Geneva, and the end, and the beginning

I'm in the business center of a hotel in Geneva, putting in time until I fall asleep. I would be wandering the city, but it is raining and I have a 4:30 am wake-up call, to catch a 5:17 am train to the airport, for a 7:30 Air France flight to Paris, and a 11 something flight to Toronto. I should be home in my cozy apartment by 4:30 at the latest. Of course, that would be 10:30 Swiss time, so I will be mixed up for a while.

Josef came with me on the train from Zurich. We traveled first class, just for the fun of it, but the only difference was more leg room, and a wider seat. But the countryside was lovely, with vineyards now turning yellow, and a long leg of the trip was beside the lake. It was interesting listening to the announcements. When we started they were in German, French and English. Then French and German, then just French. The language thing is fascinating to me. If we had been travelling in the south of Switzerland, they would add Italian to the mix. Lots of people here speak at least 4 languages, and they reply to you in whatever language you address them in. I wish we were more multi-lingual in Canada.

Josef and Maria have been kindness itself to me on my visit. Their patience and care has made it so much fun for me. Maria especially has worked hard to accomodate my meat and gluten free wishes.
I could not have wished for more accomodating and adventurous hosts.  Thanks, you two.

What will life be like for me at home? A whole new transition, but I am up for the challenges.

Darlene

Jacobsweg in Switzerland

The camino in Switzerland, also known as Jacobsweg (James`way) is a challenging path. How could it not be, given the terrain it has to cross. We took buses and trains to arrive at an entry point into the Camino, and it was up and down. If you check the map of the way in Switzerland at  http://www.jakobsweg.ch/home-en/information-on-routes/ and find Einsiedien, that is approximately where we walked.

The walking was very strenuous. It was up, quite steeply, for the first hour and a half, likely about 5 km. There was a new shelter built in 2008 on the way up, and we stopped for a snack, and to sign the guestbook. We were the second entry for the day. At the top was a restaurant, and we had soup and some fresh pressed apple juice. At the next table was a guy who was walking for a week, from his home just over the border in Germany, to Lucerne.We knew because he was wearing a tee shirt with ' Konstanz to Lucerne' amd a shell on it. Josef talked to him and got his story. The restaurant filled up with hikers, but we couldn't tell if they were pilgrims or not - no one else was wearing a shell.

But the prize at the top was the view. When we started at Alptal, at 1000 meters, the sun was shining above the clouds. At the top - Haggenegg, we could see a vista of mountian tops in the distance, and they seemed to be floating in a sea of cloud. It looked more like a field of snow, as my brain just couldn't make sense of it.It really was magical. There are pictures on this site                                                            http://www.mythenregion.ch/sommer/zusatz-navigation/english.html
 but none of them do it justice.

This link
http://www.bergfex.fr/brunni/bilder/
has google earth on it, and the sattelite image doesn't do it justice either.

We walked down - this time to Schwyz, which is farther down. It took us 2 hours, and every step was downhill. Some of it was so steep, that I slipped a few times on the gravel, but I caught myself in time. the view was worth every step.

This is a slideshow

 http://www.kronauer.info/images/haggenegg-chatzenstrick/velotouren_haggenegg-chatzenstrick.php

And this is what the signage looked like today.

This may be my last post for a few days, as I travel to Geneva tomorrow, and fly to Toronto Saturday. There will be more reflections to come. Meanwhile, thanks for reading, and post if you care to.
Darlene

Davos and Klosters

Lunch today was amazing! We took a bus, 2 trains,and a bus, then walked along a lake at 1500 meters to the Schweizer Restauant. At first glance, the menu had nothing that was red meat and gluten free, so I checked out the salad buffet. Wunderbar! I composed a salad bowl of leaf lettuce, radiccio, arugula, marinated artichokes, 2 kinds of beans, tuna, cheese and a slab of what tasted like fabulous feta, a stuffed grape leaf, grated carrot and radish, topped with pepitas and walnuts, lemon and basil oil.  And to top it all off, the waitress offered a gluten free bun, which came half way through my salad, and was freshly baked, and had a wonderful crust. Lavished with tangy swiss butter, it was a great treat.The sparkling apple juice turned it into the best restaurant meal I have had in Switzerland.

The other bonus for the day: when we left Wettswil, it was misty and damp and very dark. When we got above 1200 meters, just before our walk, we were above the clouds, and had brilliant sunshine and warmth after lunch as we visited Davos and Klosters.

Davos is where the World Economic Forum meets each year in February, and where the rich gather to ski. Today it was very quiet, as it is between seasons, and no one was visiting their holiday home here.
Check out www.davos.ch for the flavour of the town.

Klosters is where the royal family - the British one, that is, skis.
http://www.davos.ch/en/stay/davos-klosters/portrait-image/royal-playground.html

This website tells you all about it.

Tomorrow Josef and I will hike on a part of the Swiss Camino. I am looking forward to a bit of the camino before I return home.

Zurich and Marc Chagall windows

There were several highlights of my 2 trips to Zurich with Maria today, and one of them was the perfect dark chocolate truffle that I enjoyed from www.spruengli.ch. So unbelievably good that one was enough.

Another highlight was seeing the wonderful stained glass windows by Marc Chagall in the Frauminster church. This website  http://www.sacred-destinations.com/switzerland/zurich-fraumunster has beautiful pictures of the church and the windows. There are 5 of them, each  in a different primary colour, in their own chapel, and I sat and gazed in wonder at them. As with the work that I know from Chagall, there were many images interwoven, and each panel was a puzzle to me as I tried to sort out the images and make some sense of them. There was Christ on the cross, of course, and Mary and baby Jesus, and assorted angels, and much more.the above website explains them.

Maria and I walked the old part of Zurich in the morning. The streets that line the river have wonderful old buildings, beautifully preserved, and it was hard to know where to look! The street level was lined with expensive and exclusive shops, like Louis Vuitton, Dolce and Gabbana. Piaget, Guess, Chanel - the same shops that I see on Bloor Street at Yonge. But some of these stores have security guards, dressed in black suits, at the door. As we were walking along., the church bells struck 11, and from the shop we were passing, we heard swiss folk songs (I think) being played on an array of bells above the shop. Then appeared a series of swiss folk figurines, each about a foot tall, on a panel that revolved as the music played. There were about 25 - all in folk costume. A woman with a churn, a shepherdess with a sheep circling her, 2 shepherds with decorated bells, dancers, and more. It was charming, and we stopped to listen and watch the display.

We returned home to make lunch then back to the city - a 30 minute bus or train ride. I was trying to shop, but the sticker shock kept me from buying anything except a paperback for the flight home, and that was when I was shopping in the Caritas charity shop!  Prices are about one and a half to 2 times what they are in Toronto, I think, though I have tried not to compare.

I have a confession to make. I have had to temporarily suspend my boycott of Nesle products. They are hard to avoid in Switzerland, the home of Nestle, especially since Maria's coffee machine is Nespresso (the brand that Tim Hortons is using for their espresso), and the cups that go in them are Nestle too. And the coffee is sooo good. So my personal boycott will be back on when I leave here. I doubt is Nesle notices one way or another.

Only 3 more days in Switzerland, then I will be home, reflecting on my wonderful adventures.Fraumunster

Schaffhausen and Steim am Rhein

 Schaffhausen is the town where Maria was born and lived until her early twenties. It has a strategic position on the Rhine river, just one km from Germany. It has a fort, with a magnificent tower.
www.munot.ch has a great picture. We climbed the tower and looked out over the town. It has many well preserved buildings, including a church where Albert Schweitzer was the organist.  The tower still has a resident guardian, who lives with his family in the tower. One of his tasks is to care for the deer and elk that live in the moat. Because of its position on the Rhine, close to Germany, it was bombed during the Second World War by the Allies, perhaps by mistake.(Maria was living there at the time). Switzerland was neutral during the war, so they were vey angry about the bombing.The country still has a strong military presence. Today, there were hundreds of soldiers on our train, perhaps transfering to a new location. They don't have a  grooming code it seems- dyed hair, pony tails, facial hair, and rather weird looking camouflage pattern on their uniforms.

Our second visit was to Stein am Rhein, an architectural jewel straddling the Rhine with its medieval houses in the Canton of Schaffhausen. This small town with its pretty facades, abundance of oriel windows, quiet corners, fine half-timbered houses and inviting promenade along the river bank, is the place where the River Rhine flows out of Lake Constance. In 2007 Stein am Rhein celebrated a thousand years of its existence. Today 3200 inhabitants live in the town .It has a connection with St George, and the church tower is decorated on its four corners withprojecting metal sculptures of the dragon.

We traveled by train along the shores of Lake Constance, once again approaching but not crossing the border into Germany. The lake is beautiful, with small castles, and even smaller cottages, along the shore.
And once again, we were home in time for dinner.

darlene

Training walk - for the next Camino?

Josef and I went on a training walk this morning. He trains 2-3 times a week in order to stay in shape for his next Camino. He has walked the Camino every year since 2007, when we met. This spring he walked part of the Vezelay route, and will continue where he left off next spring, and hopefully end in St Jean Pied de Port. He has a fancy watch that monitors his heart rate, distance, time and pace. We walked 9 km in 90 minutes, which is a 6 minute km, which is faster that my usual pace. On the Camino, with a backpack, of fairly level ground, I could walk a 15 minute km, averaging about 4 km per hour. That doesn't allow for breaks, and on the day I walked with the 3 Canadian women from Calgary, I took my breaks with them. They knew how to take a good break, and in the afternoon, I had a shandy with them - half lemonade, and half beer. Consequently, I didn't arrive in Palais de Rei until 5:30, and got the last bed in the municipal albergue. That day I averaged 3.5 km per hour.  So today's hike was a challenge, at almost twice the pace.

In the afternoon we drove to Bremgarten, where we met Maria's daughter Edith, who acted as our tour guide. Bremgarten is a perfectly preserved town, with a surrounding wall and pedestrian only streets. Most of the buildings had elaborate paintings on the outside. Edith pointed out the witches' tower, where uppity women were imprisoned, and given 2 choices. Plead guilty and be executed, or plead innocent and be thrown in the river. If you survived the dunking, it meant you were guilty and were executed. Thankfully, that doesn't happen too often today, or I would be in trouble. Bremgarten also has the best Christmas market in Switzerland, and an Easter market, and several others. The town is all about tourism.

After the town tour, we walked along the river, through the covered bridge, and had ice cream on a patio overlooking the river, where kayaks were training by paddling against the current at the foot of the small dam. Quite a contrast to the mediaeval town.

My time here is winding down, and so is my camera battery. Hopefully I can rescue it, as there is more to see. Here is a picture of the highlights of Bremgarten. Check out http://www.bremgarten.ch/de/ for more pictures.
Darlene

Lake Lucerne

Saturday October 20. We could not have had a better day for a cruise on Lake Lucerne. In the early mornings, there is a mist over the village, but as the sun rises it dissipates, and the temperature rises to the high teens. We arrived in Lucerne about 10 am,and I was astonished by the design of the buildings which line the river. The fronts were all decorated with wonderful paintings. The farmers' market was lining both sides of the river. The fruits and vegetables look great, though in Europe they don't seem to require perfection, and some had some blemishes. Every apartment seems to have a balcony, so there are a great many potted plants displayed, and there were many examples at the market. It inspired me to go to the local garden-flower shop when we got home and get a potted plant for Maria's patio. I was assured that it would last through the winter and bloom in February!

After the market, we walked across the river through a covered bridge and boarded a cruise ship for a 3 hour trip down the length of Lake Lucerne. The views from the boat were wonderful, and since we had an all round view, and were going at a slow speed, I could really appreciate the mountains, and the lake, which was a beautiful teal green. We passed by Rigi, Queen of the Mountains, and got another perspective on it. There are villages every few kilometers, and more mountain chalets which are distant from the villages. I also got a different view of the railway lines and tunnels, and the roads, which hug the sides of the mountains.

We had a formal lunch on the boat, complete with white linen table cloths and dinner napkins, and a 360' view.  We spent the rest of the trip on the deck, enjoying the view and taking pictures. We passed by the William Tell chapel. The trip home took about 90 minutes by train. I am still marvelling at how well the public transit works, and trying not to think of the poor planning in Toronto by the current administration.