Switzerland

We left Hanoi on July 3 and flew to the pristine, quiet Zurich airport.  The first huge difference was the lack of anyone yelling, “Taxi? Taxi? Where are you going? I’ll give you a good price.”  When we saw a line of quiet, orderly taxis we knew we were not in Southeast Asia anymore.  We were suddenly aware of Swiss engineering with exquisite doors, fixtures, triple pane windows, electric blinds, and energy efficient everything.  And, we were not sweating!  What a relief to feel the dry, cool air.

We caught a super clean, efficient train from Zurich to Basel, where Doug’s cousin Christopher Zimmerman (“Topher”) collected us.  How fun to see Topher where he’s lived the past 6 years with his wife Kerstin and sons Lukas and Robin.  Within minutes we’d driven over the border to Germany and their charming old village home, the same house Kerstin grew up in.  We walked out their back door through bucolic local vineyards to watch the sunset, and light a single Roman candle firework Topher found in honor of our American independence.

Topher led us on his typical commute–a lovely 15 km bike ride from his home in Weil am Rhein, Germany through farmland, suburbs, ports and industrial areas to Basel, Switzerland.  Basel is a small, picturesque city on the clean Rhine River, where residents can put their work clothes in a dry bag and jump in for a ‘commute’ downstream, or create impromptu happy hour gatherings along the banks.  The roads and sidewalks are alive with cyclists, runners, walkers, strollers, and picnickers.

We were pretty psyched that Topher passed up his annual men’s hiking weekend to join us for our first few days trekking in the Swiss Alps, led by our dear friend Abby Strauss-Malcolm.  Abby has led treks in the Swiss Alps and Italian Dolomites for 6 years now as an employee of Alpine Hikers http://alpinehikers.com, and we have drooled over her photos.  It was the most breathtaking scenery we have experienced all year.  The photos speak for themselves, but also imagine the soft scent of alpine flowers, the cool, dry air warmed by high sun, and the soft sound of cowbells.  Also picture highly civilized, quaint towns (some of which are only open to foot traffic) nestled in and around the glacial mountains, flowers pouring out of window boxes, amazing bread, cheese, fruits, meats, coffee, beer and wine.  There you have it…Switzerland.

Our 6 day epic trip involved hiking the Bernese Oberland Traverse starting at Schwarzwaldalp and finishing in Murren.  It was breathtaking and challenging, and we’d do it again in a heartbeat.  After a couple of days recovering in Murren we railed to Zurich, where Ella immediately got on a plane for Budapest, Hungary to visit her friend Daisa in Romania, and Helen caught a bus to Munich, Germany where she stayed with her 2nd cousin/friend Caitlin Jennings and family for a week.  Abby, Doug and I enjoyed an afternoon and evening on the Limmat river with hundreds of locals, basking in the sun and taking in the community scene of swimmers and slack liners on the river, then feasting on excellent traditional tartar and fondue.

We hugged our dear Abby good-bye then enjoyed more of the beautiful old quarters of Zurich, and the lakeside filled with people of all ages and nationalities bbqing, swimming, playing ball, biking, playing music, and eating at lakeside restaurants.  Next stop for Doug and me?  Riga, Latvia, birthplace of my father and his family.

Letter home from Doug, July 18, 2018:

“Dear Family,

Anna and I are sitting under a sun umbrella on a cobbled street in Zurich’s Old Town, enjoying the sound of a nearby fountain and sipping strong Swiss coffee.  In a couple of hours we’ll wander back up the river to Central Station, retrieve our backpacks from a locker and catch a train out to the airport for an evening flight to Riga.  I can already feel us slipping into a European routine, a new normal that seemed so strange arriving from Hanoi just 12 days ago.  Our time so far back in the West has been spectacular and I’m so pleased with the whole arc of our trip, ending this way in the most dramatically beautiful and civilized corner of the world I’ve ever seen.

Did you already know people drink out of public fountains here in Switzerland?  When we sat down here for lunch Anna requested “water with gas” but I asked for tap water.  Our waitress then picked up my glass, took a step back and filled it in a stream from a fish’s mouth.  After four months in SE Asia we were all giddy enough just drinking faucet water.  By now we’ve filled our bottles in alpine springs and streams, fountains and troughs, and even swum in a river right here in the heart of Switzerland’s biggest city.

Our Aeroflot flight out of Asia was the single longest leg in our year of travel.  Previously I guess we’d had a couple of 6 hour stretches, first crossing the US then across the Pacific to Hawaii some weeks later.  Hanoi to Moscow took an impressive 10 hours with us (somehow fittingly) scrunched up in the middle last row of (non-reclining) seats against a central bank of well used toilets.  The plane was packed with small children including a pair of 2 year old brothers whose single biggest distraction those many hours was reaching over their seats to drop snack food in our laps.  This surreal purgatory evolved over our 2 hour layover in Russia, the airport an austere labyrinth of gates and terminals haunted by grim looking staff and anxious travelers.

In Zurich we breezed through customs and checked into a Holiday Inn near the airport, watching the 2^nd half of a World Cup game as we eased into the luxury of comfortable hotel amenities.  Our real culture shock hit the next morning at breakfast, a truly inspired buffet by any standards.  We all gawped and marveled at the hot drink machine and its menu of selections, then the pristine pancake maker next to tubs of yogurts and cheeses and meats, fruits and granola mixes.  We sat at an outside table in cool morning sunshine, breathing deeply and searching for any familiar reference points.  All we saw was in profound contrast to the steamy, crowded megacity we’d just left.  It really was a remarkable change one day of travel had brought to our surroundings.  I’m not sure if one could, in fact, find a much greater contrast between any 2 cities than Hanoi and Zurich.

Later that morning we boarded a sleek, quiet train for the 1 hour ride to Basel where we were met at the station by Chris Zimmerman.  What a great day that was.  Chris, Kerstin, Lukas and Robin emigrated 6 years ago now from Vancouver to a small German town (Weil am Rhein) 15 km from the Swiss city of Basel.  At the time (with 2 small children) they were outgrowing their apartment and the local Vancouver real estate scene had blown up so they made the big decision to move to Kerstin’s home town.  By all accounts this has worked out great and it was so much fun sharing a couple of days with them in their now native environment.  Lukas and Robin (10 and 8) are fluent, of course, in both German and English and in true world citizen style have 3 passports (along with Chris) to serve their travel needs.  Both kids are sweet and smart and connecting, happily engaging with the 4 of us in their home and showing us around the neighborhood and their beautiful wine-orchard covered  back hillside.  It was great getting to know Kerstin better as well.  So often it’s with a crowd when we meet at the lake so how nice this time to have their family to ourselves for an extended stretch.  Her family home is a large old structure originally built and owned by Kerstin’s father and uncle.  The brothers actually married a pair of sisters and the 2 families long ago converted a barn area into extra living space.  Now Kerstin and Chris live in a spacious area upstairs while her mother (Helga) lives in an apartment on the first floor and Kerstin’s cousin (Marcus) has an apartment and successful bicycle business further down the sprawling building.

Their neighborhood is in an old section of town surrounded by orchards and farms where bikes seem the expected mode of transportation for all.  Several farmer run businesses provide food staples within a short walk or bike from home and Chris at times even pulls a trailer on his bike to a hardware store in another section of town.  The kids each bike to their respective schools and Kerstin and Chris both ride into Basel most days, Kerstin as an architect and Chris to his software development business.  Our second day Marcus lent us all bikes from his shop and Chris led an excursion into the heart of Basel on 15 km’s of trails and bike-friendly roads, crossing an international border with no gate (or from what I could tell even surveillance equipment) along the way.  The 2^nd half of the ride was urban and mostly followed the Rhine river, so clean that swimmers bobbed along at regular intervals, floating with the current downstream.  At one point we could look across the river to the French side and downstream to Germany while we stood on the Swiss bank.  So cool and impressive how these countries have evolved to enjoy such open borders.  Also cool were the inclusive, impromptu gatherings along the river where people sipped beer and wine and soaked up the fine summer weather.  Just 2 days back west and we were already falling in love with Europe.

On Friday morning we said goodbye to Kerstin and the boys, then Chris drove us to the train station where we met our dear friend Abby Strauss-Malcolm.  Abby moved from Prescott back east to Gloucester with husband Zack a couple of years ago where they’ve been busy building a home on beautiful wooded land near an old stone quarry.  These last 6 years they’ve also led guided trips in the Alps around France, Italy and Switzerland.  We had the idea when planning our trip last year that maybe we could hook up with one or both of them at the end of our travels and Abby effortlessly (for us) facilitated the whole adventure.  Our next 8 days traveling together were brilliant.  For one thing, it was nice for me just being along for the ride.  Abby had loosely consulted with us a few times as to the general itinerary but mostly we’d simply deferred to her deep knowledge of the area and went with all her recommendations.

And imagine our pleasure when cousin Chris announced a few weeks ago that he was able to join us on the first couple of legs of our trek.  This was the weekend he ordinarily met with a group of guys for an annual camping outing but chose to join us for additional Strout bonding time instead.  So it was a merry crew of 6 that set out together on a whisper-quiet 3 hour (1^st class) train ride to Meiringen, the start of our six day Bernese Oberland Traverse.

If you’ve yet to see them yourselves, the Swiss Alps (it will come as no surprise to hear) are simply stunning.  We have now visited several of our big national parks out west and also seen much of the glacial area in southern New Zealand.  Also a bit of the Himalayas, though that was as a young kid so memories are sketchy.  What we experienced this last week in Switzerland was easily the most breathtaking scenery I’ve ever seen.  If you can picture the area around Yosemite National Park, with El Capitan on one side and Half Dome the other you can get a sense of what we were seeing, though imagine then massive glaciers pushing against those peaks and not just arid high country.

From the train in Meiringen a bus drove us up a steep series of switch backs to a high (12 room) mountain inn called Schwarzwaldalp.  It had been cloudy with occasional drizzle on our ride from Basel so all the views we’d seen so far were of passing lakes, rivers, villages and trees.  That afternoon at the inn with light rain continuing, the 4 of us grownups met in our bedroom for drinks and conversation, then dinner in the dining area below.  After our meal the rain had stopped and we all headed outside to see the beginnings of ragged peaks appearing out of the mist as we walked in the failing light down a deserted road, startling several ibex as we headed to a nearby waterfall and gorge.

The next morning we again stepped out of the inn, this time to blue skies remained for the rest of our time in the mountains.  I first admired an impressive steep hill rising up across a meadow directly out our front door, a few picturesque cows grazing on the steep slopes before soil gave way to rocky peaks further up.  I then turned around and rising straight up from behind the inn were sheer cliffs leading to snow covered peaks 4000 meters high, seemingly close enough to touch in the clear mountain air.  It was a magical sight and set the bar for what we’d experience over the next several days.

An hour later, carrying just daypacks with our hiking clothes, water and picnic supplies we set off on a daylong trek up and over a pass, then eventually down to a mountain ski and alpine sports facility high above the tourist town of Grindelwald.  There we actually enjoyed late afternoon drinks and snacks on a restaurant deck overlooking the famous North Face of the Eiger before the ladies all boarded a gondola for the long descent down to the valley village below.  Restored by our 2 “big beers” (that’s all you have to say to successfully order a drink in Switzerland) Chris and I chose stand-up scooter (Trotti) bikes with good brakes and breezed down a steep mountain road, eventually finding the town and that evening’s hotel accommodations.

The next day after breakfast Abby gathered us onto a train for a short ride up the other side of the valley where we disembarked on the edge of a massive granite wall which we hiked in the shadow of all that morning.  We slowly gained altitude, passing between meadows of alpine flowers and stretches of snow and ice, all the time aware of the enormous wall of rock and glacier to one side.  After a picnic we eventually made it over a pass and came, improbably, upon an alpine train station outpost, the highest in Europe.  Helen at that point was suffering from blisters and gratefully took the option of a lift to the next town, Wengen, where the rest of us met her at our 4 star hotel several hours and many more kilometers later.  Wengen, a car-free village nestled atop a small mountain shelf, was where Chris took his leave about 5 that evening.  Amazingly, he was able to board a train back to Meiringen then on to Basel and reached home in time to tuck his kids into bed that night.  What a country.

The rest of us collapsed in a lovely sauna and steam room facility, then dinner and comfortable beds and a well-deserved sleep-in the next morning.  That day for the first time we packed not just what we’d need for the hike but also a toothbrush and change of clothes and enough food for 2 picnics.  Again we took a short train ride, then bus to the beginning of a long mountain valley topped at one end by a spectacular great waterfall.  We spent the next several hours climbing a trail first gradually, then steeply up the Lauterbrunnen valley, considered by many one of Switzerland’s most beautiful destinations.  We eventually popped above tree line and came to the Obersteinberg, a simple and remote old inn with no road or electricity which relies on helicopter drops to get its supplies.

That afternoon we sat with drinks on a deck perched on the edge of a cliff looking across at glacier peaks and the same ridiculous great waterfall we’d been glimpsing all day, now so close we could hear its steady low roar.  For some perspective on scale, that day we climbed 3K feet to the inn which sat at about 6K feet, about the same height as our Mt. Washington.  Across the narrow ravine from us rose cliffs to peaks over 12K.  Makes the mind kind of boggle a bit, don’t it?  That evening we ate a hearty Swiss meal served on benches with other guests as out the windows glacial peaks blazed in evening sunlight.  That last sun reflection slipped away around 10pm and we retired to cool bedrooms (and thick quilts) lit with simple candles.

The next morning after breakfast we continued our climb another 1000 feet up to the end of the Lauterbrunnen valley, passing over a river of glacial melt and through meadows of alpine flowers.  We sat for a while at the edge of a small glacial lake, still water reflecting white peaks on three sides.  A few other hikers came and went, one couple even plunging in and announcing to us the water was 8 C, or 46 F.  Eventually we dragged ourselves away from this most stunning spot and continued a long loop back down to the start of the valley where we’d begun the previous day.

At that point we could have easily left the Alps fully sated on extreme mountain views.  Instead, we climbed aboard a cable car which pulled us up a 3000 ft cliff to the small town of Murren, perched on the edge with views across to the 13K foot Eiger, Monch and Jungfrau peaks, the Ogre, Monk and Maiden.  There we spent 2 nights at a comfortable hotel apartment, one of which we spent watching the England vs Croatia World Cup game with a couple of colleagues of Abby’s, a friendly young Czech guide and also Doug Mayer, former producer for NPR’s Car Talk, current ultra-runner and guide for Run the Alps, a branch of Abby’s Alpine Hikers.  That was a festive scene and fun hearing a bit from Doug on the humble evolution and improbably amazing success of his radio show.  I managed to get out for another day hike while in Murren but for the most part we laid low, enjoying the town and views from our apartment deck.

Then on Thursday (7/12) we took a series of trains on a 3 hour ride back to Zurich.  Abby and Helen got off in the city center to look around while Anna and I accompanied Ella to the Airport where she caught an afternoon flight to Budapest via Dusseldorf.  We later heard she was picked up at the airport by her Romanian friend Daisa (die-E-sa) and visiting Cape friends Nate and Julia.  From there they drove the 2 hours back to Daisa’s home in a small town near Bucharest where they’ve been having a happy time together these last several days.  The following morning Anna and I took a tram with Helen from our Airbnb rental back to Central Station where she boarded a bus for a 3 hour ride to Munich.  There she was met by both Nicholas and Caitlin Jennings and they apparently headed off together for a weekend camping trip in Austria, along with Jenny, David and another ; .  That was kind of crazy, saying goodbye to our kids after a year of near constant togetherness. Suddenly we were just the 2 of us.  Well, Abby actually stuck around for another day, leaving our Airbnb on Saturday to stay with an old German friend from her days in Hawaii who now lives in Zurich.  Wow, check out all the place names I’ve been able to use in this paragraph.  Interesting how close all these countries are here in Europe, so different from our ocean isolated North American experience.

Anyway, I’ve gone on enough for one email.  Switzerland has been a big leg for us on our family travels.  The shocking contrast to the far east couldn’t have been more extreme and the natural beauty we experienced here is hard to fathom.  Also shocking for us has been the cost of travel.  Anna and I crunched numbers recently and estimate we spent about the same amount on these last 10 days in Europe as we did during 4 months of travel in SE Asia.  Hmmmm.  Could be time to hurry home and find a job.  But not to rush things, the 2 of us are now thoroughly enjoying ourselves in Riga, Anna’s historical homeland.  We’ll all meet up next weekend in Munich and fly home in just 5 days, arriving at the lake around docktime on the 23^rd.  Crazy to realize this trip is actually wrapping up.  So we’ll hug you all soon and priekā from Latvia,

Doug”