Profile
Blog
Photos
Videos
Our time in Germany was brief but the scenery and the weather was spectacular, not to mention the very friendly German people we encountered, could Switzerland live up to our expectations.?
We crossed the border in the North, near the small picturesque town of Stein Am Rhine, close to where the mighty Rhine river begins its long journey north to the Adriatic.
When I say border crossing, it has changed completely from our last trip here, we havent even had to stop at any of our borders so far, and of course the Euro is nearly the common currency of Europe.
If they had stopped us at the border they would they would have informed us that to travel on Switzerlands toll roads you need to buy a Carnet for 40 quid, but blithely unaware , we drove around Switzerland for a week without getting caught !!
Stein Am Rhine, is a beautiful Medieval Village boasting one of the most photographed town squares in Switzerland. The houses in the Square date back to the 12th century, and have pictures on their facades, depicting the animal or scene from which the house is named. As with all of Switzerland, this touristy town was dead quiet, and we had the place to ourselves.
We had just one night here, but managed a trip to the Awesome Rhine Falls. To say these were spectacular, would be an understatement, the massive Rhine river narrows to 150m, and plunges over a 25m drop, and the peak flows have been measured at 1250 cumecs!!!
But rather than look at the falls from the river bank, Liam and I took a boat trip to the centre of the falls and got dropped off on this large rock, where the falls split either side of you, its an amazing experience.
The next morning we were up early and I had everybody running up to the fort on the hill above the town before breakfast, from here it was into trusty Vladimir, and south to Interlaken, and Lauterbrunnen, our next stop on our busy Switzerland schedule.
Not much has changed in Switzerland except the tunnels have got longer and flasher, at one stage on the way to Interlaken, they have put the whole trip along the side of the lake into a new tunnel. This doesnt spoil the landscape and speeds up the trip, but doesnt do much for the sightseeing, but there is always the old road on the other side of the lake if you want the relaxed trip.
In Lauterbrunnen, we were staying in a Eurocamp, this is a new concept to us, where there are a number of companys that rent space off existing campgrounds, and then erect their own permanent tents or cabins. Because it is early in the season and perhaps because of the credit crunch, they are heavily discounting for may and June, so we got a permanent tent here with all facilities for less than it would have cost to pitch our tents!! So already we have booked another one on the Cote D,Azur , where a week in a two bedroom chalet is 30 pounds instead of 120 pounds per night !!
On our first day in Lauterbrunnen, we were up early, mainly because it was so cold , and off up the cable car and train to the beautiful mountain village of Murren. From here we set of trekking , hoping to repeat our feat of 20 years ago and climb to the top of the Schilthorn, but because of too much snow, we had to settle for Liam and I getting to the top of the 2754m Bietenhorn. It was quite a feat for an 11 year old, especially as we had to make our own route to the top because of too much snow.
From the top we got magnificent views of the Jungfrau, Monch and of course the Eiger,
After such a big day, we were a little slow the next morning, but Jennie and the kids were off up the Jungfrau railway to Kleine Schiedig, at the base of the Eiger Norwand(North wall), while I drove around to Grindelwald, and climbed up to meet them under the Eiger for lunch. There was still a lot of snow around, and very cold up above 2000m
We enjoyed our stay in Lauterbrunnen, and each night the farmers herd of 18 dairy cows, filed past our tent with their bells ringing, and were away back out at 7a.m. next morning. How these guys make money I don’t know, but they all live in nice houses and have all sorts of new machinery to harvest their grass and cart it inside, rather than cutting by hand and hanging it on fences as they did 20 years ago.
It was very nice to have a big tent, and a real bed for a few days, but after 3 nights it was off to our next mountain destination , Zermatt.
We figured out how to get there on the map however 1/2 an hour down the road we came to a sign saying those mountain passes were still closed with snow, luckily a kind man showed us another route on the map which wasn’t too much longer but it did include a train trip. We wondered what we would strike as we wound our way up a steep valley only to come out at a railway station and a man directed us to drive directly onto the train!! We just had to make sure we put our handbrake on and then the train ( with us and Vladimir on it1 )was off through the mountain. Quarter of an hour later we emerged out into the daylight again on the other side of the mountain and just drove back off the train and on our merry way. The Swiss certainly have all the solutions to travel in the mountains.
You can’t actually drive to Zermatt, cars are not permitted so we had to camp at Tasch a little village 6 km out of Zermatt, full of massive parking buildings, and catch the train to Zermatt. It must get very busy here at some stage of the year - probably skiing time - but it was pretty quiet when we were there.
They say it is to preserve the alpine air in Zermatt, I think it is more a money making exercise as the camp was the most expensive yet and the train wasn’t cheap either.
After heavy rain during the night and cloud in the morning we wondered if we would get to see the Matterhorn but we set off anyway in hope. We took an underground train up the mountain out of the Zermatt valley and then we spent the day hiking up in the mountains. The sun came out and we got splendid views of the Matterhorn and almost wore our cameras out. We came across herds of Chamois and we saw lots of Marmot (Swiss rabbit equivalent). We couldn’t really tramp above about 2500 meters as there was too much snow but it made it all the more picturesque.
After a big days hiking it was early to bed , and the next morning we were packing up our tents, and heading out of Switzerland to the south, and hopefully a bit of warmth, as camping at 1000m was a little chilly.
As with Germany, you see very little NZ produce in any of the big supermarkets. No Dairy products, no NZ meat, no NZ wine, but the one NZ product which seems to market itself into all of Europe, is Zespri. But in Switzerland I found another success story, at 2500m in the Jungfrau, and that was Gallagher electric fencing!!! . Electric fencing seems to have just hit Switzerland and we saw lots of new fencing going in.
In fact farming in Switzerland must have been doing quite well in recent times as there were quite a few new barns and houses built - I guess on the back of world milk prices like New Zealand .
We are on our way south again to the Riviera via the French Alps.
- comments