My day started by taking care of the essentials – yarn shop and souvenir shop. I usually don’t do the souvenirs, but I have a special friend in a nursing home, and I wanted to bring her something from my trip. What better representation of Switzerland than a St. Bernard with cask around its neck? She’ll get some Swiss chocolates, too.

There are a few yarn shops nearby, and the first one I visited fit the bill. I like to by a skein of yarn when I travel so that I can make something to remember my trip. I find a pair of socks or shawl more practical than a fridge magnet. Oh, I might get one of those, too. 😁 This yarn shop had a display with a one-skein shawl knit up with oh-so-soft yarn from Italy. I bought a skein of the yarn and the pattern. Then I spent some time trying to translate the pattern from German to English. I think I figured it out, but I’ll do a test knit to see if it looks right.

I met up with Claire, another plus one on the conference, for lunch and a walk around town. There is no shortage of eateries here in the city, and we chose a place with outside tables near our hotel. Haus Hiltl claims to be the oldest vegetarian restaurant in the world, but I’m a bit skeptical. There were no vegetarian restaurants before 1898? In any case, it was a tasty lunch and we had a good time getting to know each other.

Our walking tour took us through downtown to the east side of the city. We popped into some shops, visited a very old church, walked to the lake and along the shore to the Arboretum. It looks like the big lion statue once marked the entrance to the boat ramp for a huge estate house. This area must have been spectacular back in the day. It was a beautiful day to be outside!