London City Airport has been running this very cool bloggers’ photography series, called #NoFilter, focusing on the raw beauty of various destinations in Europe(hence the #NoFilter). This month’s chosen destination is Switzerland, as I was delighted to find out and decided to join in. This post is my attempt to offer a still life of a majestically beautiful and vibrantly colourful country. I hope my photos will do it justice!

Switzerland is a very emotionally-charged place for me, full of beautiful memories and still unfulfilled travelling potential. Lausanne and a summer children’s camp was the place where I won my first earnings. Which were more like pocket money, in all honesty, and which I spent swiftly on a “chocolat chaud” imagining how life must look like through the eyes of proper posh ladies like the ones in the picture below :-). Switzerland is the place where hubby proposed to me! A shy, almost unkempt girl who started living her own fairytale lulled by the mirage of the lake Léman and Montreux jazzy tales. Switzerland is the place we spent our first holiday together as a married couple. Talk about skiing at its best (and worst, for me, as I am such a scaredy-cat when it comes to speed and losing balance and control!), fondue dinners and sore muscles for a whole week! Switzerland is the place we returned and conceived our daughter, for our second winter holiday! No wonder she is fierce like the Swiss kirsch, full of flavour like a Nestlé chocolate bar and melting our hearts like Gruyère cheese! Switzerland is where we took Emma, for a third winter holiday for us, when she was only a wee tot. She enjoyed getting acquainted with the authentic Swiss village life, petting cows and going for long walks and drives around the canton.Switzerland is where I would have loved to take Georgie and Emma on their first holiday as siblings. Georgie loved the nature and colours and life and would have enjoyed the beauty that Switzerland has to offer, I know he would, so much! I had walks up unexplored mountain paths, chocolate factory trips and cheese sampling sessions planned for them for the years to come. But if Becky and Graham, editors of the Global Grasshopper travel website, and judges of these entries decide this blog post is the best, then we will honour Georgie’s memory and will take a trip to Switzerland with him in our hearts. It won’t be the same, of course it won’t but it will be a way to celebrate the boy who loved life so much. By doing life in his memory, by making memories with him in our minds and hearts!