HOTEL CONTINENTAL,
FRANKFURT, 18th June 1958
My dear darling Children,
Before telling you all about ZURICH I might give you a general impression of ROME. As an old City ROME had rather too much of the old to "digest" in so short a time. ROME is lovelier than ATHENS. I could not, however, completely appreciate ROME. We were told that one needed to stay in ROME long enough to appreciate it. We were also told that if one stayed there long enough one would not like to leave it - there would be some thing magnetic to draw one back to ROME. We did not realise that but we did, however feel sad when we had to leaveit. I had the same feeling when we had to leave ATHENS. Generally speaking we enjoyed our stay in ROME.
Thursday 12th June: We flew to ZURICH by a plane of the ALITALIA line which took us 3 1/2 hours with 45 minutes stop at GENEVA. We were immediately struck by the neatness of the City, the honesty of the people and the loveliness of the rural districts. We were rather tired and stayed in the hotel, HOTEL CENTRAL, until the evening when we just strolled in the City, before dinner after which we went to bed.
Friday 13th June: We got up rather late - still tired. After breakfast we went to post letters - one to you too, and went window shopping. Oh, so many lovely things in the show-cases. The snags are money and space & weight in the baggage.
In the afternoon we toured the City where most of the buildings were modern mixed with a slight tinge of the old - just my idea of a beautiful City. The City was on LAKE OF ZURICH. It's just lovely, lovely..........I just cannot explian or "paint" it! The population of ZURICH is approximately 500,000 - most of them speak German or rather a dialect of the German language. The official of Switzerland are German, French and Italian.
We went to bed rather early and about 3AM. I woke up and realised that we have missed something - a small musical table we bought in the ISLE OF CAPRI. I jumped out of bed and searched the cupboard. Of course, it wasn't there because earlier in the day we were sorting out our purchases but did not see this table. Mak woke up and when I told her what's the trouble we kept awake trying to retrace our steps and trying to reconstruct the movements to see where we left it. Was it at the Air Port? No; said I, because I remembered to have got it checked by the Customs. We eventually decided that it was either at ST GOTTHARD HOTEL (where we went earlier as this Hotel was supposed to have booked but room was reserved for us - something wrong!) or it might have been left in the taxi which took us to HOTEL CENTRAL. I had to read to put me back to sleep! It was an effort.
Saturday 14th June: We down to breakfast rather early as we were still anxious about the table. We went to the Reception counter and with some diffidence asked whether. by any chance, we had left a parcel. The Porter looked around and showed us some parcels. They were not ours but lastly he remembered and went to a corner and said "This?". With a big sigh of relief we recognised our parcel. So our guesses during the night were all wrong. We then went out window gazing and made some small purchases. In the afternoon we drove to the RHINE FALLS, the mightiest cataract in Europe. It was lovely to look at. We stopped at a place called STEIN ain RHEIN (ain means on). This was so called because here the river STEIN met the river RHINE ( the local people spelt it RHEIN). We drove back to lovely country side - most refreshing. Reached the Hotel tired but happy.
Sunday 15th June: Today was a day we did not plan to do anything in particular. Later in the afternoon we had a ride in a trolley bus. Of course, we had no particular station to go and so we picked on a place called ROMERHOF. We went there, strolled bit and came back.
Monday 16th June: An exciting day. Left the Hotel at 7.15AM for a trip to GRINDELWALD. All along the route the countryside scenery was marvellous - lakes, hills, waterfalls, rivers - until we came to GRINDELWALD where we came in view of snow capped mountains. We went up FIRST GRINDELWALD by aerial lift. It was exciting and invigorating. We came down after 1/2 hour stay up there. The trip by lift took us one hour to & fro. I enclose a pamphlet and also a picture of us taken as we were about to leave for the upward journey.
Generally speaking ZURICH was my best spot I have so far visited. I liked everything I saw and tomorrow we would leave for FRANKFURT and I would describe it in my next letter.
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Before breakfast today Yong's letter on behalf of you all was awaiting us. That was a wonderful break. We have missed you all so much that the letter was most welcome and we were glad to hear that you all were well. We have framed our group photograph and we always look at it. We know that you too are thinking of us. DO GET ALONG WELL TOGETHER! BE PATIENT WITH THE YOUNGER ONES!!
I have sent two letters earlier. I do hope you have received them with some pictures. More pictures now.
Salam and lots & lots of kisses and love from us to SAYANG, ADEK, INTAN, KUNTOM, NOR, ADEK SHOR, NAN, NAH, AJED and YONG. Sembah salam to Tah and salam to others.
Yours Ever Lovingly,
Mak & Bapak
4 comments:
I've had the pleasure to stay at Central Hotel, Zurich while I was working with SIA. Small & cozy but great central location near lake Zurich.
Great effort Chik! I have been to so many of the places mentioned and I would have been proud to have piloted an aeroplane for my Grandparents.
Hope you can type the rest of the letters.
How nice Adek. Had you have known earlier you could have told the peoplein Central Hotel, your grandparents were there in 1958....
I was first there in 1998, 40 years after they were there. Are there any pictures? If I had known I would have taken a few photos of my own at the Central Hotel.
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