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Pizza Venerdi: On-the-road

23 Sep

23 September 2023.

Equinox greetings to you! Fall is upon us as the weather has cooled here in the Berner Oberland and the trees have just been touched with bits of yellow and gold promising a lovely display in the weeks to come. There has been ample rain so the trees are not stressed. I have great hopes for good color! 

But pizza is the topic today. We have revived the Pizza Venerdi (Pizza Friday) tradition of our days in Rome for the past five Fridays. While we are not in Italy, all five have been superior to the pizza we get near our home, but then the pizzaioli are from Italy and know what they are doing. 

Pizza for two and a bottle of Italian wine on a pedestrian alley in Annecy, France.
I ragazzi (the guys) in the kitchen at Sapaudia, Annecy, France.
In Kandersteg we enjoyed pizza at the Chalet Hotel Adler. Third year we’ve had their pizza and it is excellent thanks to the Italian cooks. Our friends Gene and Cathy journeyed over from Lauterbrunnen to join us for pizza, beer, and a walk in the Kandersteg Valley on a very warm afternoon.
My son called this a crime against humanity. I discovered pizza with salmon when we lived in Italy and I get it whenever I am able. It’s best with Gorgonzola and arugula but the mascarpone, capers, and onions were nice, too. In Pontresina at Nostra Pizzeria.

Last night we welcomed our dear friends John & Janet to Lauterbrunnen and took them up the mountain by train to dinner in Wengen at Maya Caprice. A good time was had by all.

Pizza Maya from Maya Caprice. Spicy salami, Gorgonzola, and red onions. The crust was perfection!

We have three more times to celebrate Pizza Venerdi here in Switzerland. Stay tuned!

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Checking things off

8 Sep

8 September 2023.

Lists abound: grocery lists, packing lists, wish lists, Christmas lists. I live by lists. I do not keep a bucket list, however. No grand scheme of things-to-do-before-I-can’t-remember-them. 

Ric and I do, however, make note of places we’d like to return to, things we’d like to do in our favorite places, and places we might want to work into a future itinerary. This trip, we have checked off some places and things that have been on our minds for awhile. Inevitably, we’ve added some as well.

The Gasterntal has been on my list since 2021 when a fellow-traveler pointed it out as we descended from Sunnbüel. (See Another valley to discover.) Seeing the sparkling river flowing through a valley in a deep gorge, I was intrigued because it is only available a few months a year and is challenging to reach. In true Swiss fashion, there is a way to get there by public transport and one does not have to walk all the way in. Calling a few days in advance — once we knew the weather was forecast to be pleasant — I secured seats on the little shuttle bus. 

What a wild ride! Vehicles are allowed to enter the valley, by permit, only for 20 minutes each hour, and allowed to exit for a different 20 minute period each hour. The road, carved into the rock face, is truly one vehicle at-a-time. Our shuttle deposited us at Selden, the proverbial end-of-the-road. From here, the hiking was all downhill, although that is not always as easy as it sounds. This is, after all, a remote valley.

We called this Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride. From left, two views of the road carved out of the cliff. There were a couple of tunnels, too. Far right, the end of the road, at least as far as the bus would carry us. The valley goes on and experts can hike on and up and over to other valleys and towns.

One of the most amazing attributes is how few people we encountered in our two-hour hike. A handful hiking up (including people who hiked over 11 km from Kandersteg!), a few bikes where the hiking trail merged with the main road, a couple of cars that paid the day-fee for entry. 

The valley is beautiful and peaceful with only the sound of the glacier fed Kander River. The rugged downhill trail has rocks and roots making for tricky footing but eventually gives way to the bottom of the glacial valley and a pleasant walk across pastureland at the end. We were welcomed by grazing cows and lively calves at the Hotel Waldhaus, a welcome site with full meal service and adult refreshments. 

It is hard to show the beauty. Here are a few trail scenes.

Arriving at Hotel Waldhaus. Might be fun to spend a night here. Hearty Swiss fare for post-hike: Brautwurst is not like anything Johnsonville makes. This is served with onion gravy. We didn’t eat much for dinner.

Cross that off the list. Done and dusted! We are unlikely to repeat it, as good as it was, but I highly recommend it. If you follow our Easy-Hiker scale, this is a “4” on our scale of 1-to-3. 

The challenging hike at Pontresina accomplished last week (see On the road again) was also a list item. Returning to Pontresina was a list item as well, our first visit in 2018 being inspiration for a repeat. (See Postcard from Switzerland.)   In fact, this year’s visit to Pontresina has inspired us to put it on the short list for a 2024 return. There’s lots more to explore in the area and being able to speak Italian is a big draw for me.

This trip we also checked off Appenzell (lovely to visit but likely only once), Mount Niesen (no hiking but incredible views), and we are on our way to Annecy, France, which has intrigued me for a few years but has been hard to work into our annual itinerary. Eating French cuisine is a huge draw as well as the alpine environment. 

Atop the Niesen, “Switzerland’s pyramid.” From the left: The Niesen as seen from across Lake Thun near Interlaken last year; Lake Thun as seen from about 7800 feet on the Niesen; The Jungfrau Region mountains as seen from the restaurant terrace.

Still on the mental list: Hiking in Northumbria and the Isle of Wight, taking a night train between London and Edinburgh, and Midnight Trains from Paris to Venice, when it is launched.

Stay tuned!

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Postcard from Paris: Paris had its own ideas

11 May

11 May 2019.

A two-hour delay followed by a complete cancellation of our train from Bayeux set the stage for the Paris portion of our trip. I learned a new word in French, supprime, that is “removed” or “canceled.” <SIGH> France, why are you so petulant?

So what if we arrived two hours late? Et alors? The day is lovely, we’ll skip our plans to journey to Saint-Denis and instead enjoy the sun (we had been cold in Bayeux) and parade around the Champ de Mars to the Trocadero and back. We had three more days to execute our minimal plan. This is our 6th stay in this delightful city so there are few “must sees” only the desire to walk hand-in-hand, eat well, drink wine. Our first night’s dinner at Le P’tit Troquet was magnifique!

View from our room on the night of arrival.

Day 2: So what if it is raining? We will enjoy the Musee d’Orsay! Arriving at opening, tickets in hand, we entered with a small crowd and enjoyed almost an hour with the Impressionists on the 5th floor. Last time we were here, there were schoolchildren everywhere. This time, we were knocked to the side only a couple of times by people with selfie-sticks ensuring those at home would know they’d seen a Renoir in person.

I love Musee d’Orsay as much for its architecture as for its collection.

Rain? We walk. It is only a drizzle, like at home. It comes and goes.  Stop in a cafe for espresso and croissant. How Parisian! The Monnaie de Paris was open and uncrowded and pretty interesting, extremely well-done. Ah! Here is the sun, for five minutes. No rain! Lunch at a small place we know (after 6 visits, we have places) across from poor old Notre Dame. Lovely salads and we got to hear the owner’s tale from the “Day of the Fire.”

Poor old Notre Dame! Work is underway.

Another view of the icon.

Tres bien! It is not raining. “Let’s cross the river and walk back on the right bank,” suggests Ric. Luckily we hit the porticoes along Rue de Rivoli just before the rain comes, along with thunder and lightning, eventually a DOWNPOUR with hail. As it eases, we jump into the Metro station at Concorde. Non mais oh! A train passes by without stopping and security steps in to close the station. We are unclear but we think a manifestation or maybe just President Macron moving about. It was a holiday (VE Day). We must walk again and now it is raining in earnest. Soaking wet we arrive back at Hotel Relais Bosquet. We must have dinner close by as we already have 20,000 steps on the Fitbit! But of course, the sun comes back at 17:30 and though chilly it was not a bad evening.

Clearing at sundown, once again!

Day 3: The morning is dry, broken clouds, off to see the Basilica of Saint-Denis, right on our Metro line #8. Coffee on the piazza? Mais oui! The church is open but to our chagrin (as this is rather out-of-the-way from Central Paris), a strike has struck and one cannot visit the museum or the tombs of the kings.

We could see a few tombs from the sanctuary but I have no idea whose this is.

 

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Basilica of Saint-Denis, resting place of French royalty.

Not to worry, we’ve meant to tour the Opera Garnier! Off we go. But today, instead of being open 10:00-13:00, it opens at 13:00 which is two hours off. Let’s walk to Canal St. Martin, then, for lunch since the weather is holding. Whoops! Here comes the steady rain. We find a store and wait awhile, losing interest in our plan for an outdoor lunch. Abort! Find a Metro. Let’s just go home and find lunch. I also find also a manicure and pedicure to pass the rainy afternoon. Once again, the evening turns nice. At least we are able to make our reservation at Les Cedres du Libnan! A fine evening for a walk and a wonderful meal with Lebanese wine.

This sums up the weather on several of our outings.

Napoleon’s Tomb at Invalides, beautiful under (finally) clearing skies at sunset.

Day 4: Now we are cooking! Today it is mostly cloudy but I need my sunglasses on our urban hike! I will write more on Project Easy Hiker soon, but when you are in Paris and have a couple of hours, the Promenade Plantee aka, La coulée verte René-Dumont is worth exploration. It hardly seemed possible we were still in Paris!

The Promenade Plantee is atop an old railroad viaduct from Bastille southeast toward Bois di Vincennes. Serene!

No rain! No umbrella! 10,000 steps on the pedometer before lunch! We won’t talk about the Metro station closure, the wrong way tram, or my leaving Ric behind at the turnstile when his ticket didn’t work. We will speak instead of glorious moules frites, divine Italian food in Paris at Il Sorrentino (Vermentino, grappa, and polpo!), and something to blog about.

These walkers had about 15 dogs between them. Some unleashed, many triple leashed. 15 dogs at 15 Euro per dog maybe 225 Euro for an hour?

It snowed last week in Liguria. At least we weren’t there!

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Postcard from Normandy: D-Day, camembert, and more

8 May

8 May 2019.

The famous Invasion in June of 1944 changed Normandy forever and the (mostly) English-speaking hoards have continued to invade for the past 75 years. Luckily the locals are still celebrating the arrival of the Allies and welcoming Americans, Canadians, Brits, and Australians by millions. We ran into a lot of Dutch as well.

Bayeux is about as close as you can get to the D-Day beaches and not be on them. It was our base for a week. Crowds aren’t bad, but the town and surrounding hamlets, cemeteries, beaches, and museums are gearing up for the 75th Anniversary of D-Day. Windows are painted in greeting, museum exhibits are being reworked, and hoteliers are preparing to clean up.

Window painting, Bayeux, honoring the 75th anniversary.

Window painting in Bayeux, honoring the Invasion 75 years ago.

A tour of the D-Day sites alone could take a week or more. Every village that secured a relic tank or WWII airplane has a museum, and every village has a tank or period airplane, not to mention oodles of ammunition, rusted helmets, German and Allied weapons, medic kits, and uniforms. Our tour guide told us there were 60+ museums in Normandy dedicated to the Invasion. We did not visit them all.

German battery, Pont du Hoc, now a tourist lookout.

This little Dutch boy was having a blast playing in an overgrown bomb crater, Pont du Hoc.

If you have seen “The Longest Day” you know the scene where the parachutist gets caught on the clock tower of the church at Sainte-Mère-Église. True story, kitchily depicted today.

After visiting a couple of (good) museums and spending 9 hours touring sites like Sainte-Mère-Église, Utah and Omaha Beaches, and the German and American cemeteries, we were pretty much on Overlord overload. Still, every time we ventured to another location, a bit more about D-Day was revealed. We realized our grasp of that day — of the entire Invasion — was not equal to the event. Sure we’ve seen movies, read books, maybe even paid attention in high school history class, but being there is sobering and overwhelming. The statistics (numbers of parachutists, numbers of planes, numbers of ships) are mind-boggling.

The logistics make what FedEx does every day look like a children’s party.

We had lunch at the cafe on Utah Beach, built in a building (the only building) that remains from that day. All WWII veterans are invited to sign the bar or any other surface in the cafe.

Utah Beach is now for walks with dogs and building sand castles. Like Oregon, it is too cold to go in the water. Except that is, of course, what thousands of men did on D-Day.

Perhaps the most eye-opening experience for us was seeing Port Winston at Arromanches. This was a Mulberry Harbor, a temporary portable harbor established to support the Invasion until the Allies could secure the ports held by the Germans. Neither of us had read much about this except in our Rick Steves guidebook.

The various components were fabricated in England and sunk in the Thames River to hide them from German surveillance. Shortly after D-Day, they were towed across the Channel and the harbor constructed. Seeing the remains of the caissons and floating piers along with displays and dioramas in the excellent museum brought to life the enormity of the operation.

View from above Arromanches. You can still see some caissons offshore.

WWII photo of the actual temporary harbor.

A piece ot the floating roadbed called a “whale” used in Port Winston. Ric for scale.

We had the luxury of a week in Normandy. Plenty of time to absorb the WWII history and ample time to devote to the countryside, medieval history (William the Conqueror was from Caen), and food. I swear my pores are oozing Camembert. We tried to drink enough red wine to whisk those nasty artery blocking fats out as fast as we consumed them. We’d make a nice healthy salad in our apartment in the evening with great local produce, lean chicken, a whisper of olive oil and balsamico, but we’d add Camembert. We did not, however, have butter on our baguettes. The cider, too, is a wonderful thing and quite perfect with the local food. Goes great with mussels freshly harvested and served ala Normande with (God help me!) cream!

Fresh scallops, anyone? No question that there were not frozen.

Fresh chicken too. Maybe she’s just for laying?

On the Aure River in Bayeux, two waterwheels are still spinning.

We hiked up La Côte de Grâce above Honfleur for the view of the Pont du Normandy.

In Barfleur, the Fête du Printemps was underway with curious street decoration.

Cute Barfleur, filled this sunny Sunday with French people out for a drive and lunch, which is what we were doing.

One can cover a lot of miles in Normandy without seeing all of it. We confined ourselves to the area from Honfleur in the north to Barfleur near Cherbourg and Caen. We realized part way through the week that this area of France requires additional time if one is to include Mont Saint Michel as well as points north like Etretat.

I guess a return trip is in order. Save me some Camembert.

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Postcard from Alsace: Wine, Wisteria, and Storks

30 Apr

30 April 2019.

It is always time for wine in France’s Alsace Region, but only for a short time in the spring do the storks roost here to rear their young. Until we arrived we had no idea about this annual migration nor did we know how revered the storks, or cigognes blanches, are.  They are symbols of happiness and faithfulness bringing fertility and good luck. There is a fun read here from the Seattle Times a few years ago.

Ric captured a close up of this nest with both parents present. They were clicking away at each other, their method of communicating. The nest is perched atop a steeple. Note the supports. The towns build and maintain platforms to support the huge nests.

The storks feature prominently in town art,

We have had a full itinerary, one day taking a tour of a small portion of the Route des Vins d’Alsace visiting three family-run wineries, and another day exploring the beautiful and tiny villages, spotting storks, and enjoying the seasonal decorations that adorn every house, shop, and square. Wisteria drapes from walls, roofs, and trees, enhanced by bunnies, eggs, and other signs of the just-past Easter holiday. The air is fragrant with lilac.

The wisteria is at its peak while the tulips have just faded.

A day hike through the vineyards got us away from the hordes and tourist buses in Colmar, which has been our base for five nights. There has also been plenty of time to enjoy the local cuisine.

Flammekueche or tarte flambée, depending on your language choice. Think of it as Alsatian pizza. It is FABULOUS.

As usual, we are car-free. I can imagine why a car would be helpful in this region as public transportation is a bit thin. With the help of a taxi driver named Isa, we have managed quite well. Three times Isa took us to villages that were difficult to reach by bus. We feel like we have our own personal driver in Colmar. Three taxis were far more economical than renting a car for 4-5 days.

For now, I will let our pictures do the talking. Between us, we took far too many in four days: almost 500! Watch for a post (soon!) over at Project Easy Hiker as well about our backroads walk from Riqewihr to Ribeauville along with our visit at the Centre de Reintroduction which has helped in stork recovery.

One of the more brightly colored buildings, this one in tiny Riquewihr. Can you see the bunnies in the window boxes?

The decorations would be tacky on one house, kitschy on two, but when every building has them, it is a theme.

Even this restaurant in Turckheim was bedecked. This is where we had the tarte flambée along with seasonal white asparagus, another specialty of the region.

In Alsace, they use some very old wine barrels such as these beautifully decorated ones from a bygone era.

An eye test chart in an Alsatian winery. The real test for me was pronouncing the names.

Even in the overast that predominated our days in Colmar, the buildings are charming. No wonder this area is called “La Petit Venise.”

 

 

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