A Quiet Sunday Morning, Then Onward

After such a busy Saturday, on Sunday (June 27th), we slept in. After breakfast we walked down with Eva to the old town, where we saw an exhibition on baroque church objects from Zug at the city museum in Burg Zug (Zug Castle). Included in the exhibition was a small baroque organ. Incidentally, Mary Joy and I got in free because our Swiss Saver Pass covers not only trains, but most museums in Switzerland. We had had to pay nothing for any of the trains or cable cars on the Rigi. The pass will end up paying for much more than its cost.

After we left the museum, we walked down to the lakeshore and strolled among the citizens of Zug, delighting in the warm sun. We went back to the apartment, had a light lunch with Andreas, then we all caught the bus (again, free for Mary Joy and me because of our pass) to the train station, where Mary Joy and I said our goodbyes and caught the 3:58 train to Thalwil. There we caught another train to Chur, where we caught yet another to Samedan, one of the resort towns of the Engadine (the valley of the river Inn, which flows into Austria, through Innsbruck, then to the Danube).

The train ride covered the same route as the first part of the Bernina Express, a scenic ride that we would finish on Tuesday. I am running out of adjectives to describe the scenery. It is awesome beyond words. The railroad itself is a major feat of engineering, studied by those designing mountain railways for its ingenious use of tunnels, switchbacks and spiral overpasses.

After going through the Albula Tunnel, the longest high railroad tunnel in Europe, we ended up in Samedan, where we changed trains again for the short ride to Pontresina, arriving there after a little more than four hours en route.

Pontresina is not as ritzy as nearby St. Moritz, and is more of a hiking and mountain-climbing destination (it has several climbing schools). It is stretched out along the Bernina River. Our hotel, Hotel Station, is nice, but not as expensive as most hotels in Pontresina. It does have free wi-fi, which we may not see again until Dublin.

The Rigi Kulm and a Choir Party

Eva and Andreas are avid mountain hikers. For their vacation, starting next weekend, they will spend three weeks in the Dolomites, in the Italian Alps. After a week at a resort, hiking every other day, they’ll start hiking from mountain hut to mountain hut, doing a total (combining distance and altitude changes) of 20 to 30 kilometers (12 to 18 miles) a day.

The last two times we visited them, we had gotten away with level Sunday afternoon walks in the meadows of the Zugerberg. This time, however, we were going to spend pretty much all day Saturday on the Rigi, for which Eva loaned Mary Joy a pair of heavy hiking boots and Andreas loaned me a small backpack, with chest and waist straps, in place of my daypack.

The Rigi Kulm (summit) is only 6000 feet (1800 meters) high, but in comparison with the surrounding area, it towers over both Lucerne and Zug and their respective lakes. Our walk wouldn’t involve starting at the bottom and going to the top (which, of course, Eva and Andreas have done), but only what one of their friends described as a walk suitable for taking visitors on--challenging, but not too, too hard.

We drove to Goldau, just past the southern end of the Zugersee, and from there we took the 9:12 train a short way up, then the cable car to Rigi Scheidegg, a secondary peak, at 1662 meters (around 5600 feet). At that point I discovered that I had left my camera back in my daypack, which was very unfortunate, because this would be one of the most tremendously scenic walks we’ve ever made (incidentally, I’ve now added pictures to the Gimmelwald post). We started out walking downward, through meadows, with a wall of peaks in the not-too-distant south (including the recognizable triangular north face of the Eiger—only a baby ogre at this distance). Then we came into view of Lake Lucerne, spread out far below, and eventually the city of Lucerne itself. But what goes down, must come up, and we started gaining altitude on our way up to the Kulm. The secret to steep uphill hiking is to do it very slowly, and that we did, taking the occasional rest stop. When we finally got to the top, we were met there by a crowd of people who had taken the train up, some of them in flip-flops! Wimps! We sat on the grass and ate our well-earned sandwiches and chocolate, had an ice cream from a kiosk there, when we couldn’t find any open table on the terrace of the hotel restaurant, then we had to decide whether to walk down partway, or take the train all the way. Of course, happy wanderers that we are, we took our backpacks on our back and headed down.

Going down is harder on the knees and calves than going up, so it helps to have a walking stick. Eva and Andreas had extras, which made it a lot easier for us. Down is a lot faster than up, so in less than an hour and a half we were almost to the train station at Kloesterli, which is nearly 600 meters (2000 feet) lower than the Rigi Kulm. To get to the station, we had to take a little bridge across a little brook. Since we had some time before the 3:15 train, Andreas went down to the stream, took off his boots and socks and started wading around. The rest of us joined him. The water, of course, was cold, but it felt good. All in all, they figured, we had traveled a total of about 18 kilometers (about 11 miles) including both horizontal and vertical distance.

We took the train back down to Goldau, drove Eva to the village where she and Andreas would be singing in the choir at mass (to save time, she would shower and change at a friend’s, before going to practice), then drove back to Zug. The three of us showered and changed, then Andreas drove us back to the village, where Mary Joy and I had a salad at a restaurant while he went to his practice. At 5:30, we went to the church, where the women of the choir sang Faure’s “Messe des pecheurs de Villerville,” while the men sang other parts of the mass in Gregorian chant. It was beautiful, and Mary Joy liked the organ and the organist.

Afterwards, there was a wine and cheese reception across the street, followed by a choir dinner at a restaurant way up above on the Zugerberg. We sat at a table with two other couples: Ronnie and James, who were English, Franca (Italian) and Stefan (son of Swiss emigrants to Australia--as an adult he had returned to his ancestral homeland). It was a delightful and funny group. Ronnie, for instance, said that she had arrived in Zug intending to stay there two years, but had now been there for nineteen and had become more Swiss than the Swiss. For instance an English relative or friend had said that she could never live in a country where they didn’t allow you to mow the lawn on Sunday. Ronnie said that in order to be free, you have to have rules, that everyone obeys. Then everyone is free to have a quiet Sunday, without having their peace destroyed by lawnmowers.

As the evening progressed, people at another table started singing from a book of Swiss folk songs, songs that everyone knew, that, as one person put it, she had sung in the Girl Scouts. They had a lot of fun, singing in very nice harmony (this was, after all, a church choir).

Mary Joy met the choir director, who had spent some time in Stacy, Minnesota (as an exchange student, perhaps). He said that an American organist, Gail Archer, had recently played a recital at the church. Mary Joy told him that she’s met Gail Archer, so it’s a small (organ) world. He said that Mary Joy should play there the next time she comes to Zug.

Zug

We are now (Sunday, June 27) enjoying free wi-fi at the most expensive hotel on our trip, in the resort town of Pontresina, just a few miles from St. Moritz, in southeastern Switzerland--but more about that later.

Friday, we treated Albert and Kathi to a nice lunch on the terrace at the Hotel Interlaken, the oldest hotel in the city (it has plaques indicating that Lord Byron stayed there in 1816 and Mendelssohn stayed there five times in the 1830s and 1840s). We sat and talked until about 2:30, when Albert took us to the Interlaken Ost station and we said goodbye. We caught the 3:04 train to Lucerne, and got in a few minutes late, but the train to Zug was delayed by about ten minutes. When it finally arrived, crowds of people were getting on. We were quick to get into a second-class car, and stow our luggage above, but then a horde of kids started boarding, and an adult told us that the car was reserved. So we grabbed our luggage and fought our way out through the boarding children and their gear. Once off, Mary Joy asked if we had everything. No, we didn’t. I struggled through the army of kids backed onto the train, grabbed my bag and managed to swim upstream off the car. It later occurred to me that once on the train I could always have gone back through the cars to that one and found my bag under calmer circumstances, but in the heat of the moment, I didn’t think of that. We found another (crowded) second-class car and stood for the twenty-minute ride to Zug.

This was the second time that I had left something on a train on this trip. On the way to Interlaken, when we changed trains at one point, a man had to run after us with the bag with bottles of wine that we had received from Bernard’s friends. At least I haven’t yet left Mary Joy on any train.

Albert and Jolanda’s daughter Eva (thus, Mary Joy’s third cousin, once removed), picked us up at the station and drove us to her apartment, on a hillside overlooking the old town and the Zugersee (Lake Zug). This doesn’t give you any detailed idea of where Eva and her husband Andreas live, because almost all of Zug could be described as being on the slope of the Zugerberg mountain and overlooking the old town and the lake. We had steaks and tabouleh on the picnic table in their garden, as the sun was going down over the lake.

The four of us walked down the hill to the courtyard of a restaurant, where we joined some of their friends in drinking a beer and watching the World Cup game between Switzerland and Honduras. At the same time, Spain was playing Chile, and Switzerland needed to do better than Spain to get to the next round. But we saw as Spain pulled ahead of Chile 2-0, and though Chile later scored a goal, Switzerland couldn’t penetrate Honduras’s defense, so their game ended in a 0-0 tie, and Switzerland was out. Switzerland only gave up one goal in its three games, but it also only scored one goal.

Gimmelwald and Schilthorn

Yesterday (Thursday, June 24), we checked out of our apartment in Interlaken, took the 9:52 train from West to Ost (5 minutes), took the train from Ost to Lauterbrunnen, took the Post Bus to Stechelberg, and from there took the cable car up to Gimmelwald. Lauterbrunnen and Stechelberg are in a deep valley. Towering above one side of the valley is the Jungfrau, while the other side is overlooked by a plateau, at the center of which is the resort town of Muerren, at an altitude of about 5400 feet. Along the rim to the north and about 2000 feet lower is the much smaller and more rustic village of Gimmelwald—Lonely Planet calls it “cute.” It is one of those places, like the Cinque Terre in Italy, Bacharach in Germany or Rue Cler in Paris, that was almost completely untouristed until Rick Steves found it, and now is full of Americans carrying their blue Rick Steves guidebook.

Still, it is relatively quiet and simple, while our hotel does have free wi-fi (Hurray!), our room has no TV or phone, has bare wood-plank walls and ceiling (a 6-foot ceiling—my head almost brushes it) and the WC and shower are down the hall. It also has a good restaurant (Mary Joy was ecstatic about the smoked trout salad at lunch, less so about the fish ratatouille at dinner)—in fact, the only restaurant in Gimmelwald, population 110.

We arrived around 11 a.m. and after that wonderful lunch walked up to Muerren, which would have been very pleasant, with terrific views across the valley, except that it was like climbing stairs to the top of a 90-story building. We rested awhile, then took the funicular up to Almendhubel, the start of the North Face Trail, which heads north high above Muerren, with spectacular views of the Eiger, Moench and Jungfrau, then comes down in a roundabout way to Muerren. We cut off towards the end on a trail marled “Vorsicht!” (“Careful”), down through an evergreen forest, behind a waterfall (named “Sprutz,” which seems to fit), then down a long hillside to Gimmelwald.

This morning (Friday, June 25), we got up early and took the cable car up to the Schilthorn (10,000 feet), with spectacular views, a revolving restaurant (where we had coffee and rolls) and an exhibition on the James Bond film “On Her Majesty’s Secret Service” which was filmed there (they blew up the restaurant at the end, I think).

Soon, we’ll go back to Interlaken, then to Zug. We may not have Internet access for several days.

Schynige Platte

Wednesday (June 23). The Jungfrau is out, visible from our apartment window! Today we went to the mountains, to Schynige Platte. We bought some sandwiches and a 1.5 liter bottle of water, then headed for the Interlaken West station, where we caught a bus to the village of Wilderswil, then bought round-trip tickets (29 francs--$26--apiece, taking into consideration a 50 percent discount due to our Swiss Pass) on the cog railway to Schynige Platte. Wilderswil is about 1900 feet above sea level. Schynige Platte is above 6000 feet.

Mary Joy had wanted to do the 10-mile, 6½ hour hike from Schynige Platte to First, but Margot had strongly discouraged that: it would be long and strenuous, with ups and downs and some difficult footing. Instead, we walked the “Panoramaweg” (“Panorama Trail”), which was strenuous enough! The views were spectactular: The Eiger, Moench and Jungfrau and their associates to the south, the Brienzersee, Boedeli and Thunersee to the north.

We left Interlaken at 9:27, got to Schynige Platte at 10:57, walked, had lunch on some rocks around 12:20, walked back, caught the train down at 3:01, and were down in Interlaken, having coffee and cake at Confiserie-Tea Room Rieder (a distant relative, maybe?), by 4:30. Later, we had a very pleasant dinner with Albert and Kathi at the See Hotel in Boenigen, on the shores of the Brienzersee.

Unterseen and Margot

Today (Tuesday, June 22nd), after breakfast in our apartment, we bought a bouquet at a nearby florist’s, then, around eleven, called Margot from the Unterseen post office. Then we walked toward her apartment while she met us partway.

Unterseen is across the Aare, north of Interlaken, and though a much older city than Interlaken, is much smaller and quieter and is part of the Interlaken municipality. The old town is to the east, but Unterseen now stretches west across fields and pastures and includes Neuhaus, which is on the Thunersee. There are still some barns, with cows and horses, close to the old town, within five minutes’ walk of the tourist bustle of Interlaken’s main street (Hoheweg ) and the Interlaken West railway station.

Interlaken and Unterseen, together with several smaller towns, are on the Boedeli, the land separating the Thunersee (Lake Thun) and the Brienzersee (Lake Brienz). Thousands of years ago, there was one big lake and no Boedeli. The Luetschine creek, carrying glacial debris from the mountains, gradually filled up the center of that lake, dividing it in two and creating the Boedeli. The river Aare begins in the mountains south of Meiringen (famous for the Reichenbach Falls, where Sherlock Holmes and Professor Moriarty battled to the death), where it goes through the narrow Aareschlucht gorge, before emptying into the east end of the Brienzersee. It comes out at the west end of the lake, crosses the Boedeli and empties into the Thunersee, which it exits at the northwest tip, at Thun. Then it flows north to Bern and eventually the Rhine.
Margot lives in a pleasant apartment in a newer building bordering on farmland. We sat and talked on her terrace, which looks south toward the Luetschine valley gap and the Jungfrau—except that the Jungfrau remained invisible, as if someone had stolen it. If you didn’t know that it was behind the gray clouds, you wouldn’t realize that there was a mountain there at all. The last time we were here, we only saw it for about ten minutes of the three days.

Margot, Mary Joy and I took a leisurely half-hour walk to the restaurant on the lake at Neuhaus, where we had a good light lunch. Then we walked back through the fields to Margot’s, where we sat and talked until 6:30.

Margot had recommended an Italian restaurant in Unterseen, “Arcobaleno.” Mary Joy had a swordfish farfalle dish and I had a pizza. Margot appears to be as reliable as Lonely Planet.

Afterwards, we visited Jolanda’s grave in the Unterseen cemetery (behind and across from the church, with the Harder mountain rising steeply behind). On our way back through the old town, we checked out a cow barn, but Mary Joy was challenged by a barking dog, so we went back to our apartment.

Wi-Fi At Last!

The recital went very well. The audience clapped long and hard and everyone was smiling. The newspaper reviewer was heard, twice, to call the recital “ausgezeichnet” (“outstanding”) and wrote a strong review for the paper. Mary Joy feels relieved that it’s over and is happy with the way it went.

Afterwards, we went to “Da Luigi,” an Italian restaurant, for a late dinner—Mary Joy, Bernard, Marika and I, and a nice couple who are friends of Bernard. The dinner was good, the mood celebratory, the company very pleasant, and, at the end, Mary Joy once again did some of her restaurant-staff-charming magic: the owner (?) got out his guitar and serenaded her in Italian!

This morning (Sunday, June 20th) Mary Joy, Marika and I went to 9:00 mass at Bernard’s other church and heard his choir sing. Then we helped Marika check out and went back to Bernard’s to have brunch with the couple who own the duplex where he lives. They have sung in his choir and are delightful, gracious and very hospitable people, so, again, we had a very good time. Then we had to finish packing and head for the train station. There we said goodbye to our very good friends Marika and Bernard and got on the train to Interlaken, while Marika headed back to Berlin.

After about 3½ hours, two train changes and the validation of our 15-day train pass, we arrived at the Interlaken West station, where we were met by Mary Joy’s cousin Albert (second cousin by marriage, twice removed—he is the widower of Jolanda, whose father was the first cousin of Mary Joy’s great-grandfather, who emigrated from Unterseen to Wisconsin). Albert drove us to our apartment and introduced us to the landlady, whose mother had known Jolanda. It’s a very nice apartment, though far from luxurious, well-located and with a refrigerator and two-burner range. Albert had something to do tonight, but we’ll get together tomorrow.

We had dinner at a classy pizzeria (“Pizzeria Horn”) that is recommended in Lonely Planet Switzerland. We have never had a faulty restaurant recommendation from Lonely Planet. Rick Steves is not as reliable where restaurants are concerned, but his guide is very useful for other practicalities.

The problem is internet access. We got fifteen minutes for five Swiss francs (about $4.50) at a Latino bar, but all we had time to do was send e-mails to Bernard and Marika and wish our fathers a happy Father’s Day.

On Monday (June 21st) we visited Albert’s apartment for a short time and agreed to meet him and his friend Kathi for tea at the restaurant at the top of the Metropole Hotel (the highest restaurant and the tallest hotel in Interlaken) at 3 p.m. In the meantime, we took a two-and-a-half hour boat ride on the Thunersee (Lake Thun). The weather here has been unusually cold and wet for this time of year. The boat ride was scenic but frigid. It was a good thing that Albert had lent us some jackets that were warmer than what we had.

We met Albert and Kathi at the restaurant at 3. Kathi, a widow who was in Albert’s class in high school, so they had met again at a class reunion, speaks very good English and seems to be a very nice person. While we were there, parasailers came down from the Beatenberg and Harder Kulm, swooped past our window (sometimes very close) and landed in the Hohematte, the big, open park across the street.

Mary Joy and I had dinner at another restaurant recommended by Lonely Planet, the “Goldener Anker,” and again we were very happy with the food--we had the prix fixe menu (mushroom soup, a pork chop in herb sauce, classy vegetables and, for dessert, coffee ice cream with whipped cream and Kahlua.

Then we went to McDonald’s to see if we could get free wi-fi access there. We could—if we had a cell phone! We would log onto the McDonald’s local area network, then give them our cell-phone number, whereupon they would text us a password to get online. But we had no cell phone.

What we tried next worked, sort of. We walked out to the Interlaken Ost railway station, which is a Swisscom hotspot, and there I bought half an hour of wi-fi access online, for 5 francs, thinking that I’d be able to copy all the blog material that I had written in a Word document onto my blog. Not. It wouldn’t copy! So we had time for Mary Joy to write her parents, but I could post only a few sentences on the blog, to show that we were still alive. Then we walked the path along the fast-rushing river Aare, under the streetlamps through Unterseen and back to our apartment.

As you can tell, I figured out how to copy from Word to this blog. I am sitting outside the main post office in Interlaken at 8 a.m. on Tuesday, June 22nd. The sun is shining (finally), so after having lunch with Mary Joy's other second cousin twice removed, Margot (the late Jolanda's 85-year-old first cousin), we may go up into the mountains. Mary Joy was still in bed when I left, so now I'll go back and we'll have breakfast.