Zurich

After driving across Austria & spending an awesome day going up a mountain on a chair lift & coming back down again on the worlds longest alpine coaster we ended up at a beautiful campsite near Lake Fernsteinsee.

We parked the van next to a stream at the foot of a mountain...

...and went for a walk to find the lake. We passed a small river & a castle...

...and then found this!

The lake was insanely beautiful! We spent the rest of the afternoon hanging out there before heading onwards to Zurich bright & early the next morning.

Switzerland is just as stunning as Austria & this was the view from the motorway...

...I wish motorway's in the UK had scenery like this - it makes long drives much more fun.

We were a bit unsure of whether we'd like Zurich, we'd heard that it's pretty fancy & expensive and we are neither fancy nor expensive! We only decided to go there because it kept raining & we fancied being in a city rather than the countryside but it turns out that although it is indeed expensive Zurich's pretty awesome.

We arrived totally starving and headed out to Hiltl the parent company of Tibits which is one of favourite places to eat in London. Sadly, in comparison to the London restaurant the Swiss version has far fewer vegan options to choose from. We still managed to eat though which by that point was all I cared about!

The olive & tomato pasta salad was pretty good and I enjoyed the potato gratin, beans and steamed veggies but the highlight was probably the onion rings - awesome deep fried goodness!

Sadly there were no vegan dessert options at Hiltl but I was suitably sustained to go on the hunt for something sweet. We stumbled across a little health food store and found a vegan version of a mini chocolate magnum.

We ate the entire box sitting on a bench outside the store, we got A LOT of strange looks & I'm still unsure of whether it was because we were sitting under an umbrella eating ice cream or because you don't see many tattooed chicks on the streets of Zurich!

Dinner that day was one of the highlights of the entire trip, I'd read about Samses on Happy Cow & it was definitely worth the tram ride and surprisingly long walk from our hotel.

Nick ordered a tomatoey spaghetti dish and I satisfied my carb cravings with the mushroom risotto.

I definitely made the right choice, I love risotto and this one was perfect. For dessert we both opted for the chocolate mousse.

It was quite chocolatey but not too rich and full of crunchy bits of biscuit. I found it a little too creamy but Nick declared it to be the best dessert he'd ever eaten and managed to polish off 1/2 of mine too.

The food here was awesome & it was great to have so many options but the staff were also really friendly & seemed really excited to have two vegan guests! If you're in Zurich I'd say Samses is a must visit.

As promised I'll be back again tomorrow!