Rainy Day Trip

It’s not like we planned to travel in the rain…..most of the fall season was gorgeous sunny weather, but rain happens, and when it does, people don’t go hiking in the Alps.

After Ticino, we’d seen everything on our list of “things to see” in Switzerland. Fortunately there were some nice guide books at the house; I particularly like the Insight Guides, because they have gorgeous photos, and some nice historical background.

So we set off one rainy day for the Northeast, to visit the Rheinfall, or Rhine Falls, a Class 8 waterfall, and Europe’s widest (450 ft wide, and 75 ft high). The falls are on the Rhine river not far from where it exits the Bodensee (Lake Constance) on its way westwards toward Basel, and Germany.

We got off the train at Neuhausen am Rhein, then followed the walking trail for about 15 minutes to a bridge just above the falls. On the other side of the river is a path along the falls.

In the middle of the falls are 2 large rocks, one of which has a stairway and viewing platform at the top.

A small tourist boat ferries people to the rock, leaves them there for a half hour and then picks them up again. It looked like the rocks had been reinforced with concrete.

Got back on the train in Laufen, and headed to Shaffhausen.

This lovely old town has a typical pedestrian only town square, but on this rainy Sunday, it was pretty deserted.

I bought a packet of freshly roasted chestnuts and we made our way back to the station and proceeded to Stein am Rhein, a tiny picturesque village a little farther up the river.

This village is so cute that Kim said he felt like he was in Disneyland.

It would have been nice to walk up the hill to the Castle of Hohenklingen, but it was raining pretty hard, so we stopped at a bakery and had some nice hot coffee and pastries, and rested our tired feet.

The half timbered houses are charming, but even more impressive are the houses with painted facades dating back to the Renaissance.

Presumably they have to be repainted fairly regularly….?

Apparently if you buy one of these, you have to make a commitment to keep it up.

The sad thing about rainy day trips is that the photos are so dull….sigh.

I took most of these while standing in doorways so as not to get water on my lens.

As always, you can see more photos in our Webshots albums. Look in “Switzerland Two.”

By the way, I think I may have fixed the problem with posting comments, so check it out for me!

Sabbatical Favorites

Now that we’re home, I know I won’t have time to write about every place we visited, so here are some favorites.

When Zoe and Jason were visiting we went to Luzern for the famous Cheese Festival. Unfortunately it not only rained it POURED, and it was cold, and none of us was dressed quite warmly enough. Brrr. We did eat lots of delicious and smelly cheese, and bought a few pounds to take home. After the rain stopped we visited the Lion of Luzern.

This monument of a dying lion is carved directly into a rock cliff, to commemorate the 760 Swiss guards massacred during the French Revolution.

Mark Twain said it’s the “Most mournful and moving piece of stone in the world.”

On a lighter note, on the way back to the train station we stopped to admire the cute little black ducks on the lake, and some swans who were behaving in a very undignified, unswanlike fashion.

I don’t know what they were eating, but apparently it required them to tip upside down with only their butts showing!

In late October, Kim and I decided to visit Lausanne, on Lac Leman (Lake Geneva). After a walk up to see the view from the top of the hill, we hopped on a local train to the nearby Lavaux wine region. We got off in Epesses, where we were surrounded by vineyards stretching down to the lake. I was surprised to find that grapevines have such beautiful fall foliage.

We walked up the steep hill on narrow deserted lanes, and found a tiny town with one traffic light. There was nothing open, so we continued walking a few miles to the next village on the train line, and back to Lausanne, to eat dinner in a Beer Emporium. It was interesting to see the groups of high school kids coming in for a beer. Later, in Interlaken, we drank lovely white wine from Epesses along with our cheese fondue (every Thursday was Fondue Night).

When the weather in Interlaken started getting cold, and we had a short rainy spell, we decided to take an overnight trip to Ticino, the Italian canton of Switzerland. On the way we passed through the Simplon Tunnel (19.8 km), changed trains in Domodossola, Italy, then back into Switzerland on the wobbly little local train through the Centovalli (100 valleys).

We saw tiny houses built entirely of stone; even the roofs were made of thick slabs of stone. Suddenly we crossed a bridge over a river that had cut deep furrows into the rocks.

We made a note of the station, Ponte Brolla, so we could come back for a visit the next day.

We spent the night in Locarno, which is on Lake Maggiore. In the afternoon we walked a few miles to Ascona, the picturesque resort village just south on the lake.

It reminded me of my Swedish friend Dagge, who used to vacation there every summer, then she’d come home and tell me all about the cute Italian boys!

The next day, after our quick visit to Ponte Brolla, we took a short train ride to Bellinzona, and as we walked down the main street, I looked into an alley and there was a castle built on top of a gigantic rock! We took an elevator up through the middle of the rock, which was just a little terrifying, the we came out to the most spectacular view. Castelgrande dates back to the 1st century BC, but the current buildings were only built from 1250-1500.

This is the largest of the 3 castles in Bellinzona, all of which date back to the time when there was a lot of competition to control this valley, and the major pass from Italy through the alps. There were many battles fought over this city and castle, and the name comes not from the Italian word for beauty, but from the Latin word for war.

Another short train ride to Lugano, which we’d been told rivals Rio di Janeiro in beauty. Although instead of ocean you have Lake Lugano.

With only a couple of hours, and gorgeous sunny weather, we decided on a boat trip to Gandria, across the lake.

Unfortunately, our boat was the last one of the day, so we could not get off and explore.

The train ride home was beautiful and relaxing. We passed through the Gotthard Rail Tunnel (15 km). The tunnel was built in 1881, and over 200 workers were killed. Being claustrophobic, I just pretended it was very dark outside for the 8 minutes we were inside it.