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!
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.
From the highest path we’ll hike this trip to the valley floor (still rather high by our flatlander/sea level standards), we’ve continued our treks to — and from — lunch.
The other day (See: On the road again) we started our hike from Muottas Muragl, at over 8000 feet and ended at about 7600 feet. We gazed across at Piz Bernina and down at St. Moritz and the Val Roseg. An amazingly long funicular carried us up to Muottas Muragl, and a cold ride in a chairlift delivered us to Pontresina post lunch. Very cold. Windy. Rocking back-and-forth. A regular thrill-ride!
The next two outings took us down to those gems and found us staring up at Muotta Muragl.
The glittering lakes of St. Moritz and the tiny jewel of Laj da Staz (Lake Staz) far below us as we look down from the Panoramaweg.
The walk from St. Moritz to Laj da Staz did not require us to watch our feet nor use trekking sticks. A walk in the veritable park! It led us to a fine restaurant, only open 4 ½ hours each day, on the shores of the sparking alpine lake, Staz. Here we dined on quiche and sipped wine before taking a stroll in the woods following the pass between St. Moritz and a stop-on-request station for the little red train back to Pontresina. How civilized. Walking to-and-from lunch helped pay for the Cremeschnitte we shared for dessert.
This is Cremeschnitte. Just a light dessert.
The hotel is unique as it is only available for private bookings. They have 6 rooms and an event space so a group can rent it for a wedding, reunion, or other special event.
Laj da Staz, a glittering alpine lake a 40 minute walk from the St.Moritz train station and the charming full-service hotel and restaurant which welcomed hikers with style. No eating off paper plates or drinking from plastic cups for us.
Friday we repeated an outing we took in 2018: A Pferdeomnibus (horse omnibus) up the Val Roseg to the Hotel Restaurant Roseg Gletscher.
Our view from on high shows the ribbon of river and a road leading through the Val Roseg. Although the road ends in 4 miles at a hotel, one can walk a path several miles to get very close to the glacier. We hiked back through the forest on the left.
Riding the “horse bus” is a riot. Three sturdy mares (the driver called them her Fräulein) pulled our carriage built for groups. All the passengers were Swiss except us, and they were in a party mood this sunny Saturday, packing along a couple of bottles of the Swiss white wine, Fendant, which they generously shared with us. Nothing like an aperitif en route in your horse-drawn omnibus. After an hour we arrived at the restaurant where we once again dined in style. (No trail side soggy sandwiches for us!) Liveried waitstaff, lovely preparations of the freshest foods, a solid wine list, and a dessert bar to die from for. We had the FitnessTeller or health plate, a grilled chicken breast on a bed of salad. A light option as we knew the desert bar was inevitable. Nüsstorte for me and a cake with fruit and cream for Ric.
This day’s hike was a path from lunch instead of a path to it. The horse omnibus traverses a gravel road that also supports bicycle traffic. Some walkers take it, as well, but the true hiking path is a forested trail running above and mostly out of sight of the road. We hiked almost two hours to reach Pontresina. The horse trek up the valley took about an hour. The path seems very gentle but was actually an overall descent of 745 feet. We let the horses do the hard work of walking uphill.
Top left: View over the driver’s shoulder of the “girls.” Center top: Our convivial bus. Blankets not needed this fine day. Top right: View of the valley as we road the omnibus up.
Bottom left: View looking up the valley past the restaurant. Center bottom: Little blue alpine butterflies. The males take minerals from the mud and deliver them to the females during mating. Bottom right: Half of the dessert bar. There were at least 30 selections.
The lower elevations around here are still higher than anything we have within hours of home. St. Moritz is at 6000 feet as is Pontresina. Now that we are used to this altitude, we are moving to lower elevations. Off to Kandersteg tomorrow. Stay-tuned!
Sorry I haven’t written. We’ve been very busy since arriving in Switzerland on August 23!
On every trip we seem to find ourselves on a hike we would not have taken had we known what was ahead. In 2021, we climbed a mountain. In 2022, we took a route in the Alpe di Siusi that was short enough, not too much elevation change, but included a steep, downhill, dolomite-strewn trail suitable for mountain goats, not necessarily septuagenarians.
This year’s happy error was the panoramic trail from Muottas Muragl to Alp Languard in Switzerland’s Engadine. This route featured in nearly every hiking source I could consult. Some called it “easy” or “moderately strenuous.” We’d call it, at the very least, challenging. The expected 2 hours became 3-and-a-quarter. It was only 4.25 miles long so our pace was slow. That should tell you something about the trail. Incredible vistas, gorgeous weather (sun and high-50s, Fahrenheit), rocky downhills, steep climbs, some narrow paths with frightening drop-offs, streams to cross (waterproof hiking boots held up nicely), and best of all, tilting flagstones over a scree field.
My sister-in-law would have hated it!
The trail maintenance effort to create this flagstone path across the scree field is laudable. Still, a bit unnerving to cross as the stones canted much more than you can see, first one way, then another, and a few of them rocked in place when weight was placed on them.
Thank goodness we had our trekking sticks and terrific boots!
Many many young people, as well as those in our age bracket, strode confidently along the trail. Others pussyfooted like us. I did have to stop feeling sorry for myself when we saw a woman older than us (!!) slowly and determinedly making her way. Luckily she had a minder with her. If it took us over 3 hours her pace would have been at least 4 hours.
This may be the most crowded trail we have taken in all our years of hiking in Switzerland and Italy. Luckily groups arrived in time with a funicular and quickly dispersed. Occasionally we had to stand aside for a couple dozen students to trek past us, all very polite with a pleasant “Greützi!”Here a group lunches with a view of St. Moritz.
But it was beautiful! We are terribly proud of having done it. This route was on our list for 2018, the last time we were in Pontresina. At that time, the weather and trail conditions prohibited the trek. So, done and dusted: we did it. Non mai di piú!
From the trail, incredible view of Piz Bernina, the highest peak in the area, 14,283 feet above sea level.
Pontresina is one of the Italian-speaking valleys in this region, the Engadine, so it has been fun to exercise those Italian linguistic muscles. I have been studying German this summer, though, and I find a mixture spews out from time-to-time. German articles (der, die, das) with Italian nouns, for example. Das burro, anyone?
We also hiked to the Morteratsch Glacier below Piz Bernina the other day. Fresh snow the night before made for a stunning scene. This is a lovely 4.5 mile out and back. The trailhead is reached by a little mountain train of the Rhaetianbahn.
Surprisingly, in Appenzell, our stop prior to Pontresina, we encountered some Swiss who did not speak English and I managed in German. I was pretty happy since my academic efforts in the language ended in 1972. Duolingo has helped me refresh.
We’ve had weather from 93F/34C to 37F/3C. Pack for that! (Actually, we did!) We only got drenched once, so far, in the last 20 minutes of a lovely hike in Appenzell. Rivers have raged and retreated, snow has fallen at higher elevations. No doubt the weather gods will throw more curves in the coming weeks, but we are prepared with layers of all types, Gortex, and great shoes.
Herewith, a few shots from our days in Zurich and Appenzell.
From the upper left: Morning in Zurich, Already 70 degrees; Cow parade in Appenzell, viewed from our room; The BarFussWeg or Barefoot Way. We did not do it barefooted. Some did. Yuck. It is tick season!
From the lower left: Along the Barefoot Way, many surfaces, some not friendly to bare feet; Cows always enhance the experience; Final picture a cloudy day for the Appenzeller Loop, a lovely walk through the landscape.
Our 11 nights in the Jungfrau Region were delightful. This was most definitely the right course correction after we had to abandon Ireland. We had the benefit of familiarity but, as always, we found new corners to explore.
Most of our trips have been in September/October plus a post-New Year’s-weekend in 2014. This time we experienced the lushness and variety of Switzerland in the spring. There are marked differences not only in the landscape but in services and activities.
There was still snow on the ground keeping trails impassable or at best unsafe. Some lifts do not run until the very end of May or into early June, which limited our access to the higher places.
Construction and maintenance season comes between the skiing and hiking seasons in springtime as well as between the hiking and skiing in the fall. The little mountain train between Grütschalp and Mürren was down for a month, reopening June 2, after we departed. We think (hope?) it will be with the new trains, which we have been looking forward to. The gondola to one of our favorite locations, Maennlichen, only opened on our final day after a between-seasons closure. Many hotels were still shuttered with signs indicating they’d be reopening in early June. Some of these will be closed again by early September.
Tulips were at peak bloom when we arrived mid-month, thanks to the elevation in Wengen, long past the bloom date in Oregon. Bleeding hearts still dripped with their distinctive flowers as well, and the deciduous trees at elevation were just starting to leaf out. By the end of the month, our initially mountain-view apartment had a leafy-view.
What else is different about Switzerland in the spring? WATER! Water gushes in the streams becoming a rushing flow in the rivers. Previously invisible waterfalls spring from cliffs and crevices. Each bend in the track of our little mountain train from Wengen to Lauterbrunnen was a treat with white, frothy waterfalls cascading close by.
There are four waterfalls easily visible in this photo but in autumn we rarely see any in this same location.
The river is running about twice as fast as later in the season. The sound carries throughout the valley.
Swiss gardens, which we see on the post-harvest end of the season each year, were neat little patches with hopeful plant starts. Nurseries popped up in the villages and the COOP had a supply of bagged dirt and geraniums out front with promising packets of seeds. The vegetable gardens are always immaculate, no matter the season, and worthy of being in the front of the houses, unlike our tendency to hide them out back in the US. Gardens are highlighted by whimsy and there is always room for flowers as well as edibles.
Neat rows of hopeful plantsSame garden, wider view, with ornamentalsAnother neatly organized easy-to-work-in garden. Green cones protect delicate leafy greens from nights that ae stil cold.
Tourism is back in a big way. Now that Asia is wide open post-pandemic, the Chinese tour groups and Japanese honeymoon couples joined Middle Eastern and South Asian families experiencing snow with glee. Many Swiss were traveling in their own country as there were two holiday weekends during our stay. As usual, we found that once we were away from the train stations and easier-to-access viewpoints and sights, we were mostly alone on the trails. That rarely changes whether spring or autumn.
We are home and mostly recovered from travel, caught up on laundry, and looking forward to 2 ½ months of summer. August 22 we will welcome our fabulous house sitter for a repeat engagement and return to lovely Switzerland as has been planned for many months. If there are changes, we’ll let you know!
Girovaga 