A short trip to Switzerland

I left for Paul Scherrer Institut (PSI) in northern Switzerland, this morning. PSI is about half-way between Basel and Zürich, and is a tad over 3 hours away from Karlsruhe. The train ride through idyllic towns between Basel and Brugg, the closest train station from PSI, was enjoyable. I got to the institute before lunch. The talk that I was invited to give went well.

PSI was a nuclear and particle physics laboratory, but has now diversified into energy and material research. This diversification has brought a lot of users to the facility. Its guesthouse was fully booked tonight and I was put up at a (very nice) hotel in the nearby town Böttstein.

The scenery in the surrounding area is gorgeous. Here are two pictures that were taken on the hotel grounds.