I could have told you that this is what we saw when we looked out the window of the observatory at the Top of Europe, but I’d be lying. There was absolutely nothing to see because of snow and fog. So we posed in front of a giant poster of the view.

Isn’t that the most beautiful view you’ve ever seen? And I’m not talking about the mountain.

The trains to the Top of Europe were spotless, fast and remarkably quiet. The Swiss tourism people should promote them as heavily as they promote the Alps.

I wish I had a dollar for every time someone has looked at Jamie and me and said, “What the hell is she doing with you?” It is a very good question that I’m sure I’ve heard a thousand times. Maybe more.

This is the view from our hotel room in Wengen. The scale of the view is so big that it reminds us of the Grand Canyon — it’s just so big that your brain can’t comprehend the perspective. In other words, this photo doesn’t do justice to the actual view.

So you travel all the way to the Swiss Alps and you take a series of trains all the way to the top of the Alps — what locals call The Top of Europe — hoping to see the most expansive, most breathtaking view of your life.

Except that when you get off the train and rush to the window of the observatory, an unexpected summer storm has rolled in and all you can see is snow and fog, a complete white out. You can’t see 20 feet in front of you. Peer out the window as hard as you like, you still won’t see a 14,000 foot high mountain nor an immense glacier about which your waiter says, “Too bad you can’t see it today. It’s developing a big crack right in front of the restaurant.”

Oh, well, no big deal. At least you can take the much-touted Lindt Chocolate factory tour at Jungfraujoch.

Except that when you begin the self-guided tour you realize that it’s really just a small room, maybe the size of your living room, with a couple half-assed displays and that it is really a commercial scam designed to herd you into the Lindt Chocolate store where hundreds of frenzied Chinese tourists are snatching up candy as if chocolate has replaced the yuan as legal tender in Shanghai.

But let’s try to remain positive here. The train rides were spectacular (I seem to be using that word a lot here in Switzerland), with postcard views of Alpine lakes, massive glaciers, and towering mountains in every direction.

When they weren’t obscured by the summer storm, that is.

UPDATE: Based on the crash of the Chinese stock market today, chocolate candy may, indeed, replace the yuan as legal tender in Shanghai. Foreign exchange is a crazier casino than anything Las Vegas has to offer.

Fondue is on every menu in every restaurant here in Switzerland. As you can see, some restaurants even use it as a lure to attract hungry passersby. Much like flies are drawn to roadkill.

I’m no gourmand, particularly after having my nose reamed out in three different surgeries that seem to have destroyed about 75% of my senses of taste and smell, so I have no idea why fondue is so popular here in Switzerland. I suppose it must be some kind of traditional Swiss food.

Either that or the entire country is suffering from an acid flashback to the early ’70s.

I don’t mind saying that my memories of fondue from those years are not positive. Sitting around with a bunch of other people poking pieces of meat and veggies into a pot of ghastly-smelling, semi-solid cheese does not rank highly in my Book of Golden Memories.

Put me in the fondon’t camp.

The Eiger is one of the world’s great mountains. Clint Eastwood even made a movie about it back in 1975. Far as I know, it’s the only mountain that ever co-starred in a mainstream movie. Watch the trailer and I think you’ll agree that the mountain has clearly held up much better than the movie.

I had a girlfriend back then who loved Clint Eastwood, so we had to see all his films. Had he knocked on her door and said, “Let’s go. Right now. You and me”, she would have forgotten I existed and run away with him. Much like Jamie would do today if George Clooney knocked on our door. I don’t think she’d even take the time to write me a good-bye note.

But back to the movie. Clint played a James Bond wannabe. He’s given an assignment to kill another unknown enemy spy, and the film’s plot revolves around Clint’s attempts to figure out who the spy is and dispatch him before the spy can kill him.

And while he’s figuring it out, he climbs the Eiger. Presumably because it provides more action than hanging around the ski lodge drinking hot toddys and eating fondue.

Mountain climbers consider the Eiger to be a bit of a challenge. The first ascent of the west flank didn’t happen until 1858. The north face, long considered one of the world’s most challenging and dangerous ascents, wasn’t climbed until 1938. At least sixty-four climbers have died attempting to climb the north face, earning the Eiger the German nickname Mordwand, which means “murderous wall”.

Kleine Scheidegg (where our buddy Ray used to work at the Hotel Scheidegg) sits at the base of the Eiger’s north face, and our hotel in Wengen, a few miles away, also has a great view of the mountain.

We’re here in Kleine Scheidegg because my buddy Ray recommended it. I’m not real sure of the details, but he lived here sometime in the early ’70s.

He worked at what was then called the Hotel Scheidegg. It’s now called the Hotel Bellvue des Alpes. My high school French is a little rusty, but I believe the English translation of that name is “We Charge An Arm and A Leg Because of The View Hotel”.

After you’ve taken in the incredible view of the Eiger (the mountain behind the hotel), there’s not a lot in Kleine Scheidegg. A train station, a few restaurants, and the Fondue Hall of Fame (I made up that last one, but I wouldn’t be surprised if such a place exists somewhere here in Switzerland).

Ray worked as a waiter, but his primary occupation was ski bum.

Hey, Ray, the train rides you recommended were great and the view from Kleine Scheidegg was even better. Thanks.

We rented a car to drive around Switzerland and left Zurich at 8:00 on Saturday morning in an attempt to get to Lucerne before the weekend rush.

Zurich to Lucerne is just a 40 minute drive through beautiful countryside on sparkling new freeways. That was the easy part. Once we got to Lucerne we must have turned left when we were supposed to turn right or right when we should have turned left, because we got ourselves lost.

We asked several people for directions and what we got from one friendly woman was (and this is a quote), “Left, right, right, right, right” and then she made a series of circular, downward motions.

I figured the hotel was near the lake, so I just kept turning in any direction that looked downhill. We were completely lost when we stopped at a red light. Jamie was just saying, “We’ll never find this place” when I looked to our left and said, “Hey, isn’t that our hotel?” Pure, blind luck.

This is it. The Waldstätterhof Hotel. I’m tempted to say, “How could we miss it?” but there are so many spectacular old buildings in Lucerne that it doesn’t stand out.

We had breakfast across the street from the lake and just below this church. I’m not sure if Jamie’s ever set foot in a church, but for some odd reason, she cannot pass one without taking a photo. Even if it’s a dark, bad photo.

This is Joanne from Singapore. She asked us to take her photo in front of the church. I cannot explain why she and Jamie appear to be bosom buddies.

And now a series of random shots from the neighborhood around our hotel.

I had written a mildly amusing story about our experience flying Iceland Air from Reykjavik to Zurich, but never got around to putting it up and now it’s too late to post it. The short version is that they upgraded us to First Class. We don’t know why, but we didn’t argue.

Once we got in the air, one of the flight attendants came over and apologized that they didn’t have a first class meal for us because we had been upgraded at the last moment. Instead, I guess, they gave us a big, honkin’ milk chocolate bar. I showed admirable restraint by putting it in my backpack instead of wolfing it down immediately.

Well, today was the day that will power deserted me. I started out eating one tiny portion and ended up eating the whole damn thing. Jamie just sat across from me on the train and shook her head in amazement. Or maybe it was disgust. I’m not sure which.

I was happy when I started, but very sad when I got down to the last little piece.

I saw a Volkswagen today. That is, as far as I can tell, an unusual occurence here in Zurich, because most people are driving Ferraris, Bentleys, Maseratis, Porsches, and Jaguars. If you drive a Mercedes-Benz here, you’re probably a taxi driver. No exaggeration. Most of the taxis would be luxury cars in the United States.

I once read a book called The Gnomes of Zurich, which was about the small cadre of Swiss bankers who move markets and control currencies.

These people have money. Serious money. Remember Pig Pen, the Peanuts character who was permanently surrounded by a cloud of dirt? It’s a lot like that here, except the cloud surrounding these people is composed of Swiss francs.

Their socks cost more than my pants. Their pants cost more than my car. Their car costs more than my house.

Good for them. I don’t have a jealous bone in my body. In the words of former Los Angeles Dodgers great Willie Davis, “I ain’t gonna worry about it, because it ain’t my wife and it ain’t my life.”

All that aside, Zurich is absolutely beautiful. And people who know tell me it’s one of the least beautiful places in the country. Hard to believe based on these photos.

Jamie keeps hearing a whisper that repeats the words, “Swiss chocolate. Swiss chocolate. Swiss….”

I finally looked at the lens only to find out that Jamie was looking somewhere else. I promise we’ll get this worked out by the time we get to Sri Lanka.

There’s a festival going on in Zurich’s Old Town tonight. The streets are packed. So is my belly.

I spilled half my dinner on my T-shirt. Jamie is subtly attempting to cover the stain in this shot.

We wish we had taken more photos of Reykjavik (pronounced wreck-a-vick), but we were so busy running around from morning ’til night, and so exhausted when we were done, that we had no time for photography. Besides, these photos I pulled off the internet are far better than anything we could ever take.

They like color in Reykjavik. They like it a lot and they like a lot of it. Considering how long and cold and dark and dank the winters are in this part of the world, it’s no wonder they use their buildings to add a little color to their lives.

The Reykjavik Opera House, just a couple blocks from our hotel. Pretty impressive structure for a nation of just 300,000 people. I read that something like 80% of the population attended one event or another at the Opera House last year.

This is one end of Laugavegur, the main street through old town Reykjavik. Yes, it’s a one lane street. And during rush hour (such as it is here in Reykjavik) they close the street and turn it into a pedestrian mall by swinging shut this colorful bicycle gate.

The is Laugavegur at the other end of the temporary pedestrian mall. Different color bike, same purpose.

They painted a street for Gay Pride Week. It looks like it leads right to the church, but I’m betting that’s an optical illusion.

Two years ago we visited Iceland for four days. We wanted to return someday, but as we were planning the trip, Iceland Air began a special promotion that allows you to do a free Iceland layover when you fly on with them to any other destination.

We love Iceland Air because the service is great and the fares are crazy low (its Business Class runs about the same as other airlines’ economy fares). So despite the fact that we really didn’t think we were ready for another trip to Iceland, we booked an overnight stay in Reykjavik on our way to Zurich, Switzerland.

Jamie and I agreed that we had the two best meals of our previous six month journey during out stay in Iceland. So odd as it sounds, we came back on this trip just to have breakfast and dinner in the same restaurants in which we dined two years ago.

Our flight arrived from Toronto at 6:30 a.m. and we knew within a few minutes that we had made a terrible error. We should have stayed longer. Reykjavik is such a cool, beautiful little city, the people are so pleasant, and there’s so much to do that we knew almost immediately that 24 hours just wasn’t enough time.

But it is what it is, so we decided to cram as much as possible into our one allotted day.

Have you noticed that I never seem to know where to look when I’m taking a selfie? I think I’m looking at the button I’m pushing instead of the lens. Anyway, here we are looking all excited as we sat down on the Iceland Air flight.

After a quick breakfast at the Grai Kotturinn (Gray Cat) Restaurant, we headed for the Blue Lagoon, a huge pool of steaming hot geothermal sea water. It was very romantic — just us and several hundred other people.

The milky, mineral-rich, aqua blue water simmers somewhere between 98-102 degrees Farenheit. White Silica mud settles at the bottom of the lagoon and doubles up as a mineral-rich face pack. It made Jamie’s skin silky smooth. It helped me put on 10 pounds of pure muscle, re-grow a full head of thick brown hair, and gave me the vigor of an 18-year old boy.

Jamie didn’t want me to include this photo because she says I look dead. But she’s clearly wrong because I have the vigor of an 18-year old boy.

Late in the afternoon, after our return from the Blue Lagoon, we visited one of Reykjavik’s most famous places — the International Phallological Museum aka The Penis Museum. The founder was a college professor who, for some inexplicable reason, began collecting the penises of every land and sea mammal native to Iceland and its surrounding waters. The collection finally outgrew his garage, so he opened the museum. The population of Iceland is just a hair over 300,000 yet the Penis Museum draws a million visitors annually.

Here I am admiring (?) the penises of a Blue Whale and a Sperm Whale. They may be large, but what good are they without the vigor of an 18-year old boy?

We ended the night with dinner at GrillMarkdurinn, the restaurant that inspired our return trip to Reykjavik. It was just as good this time around. Jamie had the salmon and I had sampler portions of cod, salmon and monkfish. The menu also offered horse, whale and puffin, but we managed to resist.

Then, since we had only had one hour’s sleep the previous night, we went back to our hotel and went to sleep, content in the knowledge that we had crammed as much into 24 hours as possible. Tomorrow morning we’ll be up at 3:30 a.m. to catch a flight to Zurich, Switzerland.

By the way, have I mentioned that I now have the vigor of an 18-year old boy?