It was time… Time to go for a little trip, escape from that work routine every day…

So where to go if you live in the north of Switzerland… Of course the south!

We went to the amazing Ticino (still Switzerland) to our favorite city there… Ascona.
So we booked a little sweet hotel nearby Ascona because there were no rooms left in the city (holiday time in Switzerland), packed our bags and go.

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A must go is the St. Gotthard mountain pass. If you go at the end of springtime it’s an epic ride. You start down in the valley with summer temperatures around 20-25 degrees Celsius drive up that pass to 2100m and end up there at 5 degrees and walls of snow… just breathtaking.

We rested up there for around an hour to get our drone up for some epic shots and enjoyed the epic landscape. Growing clouds fighting through the pass, cracking ice from the lakes… couldn’t be better.

After that little break, we drove down the pass straight to San Nazzaro where we booked our hotel. A tiny little boutique hotel Named Villa Sarnia with view on the lake. Perfect!
So take that bags and let’s go to the lake after that 3.5h ride.

Cabriolet time Claudia OPEN THAT ROOF 😀

The rest of the day was just relaxing, have some amazing pizza and enjoying the great sunset.

Day 2:

What to do when you have a hotel next to the lake Lago Maggiore… Of course.. Take a boat from Ascona Boat rental what else 😀 So we booked a little boat from a super friendly guy (that looks like a typical pirate just with the wrong clothes 😀 ) and drove out to Island Brissago.
Island Brissago is a little Botanique fairy tale magic island… yeah I think those are the right words to describe that little island. On top, you find a lovely villa where you can have some drinks and stuff (we didn’t) surrounded by the most diversity of plants we ever have seen. Yo can spend hours just wandering around on that small island through the tunnels of plants, giant palm trees, poison bushes and and and… After we discovered the island it was time to get back… yeah… did i tell you my (Bastian) boat driving skill especially landing the boat at the pier aren’t the best? 😀 Our pirate friend from the boat rental had a hard time getting us at the right position to exit the little boat 😀 But he was fine just laughing 😀 If you wanna rent a boat go to Ascona Boat rental (Link here). It’s around 60 Bucks for an hour ride definitely worth it.

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Because the day was running so fast, we weren’t that motivated to go for another trip for that day. So we decided to take some drinks and maybe… some of that good pizza the day before? 😀
We ended up at an epic fresh BBQ place called DaGina where I had the best lamb ribs ever and Claudia had some amazing steak with potato. Perfect ending to an amazing day!

Day 3: After we went a little late to bed the day before (not our fault… taking pictures at the evening was just to much fun 😀 ) we went to Valle Verzasca, an epic valley with a famous hobbit bridge (see here) with a little stop at the famous James Bond dam from the Goldeneye movie (not that interesting in our opinion but if you are interested in bungee jumping you definitely should go for it!!!).
Valle Verzasca is an amazing place for hiking, sunbathing and “swimming”. Swimming in ” ” because it’s a glacier river with some rough rapids aaaand so it’s very dangerous but beautiful AF. Blue perfect clear water with some spots without any tourists (at the hobbit bridge it is as good as impossible to find a spot to sit 😀 – go there but not for chilling! ). I recommend to park your car at the bridge, cross the bridge and then hike up (right-hand side when you cross the bridge) for 10-15 minutes. You will find amazing huge rocks where you can rest and sunbathe with as good as no other people just amazing!!!

We stayed there for the whole day and burned ourself as never before 😀 No Sunblocker + 30 degrees Celsius + windy… not the best combination 😀 But worth it in my opinion 😀

After a little hike back we went to Cannobio a little city at the Italian side of the lake for some dinner (much cheaper than in Ascona but not as good by far as in Ascona 😉. 2 Plates of pasta, some ice cream.

SO….

If you ever come to Switzerland in the summertime you shouldn’t miss Ticino! Of course go to Zurich, Lucerne, Bale, The Matterhorn and all that stuff but if you like Mountains, Lakes some Italian flair go down there and enjoy your time.

Live and Laugh, Be Gone.
Bastian&Claudia

Back on the road after all that moving from Germany to Switzerland.

I am so happy we’re finally done with moving and have time to travel again (I don’t want to complain I love our new apartment and I am so happy to live now together with Claudia <3)

So… Why Burg Eltz, why the hack drive 3-4 hours for an old castle…

We saw a lot of pictures of Burg Eltz in Germany (Moseltal) and fell I love with this amazing piece of history. So we thought it would be an amazing idea to drive up there to take some amazing pictures for you guys so you probably want to go there too.

Yea… it looked like the rest of Germany, Belgium, Holland, and Switzerland had that same idea (we probably could have known it “eastern holidays in all countries here” but we had to learn it as we say it in Germany “on the hard way – auf dam harten weg“). Traffic jam… The ride on the Germany motorway should normally take 3,5-4 hours (no-speed-limit WOOP…) yeah… at the end the ride took us 5hours, with no use of the “no-speed-limit”. But we though had a fun time driving (standing) and enjoying the amazing landscape.

For us it’s very special to see a “flat country” without any hills. In South Germany or Switzerland its impossible to find a flat spot :D.

We started at 8 am and arrived around 1 pm noon. After we found our amazing hotel (www.romantisches-hotel-zur-post.de) we took our cameras and started for the last ride to Burg Eltz (here are some pictures of our hotel. We were just watching for a cheap bed to sleep for one night but this hotel was absolutely stunning and beautiful. The style was 100% baroque and perfect for our little “castle trip” – If you want to go to Burg Eltz we highly recommend to stay there!!!).

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After another 15 minute ride to the castle, we finally saw it. This amazing castle on his little rock just sitting there, just amazing!

Short historic facts, the castle was build around the 12th century, never got destroyed so it’s still original (no more facts necessary 😉 ).

It’s such a romantic, fascinating and epic place… We bought some tickets (10 EUR) for the guided tour (it’s not allowed to go for yourself) and started the tour.

Yea.. Claudia and I are both landscape lovers but not the biggest fans of this guided stuff… After all that “this picture of the daughter of the grandfather 3rd grade from 1359 stuff) we went to the outside for a little hike to take some amazing pictures. Sadly there was some construction going on at the outside but it’s still an amazing few. The castle with all his towers, thick walls and amazing paintings surrounded by the “Moselforest”, epic!

So.. My recommendation for this place!! LISTEN!! 😀

Take that money for the tour, speed through and then take more time for the hike around the castle. The amazing “thing” about this castle is its beauty from the outside. Further, i recommend to go there reeealy early or late (5 pm). The castle is closing at 6 pm so you can take the tour and then enjoy it without all the tourist (yes there are a lot of them).

I hope you took your notes 😉

After that… time to eat! Of course, we were looking for some real German food with real German beer (especially the German beer of course!). We found a tiny restaurant (www.muehle-vogelsang.de) with a small but fresh menu. Amazing beer and amazing steak and just a 2 minutes drive from our hotel. Also recommendable!

And finally… time to go to sleep. Back to our cute room. And good night.

The day after just boring driving home, with some time for stops to see the cutest goats EVER (really! EVER!) and some drone shots from another castle and…. This time no traffic jam and USES OF THE NO SPEEDLIMIT 😀 (you remember that 5 hour ride the day before? Back home 3,5 YES 😀 ).

And now… time to edit this 27.8 GB of video and photo footage to finish the video and bring you guys some preeeetty DOPE pictures on Instagram (shameless plug to Claudia.Is.Gone and Basto.Is.Gone 😉 ).

I hope you enjoyed reading this little trip diary and we… read next time? Something like that… 😀

 

Cheers, I AM GONE.

 

 

And we are back from the heat of New York.

It was an amazing trip to a “bucket list place” we’ve always wanted to go.

August isn’t possible the best time to travel to New York because it was unbelievable hot without any wind in the deep canyons of skyscrapers but it was though amazing.

To see these buildings which look like they grow endless in the sky, the caps you just saw in movies, the move, the rush and the pulse of the city… just inspiring.

We stood at Double Tree by Hilton 36th street, straight next to Times Square. Sweet small hotel, a nice Bed with a good Breakfast. If you wanna live straight in the center but still a little bit less noisy I can recommend this hotel! 5 Minute’s walkway to the Times Square 10 minutes to the highline….

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Our days were packed full with sightseeing, shopping and a looot of walking.

I don’t have to tell you how amazing it was standing at the top of the empire state building watching down to all the minions, walking at the highline, visiting the statute of liberty, standing at the famous times square hiking through central park… endless amazing places to visit.

In spite of this amazing places our favorite place to be in this heat was the Hudson… Walking down the river watching all these running people enjoying the breeze and calm down from the city rush.

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Also, the GreenLine gives you some kind of the same feeling. More space for yourself (still much tourism there but much more relaxed) and some green and amazing views through the city. Nice spot to walk through!!!

Another highlight for me was the helicopter flight around/above New York. It gives you this amazing view about this giant city… For us, little people from Switzerland it’s just breathtaking how big a city can be. For example, the biggest city in Switzerland is Zürich with around 400.000 residents.

After all that sightseeing, hopping on travel buses, running to Casey Neistats Studio (another Bucketlist thing 😀 ), eating one dollar pizza and amazing steaks at Wolfgangs we wanted to the Niagara Falls. So wake up early, bus ride to a small airport and up in the sky straight to Niagara Falls.

We always wanted to see this giant falls and had to catch the chance to go there. But… I have to say for us it was a liiittle bit disappointing! Of course, the falls are amazing and impressive and we watched it from the bridge, the boat and the heli but… All that tourism, all the buildings, parking spaces, tours… It took all the romantic of this amazing piece of earth for us. So if you have the time go there and make your own experience but I don’t know if I can recommend it… maybe we should have to go to the Canadian side to watch it… But time was not our friend on this little trip, our plane back to New York was waiting.

So… sightseeing – CHECK, exploring New York – CHECK, Niagara Falls – CHECK…. Shopping….. lets go 😀

We took a early bus from central station to Woodbury. I was a little sick but still wanted to go there (you cant tell your girl “we are in new york but shopping… naaaa not this time) DONT DO THAT! 😉 So we went out there and i was glad we did it tough. Woodbury is an amazing outlet city with tons and tons of stores, restaurants and a lot more. Recommend that? YES. If you want to go shopping for less then the half price you would pay in europe go for it 😀

And so far i think / hope i didn’t forget to much.

To resume, it was amazing!

If you haven’t been in NewYork you definitly should take 7-10 days to have a relaxed trip. Try to see as much as you can at the beginning and than take your time to visit the most interessting places again with much time and without any rush (for a fast a nice rush through the city i can recommend the HopOnHop of tours for example from BigBusTours… Nice and not that expensive. You also are allowed to take the ferry to liberty island with the BigBusTours ticket).

Another tip, buy the tickets for Empire State Building online a few weeks before you start your trip.. The line in front of the ticketcounter was… long (Buy ticket here!)

And go for the “Open Heli Tour” you will never get a better view of the city!!!! (No doors is a little scary but just stunning and an amazing experience flynyon.com!

And thats it… stay tuned for more 🙂

We are GONE.

 

 

jungfraujoch

Finally, we have Christmas holidays.
After being with our families and eat great food we wanted to see something…or just go for a little trip to somewhere. “Accidentally” I saw a pretty good deal for the railway to the Jungfraujoch. Normally it costs around 100 Euro but with our deal, it was “just” 60Euro (each person).

So we booked the trip and 4 days later we were on the road to Jungfraujoch (Booking information here the also are very nice if you call them).
We had to take two Railways. The first one was just a normal Railway up to kleine Scheidegg. Arrived there we toke the famous red Railway up to Jungfraujoch. That red Railway to the top of Jungfraujoch is the highest railway station in Europe and one of the most photographed scenery in Switzerland. We were so excited and I can tell you..already the ride was just amazing. There is one stop in the middle of the mountain. To think..right now you are standing right in the middle of the mountain. That’s crazy!

Here the view from the inside of the mountain through a window out to the Jungfrau glacier.

 

jungfraujoch

After taking some pictures at this beautiful glacier-viewpoint we had to go back to the train and after a small ride, we arrived at the top of Jungfraujoch (Top of Europe).

I can definitely recommend Jungfraujoch. It’s expensive, I know but this view! You will never forget this beautiful and breathtaking view… It was stunning.

jungfraujoch

 

jungfraujoch

When you are finally up at the top you can go for different spots. There is an amazing viewpoint at the top of the observatory. You have a 360 view through the Swiss alps. To see the giant Aletsch Glacier, the famous Aiger North wall or just the never ending mountains… If you haven’t had this spot on your bucket list TAKE THE PEN AND NOTE IT DOWN 😉

We hiked for 2 hours through the snow and ice, had amazing lunch and took some quite nice pictures.

If you go to Switzerland, go up there!

So stay tuned for more, we are GONE!