Bachmann - Lucerne, Switzerland

Strange, but it's been almost exactly 5 years since I was last in Lucerne and surprisingly, things haven't changed that much (although my favourite Luzern Pasterli restaurant was gone and I couldn't find the Laderach chocolate shop). 

 One thing was the same: Bachmann

And they now have a panini counter!

They also have a buzzer system for when they're done making your panini! 

Ham and Cheese Baguette

Smoked Beef Panini

Curry Chicken Panini

All the sandwiches were okay, but I definitely liked the curry chicken panini the most - it had the most flavour. 

Smoked beef panini and salad

Apricot Tarte

Huge piece of pie and it was okay - not really exceptional though. 

I feel like Bachmann used to be better

Zurich, Switzerland

We stayed the night in Zurich and this was my breakfast:

Canned peaches, oranges, kiwi, sausage, macaroni salad and meatballs with orange juice

Definitely an interesting mix for breakfast (but who can resist meatballs and macaroni salad even if it's early in the morning?)

Mount Titlis, Switzerland

 

Glacier Walking at Mount Titlis!

Pretty cool to be up 10,000 feet (and I didn't have to hike it either!). 

One thing I learned from Peru - anything you eat at higher elevations tastes a LOT better. 

Mixed Chocolate Bark

So I prepared myself for what might be the best chocolate ever - and it was pretty good! 

I'm not sure if the chocolate was just that good (I loved the strawberry white chocolate bark with the chunks of strawberry and the bark with pecans and almonds) or if it tasted better because I was almost 10,000 feet up. Either way - the purchase was totally worth it. 

Luzern

Luzern is one of the most scenic towns in Switzerland and if you're up for lots of walking, you can do a lot here for free. 

  

    

 

There was a restaurant on Löwengartenstrasse next to the Lion Monument that served some really good food including Röti and other specialties for some of the cheapest prices we've seen in Switzerland.

Luzern Pasterli with salad

Swiss pastry with sausage, meat balls, mushrooms and ham

They made these really fast since they had a whole bunch of vol-au-vents readily available.

Chocolate Fondue

With pear, apple and banana slices - delicious!

Mmm Movenpick ice cream! (We were too impatient to eat them so we dug in. Hard ice cream + tiny plastic spoon = not a good idea). You can buy them everywhere in Luzern. 3,50₣ each

Confiseur Bachmann

Website: http://www.confiserie.ch/

Amazing - I love this bakery! Confiseur Bachmann has cakes, croissants, chocolate and more. And they felt like they were everywhere in Luzern! Gotta love a place with so many dessert options! (The downside? The Swiss Franc and the exchange rate to Canadian dollars - seriously frightening)

The Summerberry Lindt chocolate (I LOVE Lindt chocolate --> it's my not-so-secret weakness) and cake below cost 5,90₣ (approx. $10 CAD at the time) which is pretty reasonable for Switzerland prices.

It looks like a strawberry millefeuille but it's a Crèmeschnitten.

Anyways, it was delicious with flaky layers of pastry and layers of cream but it didn't really taste like strawberry (not that I minded). Definitely something you should try when you're in Lucerne! 

The morning veggie and ham croissant (for the long train journey to our next stop: Venice). Good, but painful on the wallet at 6,79₣

Läderach

Website: http://www.laederach.ch/en/

Fresh chocolate bark weighed by the pound. 

In this case it cost 8,60₣ for my chocolate, but oh wow was it ever worth it!

From the top left: blackberry white chocolate, milk chocolate hazelnut, white chocolate mixed fruit and strawberry white chocolate. Amazing! There's a reason why Swiss chocolate is the best in the world and Läderach goes a long way to prove it! I still have dreams about this chocolate...mmmm

Basel

We flew in to the Basel-Mulhouse-Freiburg Airport from Berlin using Easyjet. The Airport is located in France, but the closest city is Basel in Switzerland, then Mulhouse in France and Freiburg in Germany. A very central location for all 3 countries.

Flying around in Europe is so much cheaper and convenient than North America.

Scenic Basel pictures

 

 

A Chocolate tart from a local Basel Bakery on Eisengasse for 2,9₣ 

I searched the web for this tart (since it was relatively popular in Basel - we saw it in almost every bakery) - it's called a Carac and it's DELICIOUS! A Swiss pastry made using a pie crust then filled with soft chocolate and covered with green icing.

Chocolate shop - Sprüngli (http://www.spruengli.ch/?lang=en)

I bought a variety of Chocolate truffles:

  

There were rose, milk, pistache, cappuccino, boules, and a dark chocolate truffle.

The inside of the rose truffle

I didn't really like the truffles here. The rose was interesting, but I felt like I was eating a rosewater jam inside a milk chocolate outer coating. The pistache (which I thought I would really enjoy) failed to impress as well. The boule chocolate just tasted like a Ferrero Rocher and considering how much money I spent on the truffles (9.10₣), I felt kind of upset after.

Läckerli Huus (http://www.laeckerli-huus.ch/)

Plane ticket from Berlin to Basel: approx. 59€

Finding the Läckerli Huus with the famous Basler Läckerli bar and buying said bar: 2.60€

The Experience of Eating this Gingerbread Bar = Awful - it was disgusting! If you like gingerbread, you'll probably like this, but there's a weird like doughy aspect to it as well making it taste gross.

Grellinger (http://www.grellinger.ch/home)

We needed to get the taste of that awful bar out of our mouths and felt like we somehow needed to redeem Basel's food. So we went to Grellinger and bought two cakes:

Blueberry mousse and a Pear-Strawberry tart

The mousse was ok. The marshmallow topping was kinda different. The Pear-Strawberry Tart was great! The combination of the roasted almonds, pear slices, strawberry jam was quite good and it went together well. Definitely try out the sweets here! But there are other patisseries in Basel which offer the same types of things for less money (if you have time, you can do a little price comparison shopping - which is probably necessary since everything in Switzerland is expensive)

Conclusion: Basel was a hit and miss city for food. The prices for food here were much too expensive (even McDonalds was too pricey), we hoped to have more luck in Luzern and tried to tide ourselves over with sweet treats and as evident by the reviews above, some were good and some were bad.