to paraglide and bungy jump in lieu of hitting the slopes, but unfortunately both activities were cancelled due to avalanche warnings.

The view of Lake Brienz in Interlaken

Before leaving for Switzerland, I was told that the food was going to be crazy expensive, so I braced myself as well as packed a few peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. The food in Interlaken was as expected-around 20 francs an entree. This, however, was nothing compared to Zurich.

Since I missed out on jumping off of cliffs like I wanted to in Interlaken, I chose to do a day trip to Zurich instead. Zurich is apparently the third most expensive city in the world and it definitely lived up to that title. After sight seeing and visiting Starbucks (several times), we went to go find lunch. The only place we could fine that we could afford ended up being a very casual pizza place (because we needed more pizza, right?) which was around 25 francs a person. The average menu we looked at was about 40 francs a person, and we saw up to 180 francs for one single entree at one restaurant!

One thing I noticed in Zurich that was pretty cool (besides their ability to make money disappear from my wallet) was that many different languages were spoken. The Swiss generally speak in Swiss German, but many people were pretty good at speaking English, Italian, Spanish, and French as well. I started to pick a different language to say “Thank you” and “Excuse me” in every time I had to speak to somebody, and it was really awesome when they replied in the same language.

Overall, my weekend was enjoyable. I loved being able to some new scenery, especially the Alps since I haven’t seen snow since last year, but I definitely am glad that I live in Florence, where pizza can be found for 5 euros!