Switzerland

Right after France, we drove onto Switzerland for a week. (Pictures here.) The objective was to get as much hiking in as possible. Unfortunately I'm not so fit these days and I think I got about all I could handle:

Day 1: Zermatt & the Matterhorn

We arrived in Zermatt on Saturday, 23 June after parking our car in Tasch and taking the 15 minute train in. Zermatt is car free, so once there, we had to take an electric bus or taxi to our hostel. Our initial plan was to stay here 3-4 days, but bad weather was supposed to roll in on Monday so we decided to stay only two nights. On Sunday, we paid 85CHF to take the cable car up to Kleine Matterhorn where we nearly froze to death. We also stopped at Schwarzsee Paradise where there is a lake. Since we'd seen most of the great views from top of the cable cars, we did a 3 hour hike (2 up, 1 down) between Furi and Schwartzsee for the sake of exercise. And boy did I need it.... I was struggling a bit and was quite sore the next day. A rest day off the bat :P but fortunately it was a travel day for us anyways with the crap weather that actually rolled in.

Day 2: Locarno


Since Switzerland was a small country, we thought it would be hard to escape the rain that was expected over the next few days. Christian had a great idea though, to go to Locarno. Locarno is a town off of Lago Maggiore in the Italian part of Switzerland. It supposedly gets 2200 hours of sunshine a year, most out of any place in the country. While the weather this day wasn't good, it was supposed to be fine from Tuesday. Most of this day was spent enjoying views from the high mountain passes. While most people, or guys, probably would enjoy the driving on the tight turns along the mountain edge, I often had thoughts of the car sliding off down the cliff.

Day 3: Valle Verzasca

We found a beautiful, and easy :) hike for today in the valley of Verzasca. It could have been a 4.5 hour hike, but because we couldn't be inconvenienced to work our schedule around the limited bus times (once every 2 hours) for the trip back, we parked somewhere in the middle of the route (around Gerra) and did a round-trip of the last half of the route to Sonogno and back. It ended up being only 1.5 hours each way, but it was a nice hike. My favorite part of the route was a walk through an old abandoned village or something where the houses were made of stone.

Although we didn't hike there, we did make a stop in Lavertezzo where we saw the popular bridge Ponte dei Salti. It was indeed a beautiful area, but a bit over run by a tourist. There is also a big dam on the way into the valley. There is also the Froda waterfall. If you get a chance, definitely do the entire hike. I wish I did.

Day 4: San Gottardo


On this day we were heading up to the Interlaken area, but we decided to do a hike along the way on the moutain pass of Saint Gothard. It started in Saint Gothard, a place that had like 4 buildings. We had a rocky start, not knowing exactly where the trail was. Probably we should have invested in a real map rather than the cheap trail guide we had. Then again, it wouldn't have mattered because we lost it about half way through the hike. Not even an hour into the hike, we started to notice some dodgy looking clouds and thought about turning back. The hike was meant to be 4.5 hours and it could be damn miserable at 2500 meters if bad weather struck. We decided to take our chances and kept on trucking though. It seemed like a rather long climb for me to go up 400 meters in 2 hours over the first ridge. Once over the ridge tho, the rest was not so bad. The trail took us around few more lakes and some snow covered areas. We weren't really sure if we were going the right way, but we saw another couple coming the opposite direction and was able to confirm we were going in the right direction. It was a good thing because there were some snow flurries by now. By the time we got to the last 30 minutes of the hike at a lower altitude, it was full blown rain. But it felt sooooo good when it was all done. I liked this hike a lot too.

Day 5: Jungfrau region (Stechelberg - Oberhornsee)


Today we decided to tackle something close to where we were staying in Stechelberg. Fortunately, there was a trail that started right behind our hotel. Turned out to be a pretty good one too. It was a few hours climb to Obersteinberg where we had lunch with a fantastic view of the alps (above) and a waterfall. The trail then continued onward to Oberhornsee, a pretty blue lake, and then back down. We made some bad decisions on the way down tho and took the steepest way down I think. That was rather painful. This day we walked for at least 7 hours.

Day 6: Jungfrau region (Allmend-Klein Scheidegg)


Today we did a short hike, but it was a really nice one. We took the train from Lauterbrunnen up to Allmend where we began a 3 to 4 hour hike to Kleine Scheidegg via Biglenalp. Aside from great views of Jungfrau, Monch, and Eiger, there were lots of trees, wildflowers, cows, and other little variety in the trail that made it an interesting hike. It was not such a difficult one either, tho after the last couple days it was difficult enough for me. The only bad part were the flies - they were everywhere. From Kleine Scheidegg, we took a train back down (I hate going downhill) and had an early finish.

I must say that while I love hiking, I got my fix to last me a while. In the meantime, I need to get back into the routine of working out and being fit again. It's summer so I have no excuses. A work out... everyday... well almost everyday... starting... tomorrow :P

Day 6: Bern


We decided to leave on a Saturday so that we didn't have to do the 10 hour drive all in one go. On this day we drove up to Germany through a stop in Bern. You'd never know this place was the capital of Switzerland. It's small and charming. We walked around the place for only an hour. Einstein's house might have been cool to see though. Maybe next time....