Ah, Switzerland in the Summer
The Alps in summertime. The Matterhorn and the Eiger. Snow capped peaks ignoring borders with France and Italy. Hills and fields and farms. My oldest and dearest friend and I met over fifty years ago, navigated stages of life along the way, apart and together. For decades, we pontificated about an epic travel journey someday...in the future...when the stars align...after her son was an adult...in between life's tethers and responsibilities. But, now in our mid-sixties, TIME looms over us like a black cloud. The world doesn't seem to get kinder and gentler, but continues to amplify, not the best of the human race, but the worst of it. Wars, climate change, economics. If not soon, then when? Carpe Diem inserted itself into our wishful dreaming and found its way into NOW. Switzerland in the early summer!
Castles
Somewhere along Europe's history, there must have been a push for property values to rise. "Keeping up with the Schweitzers", who built a castle down the lake apiece. They must have designed their castle with one turret. How about two on ours? ANDa moat? That will one-up the neighbors!
We had to pick and choose our castle visits in the time frame we had. They were everywhere: many renovated (starting in the 1500's even), and those not cared about were allowed to fall apart, now just the remnants of stone walls surrounded by lichened rocks finding their way back to their roots.
Chillon Castle on Lac Léman (Geneva):
We had to pick and choose our castle visits in the time frame we had. They were everywhere: many renovated (starting in the 1500's even), and those not cared about were allowed to fall apart, now just the remnants of stone walls surrounded by lichened rocks finding their way back to their roots.
Chillon Castle on Lac Léman (Geneva):
Gruyeres Castle:
Thun Castle on Lake Thun up-lake from Interlaken:
Cheese
We drove through small towns famous for their unique cheesemaking: Gruyeres, Appenzell, Fribourg, and sampled blocks of their cheeses with fruit and bread. We dipped potatoes and bread into hot fondue pots, holding firm to our long, skinny fondue forks, cutting the thick gooey cheese in our mouths with sweet onions and olives.
Chocolate
It wasn’t until much later that the chocolate we know today came into existence, thanks to a legion of Swiss pioneers and chocolate tinkerers. In 1819, the first mechanised chocolate factory opened in the town of Vevey, which sits on the edge of Lac Léman.
The factory was the brainchild of François-Louis Cailler, who had worked as an apprentice with Italian chocolatiers in Ticino. Cailler’s machinery began churning out the first mass-produced Swiss chocolate. Before long, chocolate factories had sprung up across Switzerland. In 1836, the Sprüngli family set up a shop in Zurich which would later merge with Rodolphe Lindt’s Bern based factory in 1892, the basis for the Lindt brand which we know today. Nestlé and Tobler followed their lead.
Touring the Cailler factory, we were brought through the origins of cacao, and how these beans made their way into Swiss fame. Like fine wine, we were taught to look closely at the chocolate patina, sniff to allow the aroma into our nostrils, let the taste linger on our tongues.
Rental Car, Cable Cars, Cog Railways,
Gondolas, and Funiculars
Gondolas, and Funiculars
Switzerland hosts a plethora of mountains and hills, with some villages high up the mountain sides, without access by roads and cars. The cable cars and funiculars are the transportation choice for those choosing the higher elevation lifestyle. Many hikes start from the top of these alternative modes of transport....hiking down from the peaks. We loved that!
Cows
Symphonic lullabies of bell-strung cows and goats could be heard in the Swiss air--across grassy fields in the Emmental region, along hillsides in the Bernese Oberland. Like wind chimes floating on the breeze, cow grazing performances laced our walks around our Air BnB stay in Arni, outside of Bern, and our visits to towns like Lauterbrunnen, Mürren, Grindelwald, and Gimelwald.
The Matterhorn and the Alps!
We had seen the photos, read about this famous peak in books, watched you tube videos of climbers ascending the vertical planes of its profile. It is its own legend. From out Zermatt AirBnB, it loomed high into the morning clear blue sky, crisp, patched with snow, proud. It is not the highest peak in the Alps, but has a well known notoriety.
Medieval Aldstadts
Aldstadts (the German word for original old town city centers), draw tourists to Swiss cities and old villages, each with unique architecture refreshed and renovated for their historic values. Cobblestone streets, shops, wood and plaster, painted facades.
Aldstadts (the German word for original old town city centers), draw tourists to Swiss cities and old villages, each with unique architecture refreshed and renovated for their historic values. Cobblestone streets, shops, wood and plaster, painted facades.
Caves and Ice