In the mountains

The weather suddenly turned warm and we're taking advantage of it. After our adventures in the Heidi Village, we headed off with Charlene to the Engadine Valley. I've wanted to come here for many years, and feared that I'd be thwarted once again by bad weather. In fact, the bad weather just made the mountains extra pretty, capped in fresh snow. We came to a place called Diavolezza, at the top of a cable car ride up a steep mountain. Last time we rode a cable car, we looked with our binoculars at the chamois below us. This time, we saw ski tracks instead, the result of a few intrepid skiers.

At the top, we didn't have to put on all the clothes we brought because the sun shined brightly and kept us warm. After admiring the great views in all directions, we sat down at an outdoor patio to eat a delicious lunch. And after lunch I figured out why I had a greasy spot on my pants: I'd absentmindedly put a couple of little chocolate bars into my pocket and the melted chocolate had coated my leg and the inside of my pants. I'm sure it was delicious, but I didn't get to try it.

We did see our chamois, but not so far away as last year. Today, for example, we surprised a couple of them as we walked near a nice clear mountain stream as we hiked above S-charl. I heard an animal in the bushes and turned to see a chamois about two meters away. I remarked to Alla and Charlene, "Well, look who's here!" The chamois didn't want to stay around for introductions, and bolted across the trail into the woods along with its partner.

We're staying in Guarda, at a wonderful inn called Hotel Meisser. Somehow Charlene found a deal on the Internet at about half the usual rate, and we jumped on it. Alla and I have a wonderful room with a balcony and a view. After checking in yesterday, we hiked to the next village, which involved lots of smelling the flowers and photographing the changing views. Spring has arrived in force around here, and wildflowers fill most of the meadows. Today we saw more big meadows, leading to steep snow-capped mountains.

Tourists

Switzerland got snow in the mountains last week so we couldn’t start with our planned itinerary. A couple of days ago, then, Charlene took us to Stein am Rhein because it’s cute and not so high. While we were wandering around the town she found a fish restaurant with one big pike still unreserved. She booked it. Wow, we concluded our day with a delicious dinner. Too bad we didn’t think to take a picture of our fish before we ate it. It looked just as delicious as it tasted, but we didn’t look at it for very long before the waiter dismantled it and laid the meat onto our plates with butter-herb sauce.

The next day we took a boat to Schaffhausen, intending to ride back on rental bikes. When Alla got onto her bike, however, she decided she didn’t remember how to ride a bike. She’s used to riding on the back of our tandem, where she sits with both feet on the pedals until I push off and we get underway. Somehow she couldn’t work up the courage to push off before putting her feet onto the pedals, so she returned her bike to go home on the boat. Charlene and I, meanwhile, rode down to see the Rhein Falls, which took a little longer than we expected.

We worried about whether we’d have enough time to ride back to Stein am Rhein before returning our bikes at 6 p.m., so we pushed ourselves a little bit on the way back to Schaffhausen, where we stopped to check the boat schedule. The last boat was about to leave, and we found Alla on it. We said hello and goodbye to her and rolled ahead onto the bike path meandering near the riverbank. Still worried about our late start, we rode hard until we recognized we didn’t have much farther to go before we’d reach Stein am Rhein. We stopped on the riverbank and ate apples and avocado, looking at our destination not too far ahead. We still had over an hour and a half, so we soaked our feet in the cold water and enjoyed the view of an old church across the river from us.

Finally, by 5:00, we decided to ride down to the bridge and get a close look at the scene we’d been enjoying across the water. As I set up my camera on a self-timer to take a picture of ourselves, Alla’s boat came up the river toward us. We waved at each other, returned our bikes, and swapped stories of the day.

Today we stayed closer to Chur because the weather is suddenly warm and sunny. We visited the village from the children’s story Heidi at the suggestion of Charlene’s daughter Nina. We came there with Nina and her infant son, who fussed very little and entertained us all while we waited for lunch. I’m glad he took the wait so well, because we didn’t receive our meal until over an hour after we placed our order. At least we enjoyed a fine view while we waited and the food was great. I ordered asparagus again since it’s in season here and delicious. I also know that I’ve never seen such good asparagus in Belarus and that it’s hard to find any asparagus at all.

Welcome to Basel

We didn’t sleep as much as we should have slept on the plane last night, but we managed to stay on our feet all day long. We took a self-guided walking tour leading us on both sides of the Rhine River. I wish I’d thought to take a picture of the ferry we rode. It’s powered by water flow. The boatman points it towards the other sore and the river’s current pushes it across, dragging along a strong cable stretched across the river.

We thought we’d be inside of museums today because of bad weather, but the rain was very light all day and we really felt like walking. We’re pretty excited to be back in Switzerland.

More Alpine adventures

We had to take a couple of days off this week because of rainy weather. Even while it rained, however, we could often see mountains from our hotel room and it seldom rained too hard to go out for a walk. Walti went running and generally proved himself gnarly. He so impressed the guy at the local sport shop that he warned me that I’d have a hard time keeping up on a bike ride with him. Biking, however, is my sport and my rental bike didn’t let me down.

We rode from Murren along the Mountain View Trail. Walti noticed a potential viewpoint up a hill and across a meadow so we left our route and tried to find it. Finally we got stuck when the trail got too steep for us, so we abandoned our bikes and hiked across a pasture with grazing cows. We had plenty of room to get through without disturbing the cattle, but we had to leap from stone to stone in one area to stay out of the “cow pies” filling the field. Finally we reached the top of the pasture and discovered that we’d been climbing to a false crest and the upward trail continued much farther than we were prepared to walk that day. Later we found a better map which showed how we could have reached the desired viewpoint. Unfortunately, we found this improved map at the bottom of the hill and we decided not to go back up.

Near the map, Charlene noticed a farmhouse advertising homemade cheese and other dairy products. We stopped and bought ourselves some cheese. Sadly, they forgot to bring their cheese with them when they went back home today; so Alla and I inherited an extra block to bring with us to Belarus.

We ended our ride with a tour of the Lauterbrunnen Valley. Walti saw something called Trummelbach Falls and led us up to it. He’s a good leader, but nevertheless he led us astray this time. We climbed up a steep trail to the right of the falls and kept seeing tourists on a paved pathway across the water from us. Walti imagined we’d find a bridge, but alas we could not cross the stream. Finally we decided we’d seen enough, so we climbed back down our steep slope and rode back home.

This morning Charlene and Walti left for home. We rode the lift down with them to the parking lot in the valley where they’d left their car. They intended to drop us back at Trummelbach Falls, but we all got off to an earlier-than-expected start and they had time to join us on the correct side of the river. We’re all glad they did, because Trummelbach Falls ranks with me as one of the top wonders of the world. It’s a curly confluence of streams twisting through a towering wall of rock, splashing off of basins and blasting around shiny rock coves. In the early 1900’s somebody dug a tunnel into the rock so people can get up high and see the falls from numerous vantage points. We had a blast.

Alla and I ate lunch in the valley and then rode the tram up to Winteregg. Winteregg is too small to call a village. Primarily, it’s a restaurant with one of the most spectacular views on the planet. We walked from there back to Murren and sat for a long time on a bench overlooking the valley and its backdrop of high peaks.

Between the bike ride and today’s quieter adventures, we took our second rest day yesterday as it rained off and on most of the day. We did get a break in the late afternoon, and we walked down to Gimmelwald and to the forest below. Between Murren and Gimmelwald we saw some of the densest wildflowers we’ve found on the whole trip. I think we’ve been pretty lucky about our timing. The innkeepers and restaurateurs generally plan to begin their season tomorrow. We got here ahead of the spring crowds but after most of the snow melted from the mountain pathways. And I’ve finally fulfilled a lifetime goal of seeing Swiss Alpine wildflowers in spring.

We’re ready to move on. We’ll visit Bern tomorrow and leave for Minsk on Saturday. We’ll make sure to bring Swiss cheese, chocolate, bread, and hazelnuts. Switzerland has so much to offer.

Swiss Alps

We left Zurich on Friday morning, heading for Mürren. We chose to go by way of Lucerne because we had heard that the route would be scenic. “Scenic” doesn’t even begin to describe our train ride: I’d prefer to say “spectacular.” And the city of Lucerne came as an added benefit. We stayed there for a few hours before changing trains, giving ourselves a walking tour guided by a map we got at the train station. The map included a suggested route, which we followed down the river, up onto the wall, back down into the old town center, and finally back across a long old covered bridge.

Lucerne

When we’d seen enough we got onto a panoramic train car and headed for Interlaken. We had lots of food with us, and we started by spreading out a picnic for ourselves on our table. We enjoyed our meal especially because of the scenery that seasoned it. We started out on the shores of a beautiful blue lake surrounded by meadows and villages and backed by snow-capped mountains. The farther we traveled, the nearer came the mountains. Finally we climbed right into the mountains and crept into the town of Meiringen, where the crew detached the engine from the front of our train and attached it at the other end. We pulled out of town by the same route we entered, arcing off presently toward Lauterbrunnen.

The panoramic train ended in Lauterbrunnen, where we switched to a smaller train which took us to a gondola which took us to a little mountain tram which finally took us to Mürren. It’s unfair to compare the scenery in one part of the trip to another, but I can comfortably say that we’re really happy about staying in Mürren.

Our friends Charlene and Walti arrived later that day and we had a long and delightful dinner together. We decided to go ahead and plunge to Jungfraujoch the next day because we expected poor weather for the rest of the week and we wanted to enjoy the views from very high on the Jungfrau. The elevation at the station is 3454 meters above sea level. We enjoyed clear skies and fantastic views from the moment we emerged from the train tunnel. We walked (slowly because of the snow and the elevation) up to a mountain hut at the top of the saddle, looking down into the other side of the mountain range. The hut includes a kitchen, and we had vegetable soup and sausage for lunch before walking back down.

We didn’t ride the train all the way down to Lauterbrunnen, stopping to walk partway down through florid Alpine meadows. We felt both tired and exhilarated when we returned to Mürren, and ate dinner with enthusiasm and hearty appetites.

Today we took a gondola up to Schilthorn, also called Piz Gloria since it was featured in the film version of the James Bond story On Her Majesty's Secret Service. The weather stayed beautifully clear and we enjoyed spectacular views both outdoors and indoors over coffee in the rotating restaurant. When we came back down, Alla decided to take a rest while Charlene, Walti and I went for a hike from Allmendhubel, a little settlement above Mürren, connected by a cog railway. We walked through woods and meadows, under a waterfall, and finally back down to Mürren. If we had skipped lunch or the waterfall detour we might have gotten back before the rain started, but instead we came home just a little wet. Nobody minded the water, and we’re quite happy about everything we saw and did.

We took at least 500 photos over the last three days, but I respect my readers too much to foist most of them on you. Still, you can find some of my favorites here.

Zurich today

We didn’t really have time to do much in Zurich yesterday so we had to make the most of the city today. And I think we did a pretty good job of it.

We started out with a huge and leisurely breakfast, courtesy of our hotel. I think we both especially enjoyed the Swiss specialties; dried meats and fresh cheeses. The delicious fresh fruit impressed us too, especially the vine-ripened cantaloupe. Hoping to repeat the pleasure, we bought ourselves another cantaloupe at the grocery store across the street for tomorrow.

We spent the next ten hours out and about. We started by taking advantage of our all-day transit pass and took a little city tour on the tramway. Whenever we encountered something especially interesting, we got out and walked around. The trams run quite frequently and our improvised tour worked out well. We took in hilltop views of the city (with the Alps behind), a lakeside stroll, shopping and eating.

Eating, like almost everything else around here, is breathtakingly expensive. A Big Mac goes for $12, but we didn't really want one anyway. I found a nice modest eight-dollar take-out sandwich at a restaurant near the lake, but undermined my own modesty by picking up a little bottle of iced rooibos tea at the register. The tea added five dollars to my bill, but Alla consoled me that it really was delicious and she would assuage my discomfort by helping me drink it. We didn’t investigate the price level at the Rolex store, Cartier or any of the other fancy shops down by Paradeplatz, but we noticed a very nice looking pair of men’s shoes in a shop window, marked at about $700. We decided instead to have cappuccino and cakes at the Sprungli Tea Room. They were delicious and much easier to bring home.

Mostly, we explored. When we went inside one of the big churches we saw the Korean National Choir coming in for a rehearsal. They sounded really great, and we decided to return for the evening concert. Unfortunately, by the time evening arrived we realized that we had over-planned and had to let that one go, preferring to eat dinner before falling asleep. We ate in our room, having found a beautiful head of lettuce, a box of fantastic cherry tomatoes, dazzlingly-delicious Gruyere cheese and delightful smoked meat. We even have leftovers for tomorrow’s train ride to Mürren via Lucerne.