Big travel day today. We got up early, packed up and hit the road. Our first stop was at the Migros grocery store. It was in a shopping mall not far from our Airbnb, and it was huge. The first challenge was fine in the parking lot, as there was a lot of construction in the area. We ended up having to make more than one pass until we could find the entrance to the parking lot and even then we were concerned that we were driving into a construction zone. It turned out to be a three-story Migros. We stocked up on chocolate, and got a pumice stone, a chicken & curry sandwich (Ryan) and a spinach croissant (Heather)and we were on our way. We also tried a bottle of Rivella (a traditional Swiss soft drink – it was OK).

Our next stop was the Chocolarium. It was a tour of an active chocolate factory and it was almost as good as the tour of Cadbury in England! All of the displays were in German and English and they have lots of really cute hands-on type of exhibits. For instance you could turn the wheel and this play would change as you want from one step to the next and the chocolate making process. They also had stations where you could lift a lid and squeeze a rubber balloon that would then share the aroma of whatever was in the display, so we got smells of chocolate at different steps of the process. (see photo on Facebook)

We also got samples of chocolate at different parts of the tour. We first got samples of crushed up chocolate nibs, which were better but still had chocolate flavor. The nextar head machine said squeezed out liquefied white chocolate, milk chocolate and dark chocolate on to little plastic spoons. The next station had broken up chocolate bars which we could grab with tongues. There were six different flavors to choose from. The next two stations each had small candy bars that you could choose. At the end of the tour, we were full!

More importantly, the view of the factory floor was really interesting. We saw where chocolate was poured into molds, separated into bars, wrapped and boxed. Highlights included one machine breaking done and the poor guys pulling out chunks of chocolate and not being to fix it, seeing the parallel conveyor belts with one running at a lower speed so the bars automatically changed orientation. The kids had fun the the self photo booth and we enjoyed making silly videos.

We continued east and went in search of the St. Gallen Brocki (Salvation Army) store. The uncertainty of trying to find the store was complicated by having to drive into an industrial area. We found the store, and to our surprise there was a Migros Outler next door. We checkout the Brocki and the outlet. Although the outlets sold sandwich fixings, we decided to buy something more substantial.

Are drove away from the Brocki, we got excited when we saw a sign for IKEA- home of 50 cent hotdogs and clean bathrooms. Unfortunately, there were a bunch of construction barricades (there are a lot of roads under construction here) and a lot of confusing signs and before we knew it, we were on the highway with IKEA in the rear view mirror. Oh well.

We stopped at a Coop market about 10 minutes later for mid-afternoon lunch/dinner. Ryan got a delicious slice of spinach pie and seaweed salad. Holly, Heather and I split bread and roast beef for sandwiches and Heather and I split a salad with smoked salmon, onions and capers and a container of tabouli. We brought out the Tikka Marsala flavored potato chips and enjoyed lunch on the road.

Forty minutes later, we rolled into Vaduz, Liechtenstein. We found a place to park (in a small lot under the main bank), and found our way to the information center. We got our passports stamped and wandered the Main Street (i.e. Pretty much the only street). We saw the castle where the royal family lives above the town, took pictures of the Alps and hit the road.

We have a two hour drive to our next stop in Innsbruck. Highlights included a large number of tunnels (for a while we spent more time in tunnels than outside them. The longest was about 6 miles long), two nice waterfalls and a castle. When we got to Innsbruck, we drove by the Olympic stadium and tried to get to the ski jump stadium, but only got a photo from the road.

We ended up having dinner at McDonald’s again (not by design, but it got to 8pm and all the local places were closed. We enjoyed using the automated ordering kiosk and found a unique sandwich to order – a burger with secret sauce and potato sticks. Plus they had thick-cut fries!

We drove onto Salzberg, playing games with our cell phones on the way and rolled into the Airbnb around 10pm. The place was really nice – had a large dining room table, a large sitting area and heated floors. We spent the rest of evening discussing plans for the week since we are expecting two rainy days – will be fun no matter what we do!