Photos
I am in Switzerland!!!!! My dear friends and family,
The land of precision timing, steel blades, towering cascades, lions carved out of stone and the mighty Toblerone! I enjoyed my stay in Switzerland! I have never been into a place where when they say just down the hill really means down the side of a mountain, through glaciers and passed at least a dozen waterfalls. I hiked down a hill and found myself climbing down a mountain…the Swiss alps!
While in the city we walked to the Lion of Lucern, a monument dedicated to the Swiss Guard who died while in the service of Queen Marie Antoinette during the revolution in Paris. It is a fitting monument to the bravery of that boy. Carved out of a rock on a face of a cliff with a moat around it, the lion looked, well, it is lying on its side and a broken piece of spear is wedged between its ribs…his expression in agony, yet his mane still gave him a rather regal look. Mark Twain said it is the saddest and most moving piece of rock in the world. I agree. The lion reminded me of that character in C.S. Lewis’s Chronicles of Narnia…you know the lion, Aslan. Mystical. Magical. Regal. God-like. Aslan …the Swiss Guard Lion.
We crossed the 660-year old bridge Kapellbrucke with its covered roof and paintings of Swiss history. The river that runs through Lucern is Reuss and according to Jen, the depth if the river depends on alpine water run off. Wow! Again, we were given such a limited time in Lucern so after walking its cobbled streets and trying its many watch shops (once again I regretted not having enough funds to purchase either a Swiss Military or Eagle Watch), we came on board and headed for the sleepy town of Lauterbrunnen.
In Lauterbrunnen we stayed at Camping Jungfrau and as a first course in the meal, we had fundue! While in Lucern, to drown my sorrow for not having purchased a Swiss Military or Eagle Watch, I consumed chocolate Toblerone after Toblerone chocolate. These triangular pieces of heaven are enough to make me feel good. And having it melted to make Fundue is truly wonderful. Strawberries and apples, peaches and bananas, pears and oranges, sliced up into wedges, dipped in chocolate fundue style …oh my god! What do they say, once on the lips forever on the hips! Who cares! Pass the chocolate please! If you are to have cheese fundue instead of chocolate, please be aware that there is a tradition here in Switzerland about dropping or losing your piece of bread in the melted cheese. If you drop your bread, you have to kiss the nearest person of the opposite sex to satisfy the gods of the cheese. So, how many times do you think I deliberately dropped my bread? That would be telling… but suffice it to say, more than once…hey, I didn’t hear him complain.
On our way, hazy pointed out rock outcrops booby trapped with dynamites! The reason for this is defence. It seem that despite being a “neutral” country the Swiss feels they still need to be prepared for almost everything. Every new house built in Switzerland has to have a bomb shelter. And inside the mountains they built facilities equipped with the most modern amenities to feed, clothe, house, medicate and defend their people. In case of war they are prepared…just like their every ready Swiss Army Knife! Anyway, Lauterbrunnen is a glacier-cut valley. On both sides are towering mountains and sheer rock cliff. There are 75 waterfalls in the valley and in our camp is one very tall, illuminated by night, engulfed by fog in the morning cascade! One of the towers that defend Lauterbrunned is the glacial Jungfrau, otherwise known as the top of Europe. Some of the people in the tour opted to ride the oldest cog railroad in the world to reach up to the Jungfrau. They said the ice sculptures were magnificent, but because it is glacial ice, there were no powdered snow…not yet. So Tippy was disappointed for nor having made her first snow angel. Oh well.
As for me and the others who were suffering from the cold…br…br…br…we decided to make the most of our day by riding a cable car up to Murren. Five hundred feet above sea level, the ice-capped mountains seemed so close and easy to reach. We ate lunch in Murren… the sun was beating down on us so we decided to take our coats off and sun bathe. It was weird. To be that high up yet feel the sun really hot my face. I guess skin cancer came into mind so we opted to find the station where we were supposed to catch the next cable car to Stechelberg. Carey-Anne and her smart ideas to walk down to Stechelberg! She pointed out that it will only take a half hour to hike down the hill. So we followed her like lemmings…meanwhile, 30 kms and 3 hours later we were still making our way towards Stechelberg! The damn signs were read wrong by Carey Anne! She neglected to see that between Murren and Stechelberg are the small towns of Gimmewald and Berg and one other! She also conveniently did not read the “1 std” before the “30 min” directions for Stechelberg! Boy, did my muscles ache! I was sweating cold sweat and my legs were shaking! Glad I am not the only one unfit for hiking the alps though. Sara D and Sam were also huffing and puffing! But not Andy! Anyway, despite being tired as a dog and ravenous as a feline, the trip down the valley was a very delightful unplanned surprise. We passed on foot trails going under water falls, we saw paragliders and prayed that they do not crash on the side of the mountain, we witnessed bungee jumpers scream their lungs off, we sat on root systems of ancient trees, slid through rocks green with moss, breathed in deeply the fresh unpolluted mountain air, ate chocolate and Pringles chips while quenching our thirst with alpine water run! Life couldn’t get any better than this, folks! Once again I felt blessed and damned tired!
Once we reached the valley and Stechelberg (finally!), the bus driver politely told us that the next bus to Lauterbrunnen will leave in 40 minutes! AH!!! We are going to miss tea (supper, dinner) This trip made me live that dictum “when in Rome you do as the Romans do”, so dinner is always called tea, catsup is tomato sauce and sneakers are tackies…please don’t get me started on my English language education. It’s a big surprise I can still talk American English! Ah ha ha ha…Anyway, the group decided to walk the rest of the way home. We’ve already gone that far why not really take it all home? So we walked…another 7 kms! Ha ha ha ha …
That night we were once again invited to join the other in the bomb shelter for a dress as your favorite animal party! Oh dear me…what animal do I chose?! Ha ha he he hahehahhhh….well lets just put it this way, the black garbage bags came back, this time they were adorned with white paper patches and a blown up surgical glove stuck to the middle…mooo mooo mooo…get it? H ahahaha I never knew just how versatile the black garbage bag could be. Not only can it hold trash, but it can also hold old bags and hags…he hehehe…
To all good night! Don’t let the bed bugs bite! Be comfy under the covers…
I am Mary Grace, tired and wickedly happy
Oct 18, 1999