Sadly, it was time to leave Morschach behind – no more clifftop views over the turquoise lake. We were headed back to Zurich, but before then we had an important appointment to keep.  Victorinox, makers of Swiss Army knives, has an outlet store in Brunnen, and even better, they allow you to Make Your Own Knife (under strict supervision of course).  You make a Spartan knife, with two blades, a bottle opener, screwdriver or corkscrew, tweezers, toothpick, and other useful things. What makes these knives unique is that you can choose your own colour and engraving, and one of the blades is specially etched to indicated that it came from Brunnen.  Having seen this on The Amazing Race, how could we resist?

Ian chose a blue casing and I went for yellow.  We had to push and pull pedals and levers to tighten and lock things in place, and lay out each component in the correct position.  Next we hammered the rivets, then chose the font and wording for our engraving.  The finished products are certainly one of a kind.

Putting the components together

Adding more bits

Inside the knife

Hammering

Adding the corkscrew

Engraving

Finished!

Not content, we shopped till we dropped in the store (10% discount) – Ian bought a Rescue Tool for the car, which has blades for cutting seat belts and windscreen glass; a Cyber knife, which has all sorts of gizmos for fixing computers and other tech stuff; and a Swiss Champ, an all around knife with 34 components.  Meanwhile I excitedly purchased two vegetable peelers – if you have used a good quality European peeler, you will understand my excitement.  I have been wanting one for 3 years, ever since we first went to Hamburg.

Afterward we took a stroll in the sunshine around Brunnen, swinging our Victorinox designer bag and feeling like we were on the Riviera, amid the yachts, ferries and fishing boats making their way to and fro on the lake. The promenade is lined with fancy-schmancy hotels and outdoor restaurants.

Brunnen promenade

Brunnen lakeside

Morschach up on the cliffs

Ferry to Lucerne

Brunnen waterfront hotel

Designer shopping

No idea what it means

We’d splashed out on a 1 franc parking ticket, so when that ran out, we started wending our way north. We had several hours to kill before checkin time, so we left the freeway and took the lakeside road to Zug. It certainly hugged the shoreline closely. We couldn’t find anywhere to park safely on the narrow road, so we drove slowly through small villages with superb waterfront views. Once in Zug we went uphill to the Zugerberg, the local mountain, but there was no view from the bottom station of the cable car, so we munched our sandwiches and pressed on.

After Zug our route took us through the Zurich Wilderness Park, a pleasant bit of green space, before we got back on the freeway.  Before too long we were in Kloten, a suburb of Zurich adjacent to the airport. We were staying overnight in an apartment, dropping off the rental car, then catching a suburban train into Zurich before boarding our fast train to Frankfurt.

The apartment complex was interesting.  It was set up in blocks, over three storeys. Each block of 5 or 6 apartments shared a communal kitchen, and we had a private bedroom, bathroom, and small sitting area, plus our own fridge, cooktop and microwave. It was quite an efficient use of space, and comfortable enough.  We did miss our lakeside views, as we looked out over the neighbouring construction site and listened to jet engines roaring overhead (fortunately they stopped flying at night). This week’s reality entertainment was Die Bachelorette – it was either that or BBC News again, and there is only so much Brexit we can take!