Switzerland and the undescribable alps
I want to apologize for the recent series of dull and very didactic posts, where I mechanically describe my trip. Everything I experience is pretty much always “breathtaking,” “meaningful,” “extraordinary,” and especially “beautiful.” Not much to report on anything ugly or boring, so I tend to overuse these sorts of adjectives and end up gushing my way through the storytelling… makes for not all together great blogging, as you can see. At any rate, I am going to try to quickly speed through entries on Switzerland, Italy and Croatia so I can blog more regularly as I travel, having the details fresh in my mind, and hopefully less pedantic.
Switzerland was a two week journey:
- Geneva (3 days)
- Bern (1 day)
- Lausanne (1 day)
- Lucerne (2 days) - with a day trip to Mt. Pilatus
- Interlaken (2 days) - included a day trip to the Lauterbrunnen region, including Gimmewald and the Schilthorn summit
- Zurich (5 days) - with a day trip to Basel
- Lugano (2 days) - including visits to the regions of Morcote, Ascona, and Locarno
Observations about Switzerland:
- Culturally, Switzerland reminded me a lot of Canada. It felt, at times, so eerily familiar that I found myself relaxing into the small towns and relishing the chance to have a little lull at the halfway point in my trip.
- I loved the Swiss transporation system. Buses announce every stop, thus it is easy to take a bus and know exactly where it was going. Everything is ALWAYS on time. Since Switzerland is not a huge country, trains are frequent and connect every city across its expanse, and you can easily take a short train ride to get to the other side of the country. (Hence, my day trip to Basel from Zurich).
- Bread, bread, delicious bread every 10 feet in every city I was in. I love multigrain or whole grain breads, and they were always fresh baked and readily available. I miss that so much now that I have moved onto the white, crusty unsatisfying breads of Italy, Croatia and Bosnia.
- Lots of great grocery stores at visible and frequent intervals.
- I once paid 28 francs for a lunch (a special one), which would be unthinkable in Canada, needless to say.
- Cities were very green (lots of parks and green space), the air was very clean, and everyone was going crazy getting ready for Euro 2008 (part of which is being hosted in Switzerland).
- Switzerland, in case you didn’t know, has 4 languages: French, Italian, Swiss German, and rare Romansch (spoken by only 10% of the population). Swiss German is the most dominant, and from observations and conversations I noticed that while most Swiss people know at least two languages, there is some resentment from Germans to learn French, and vice versa. It is understandable since both are very difficult languages. But not knowing German wasn’t a problem for me, since everyone I met also knew English.
- My favourite part of the trip was the experiences I had with the alps. I am happy I chose to come to Switzerland and will never forget the mountains.
Geneva: Geneva was full of very sharply dressed people in expensive clothing. I immediately felt like a bum traveller for the first time on my trip. Also, there were some extremely expensive drinks. The Swiss franc is close to the Canadian dollar, and I once saw a regular mixed drink on the menu for 26 francs. I would hazard a guess that Geneva is the most expensive place in Switzerland. The most remarkable experience I had was taking a tour of the UN international headquarters; I found it very inspiring. I met a girl from the US (we were both trying to find the front entrance of the UN for the tour) who I ended up spending the rest of the day with. Here is a shot of Geneva with the famous jet d’eau in the background:
This broken chair sculpture at the UN headquarters was made in honour of victims of land mines:
Bern: A picturesque university town, I enjoyed my brief stay in Bern, taking long walks around the old town and tourist areas. As with most other places where I couch surf, the time I spent there was coloured by my experience in spending time with my host, who was a lovely girl. We took long walks along the river, went out for drinks with her (very Swiss German) friends, and even had a meal together that I prepared.
Of course I had to buy some vegan Swiss Chocolate!
Lausanne: I visited Lausanne for one thing: the Musee de l’art Brut, an art gallery consisting of selected works by mentally challenged, handicapped, or otherwise “outsider” artists who would normally not be selected for a traditional gallery space. It was utterly fantastic, filled with plenty of artworks I wouldn’t mind seeing in regular galleries. I made a mistake here, and that was to buy a wonderful poster and expect that I would be able to carry it around with me for the last month and a half of my trip. I know, I know, but it was a really great poster showing a work by one of my favourite artists in the gallery. It lasted until Lugano, the end of my Switzerland journey, where I promptly left it beside a bench at the Lugano train station. So now I must find a way to order it again, since I am determined to get that poster mounted and on my wall!
Great Indian meal on brown rice I had from the Dhanyaa restaurant right behind the Lausanne train station:
Lucerne: Ahh, good ol Lucerne. A really beautiful town, with mountains on all sides. This part of my trip is the terrifying climax you could say… the height of my dangerous and adventurous risk taking.
Well, originally I had planned to hike on Mt. Pilatus when I was in Lucerne. On it, not IT. When sending out couch surfing requests, a really nice female surgeon answered my request saying that early that morning she was going on a hike on Mt. Pilatus with fellow surgeons and their trainees, to show them the best alpine mountain in Lucerne. What a coincidence! I jumped at the chance to hike with a group, especially a group of doctors. It could only happen in my strange destiny to climb my first mountain in the safest way possible, literally surrounded by doctors.
Unbeknownst to me were were not just doing a short hike on the mountain, but actually climbing it completely. It was 7000 FT or 2132 M, those numbers are burned into my brain. It took about 6 hours, I think. At first, it seemed very manageable. I was climbing with tall, strong people who were accustomed to climbing mountains and so rambled around quickly and calmly. After a while of regular hiking paths, we came to parts where you had to cross snow-filled ravines, diagonally, being careful to have at least three points of contact with the ground (or snow, in this case) so as not to fall. Here is one of the first ones that was dangerous, melting. Trust me, it got worse than this:
Then, as we mounted closer and closer to the summit, the climbing became so steep that I had to force myself not to look down. My host had to carry my bag for me since I was inexperienced and needed a lighter gait. I had moments where I had to stop, catching my breath if my foot almost slipped on mud. I admit it, I was terrified; needing my host to coach me through the especially dangerous and ridiculously steep sections. It was the first time I had ever felt so close to a couch surfing host. I don’t know what I would have done if she wasn’t there. After taking the greatest risk I ever have, I managed to make it to the top, with a heavy sense of relief. Needless to say, I took the cable car down, not wanting to face the even more dangerous descent. Looking back, I am happy that I had the experience but it was probably the most physically adventurous thing I will ever do, knowing how much it tested me to my personal limits.
The surgeons who helped guide me through the worst of the journey:
The team of strapping doctors!
Photography from different views at the summit:
And, to lighten my stories about Lucern, a tasty gourmet vegan meal I ate. Carrots, chickpeas, bulgur wheat, sweet mango sauce, raisins, and coconut slivers!
Interlaken (Lauterbrunnen): I found Interlaken disturbingly touristy. Case in point - they have a Hooters. Yes, a Hooters, including the expected women in tight short orange shorts. It was also ironic that I travelled to the adventure sport capital of Switzerland at the point where I was still jittery from climbing Mt. Pilatus and not ready for anything with an altitude of more than 5 feet. Luckily, the close-by region of Lauterbrunnen had a harmless hike on asphalt close to a cable car ride up to some very interesting mountain regions. It was an expensive cable car ride up to the top, but infinitely worth it. I had befriended three tourists from Singapore the night before who I joined to visit the Trummelbach falls, where the melted water from the snow peaks of the three largest alpine mountains in the area collectively wash down inside a beautiful network of caves.
From inside the caves, taking the ride up on the spooky elevator:
Pure water that has known a great height and stillness…
In the summer, the melting from the mountains spews down rockwalls as a makeshift waterfall. I found it so fascinating to see these different falls all over as I made my way around Interlaken by bus:
My two favourite points of Lauterbrunnen, howerver, were Gimmelwald and the Schilthorn summit. Gimmewald was a quaint mountain village where one would wake up every day in awe at the sight of the large wall of mountain peaks. There were lots of alpine wildflowers.
On the summit at Schilthorn, you could see three other alpine peaks and a 360 degree view of the mountain ranges. I cried when I got off the cable car, at this height and seeing the mountain peaks all around me. It was very cold, high, and bright… mist swirled around the peaks, at times revealing and concealing. I have never seen anything so beautiful. And as usual, the photos don’t even come close.
Zurich: My time in Zurich was blissful, a delicious lull in the middle of my whirlwind journey where I stayed in a posh flat with two great girls in graduate school. They were both amazing people I could really learn from, and we had a great time together. Zurich itself reminded me so much of my hometown, with not tons to see but having a nice atmosphere and the usual green spaces I had become accustomed to in Switzerland.
An art school vernissage show that was held in an abandoned train station. Here, I met an interesting artist who was a friend of Katharina, and saw tons of rooms full of interesting, fresh artwork by students:
A strange sight: some soldiers stopping to listen to some bohemians play on the drums, made me laugh.
Delicious meal Katharina and Nora made me - spicy curry with quorn (some kind of tofu-like mushroom variety?) and coconut rice… yum!
We went out once for sushi! Here is the veg sushi platter:
And because you can easily get around Switzerland by train and I found out that the International art festival Art Basel was being held in Basel, I took a day trip there. The city is full of great galleries, I really enjoyed the Jean Tinguely museum (featuring an interesting exhibition on machinist art and also the collection of his great works), and Art Basel itself was a very overwhelming but great experience. It was full of hundreds of rooms of up and coming artists with some pieces for sale, art professionals and galleries were also represented throughout. Needless to say it was utterly exhausting, and I am certain that I left with much more to see, being thoroughly “arted out” with the many rooms I did manage to peruse.
Lugano (Locarno, Morcote, Ascona): After Zurich, Katharina gave me several recommendations for places to see from my perch in the small town of Lugano in the Italian speaking part of Switzerland. My hostel, blissfully, had a pool and was 5 minutes from the train station. Seeing that Lugano could be seen easily in a few hours with some good walking shoes, I left quickly for Morcote by boat. The next day, I took the train to Locarno and explored it briefly before heading to Ascona on another boat ride. Some highlights, since this post is quite lengthy already!
Room that I loved in a park in Morcote:
From the same park:
From the Madonna del Sasso church in Locarno:
View of Ascona:
Locarno:
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