Hang-gliders and scenery.
Fire hydrant.
Bad weather.
Typical town.
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My vacation this year was a two week trip to Switzerland, hiking through the Alps. It was a very good trip and only less than ideal weather kept it from being an excellent trip.
I left September 9 flying from Indianapolis to Chicago to Zurich. We were met at the Zurich airport where we used our Swiss rail pass and took a train to where the trip actually started. Generally each day we would take a train or bus to the trail head, hike for 4 to 6 hours and then take a train or bus to the hotel where we would stay. Some days we were able to skip the train or bus at either the beginning or end of the day. However, every night we stayed in a real hotel with bathrooms, beds and restaurants. After living in a tent for three weeks last year, this was the change of pace that I was looking for.
Some of the places we saw or stayed in Switzerland were: Appenzell, Mount Santis, Wildhaus, Churfirsten Range, Amden, Lake Wallensee, Glarus, Pragel Pass, Schwyz, Surenen Pass, Engelberg, Mount Titlis, Joch Pass, Melchsee-Frutt, Meiringen, Grindelwald. From Grindelwald we took the train to the Zurich airport and flew back home.
One of the people on the trip quoted a line from a book he had read which I think summed up Switzerland: "The trouble with Switzerland is that it's exactly the way you imagined it would be." I had pictured green pastures, mountains, clean, attractive villages and so on. I wasn't disappointed a bit.
However, my mental image did not include as much rain, overcast and fog as we had. There were a number of days when we never saw the sun and some of those days we could just barely see the mountains across the valley. But, the several days of outstanding weather that we had made up for the days of poor weather.
Several things which were not surprises to me but still were impressive were the food and the transportation system in Switzerland. Almost every dinner we had was four courses and there were at least 6 utensils set out. The food was outstanding but even better to me was to be somewhere that you could eat the salads and drink the tap water. It was so nice not to have to be on guard all the time about that you ate or drank.
Getting around the country was wonderful too. On schedule, frequent buses and trains made getting around a great experience. As an example, one day we took a train to a point where we caught a bus. Our trip leader mentioned that we only had one minute to make the connection and it worked out fine. All of our connections worked that well.
Having only taken treks and mountaineering trips so far, I wondered what type of people took a less involved trip like this. The answer is: the same type of people who take the other kinds of trips. We had an excellent group of people who were fun to be around and good hikers to boot. Except for altitude considerations, the hiking we did was as challenging as most of the hiking on the treks I've done.
The entire trip went very smoothly. However, on any sort of undertaking like this, problems of one sort or another will come up. Basically I only had three minor problems to deal with
First, I arrived in Switzerland two days ahead of my luggage. While this was a nuisance it wasn't a major problem. I had worn my hiking boots flying over and they were the only item which couldn't really be replaced. After one day and no luggage, I did go out and buy a change of clothes. I needed something for hiking other than the slacks and shirt that I had worn on the plane. However, the bag arrived just fine, two days late, but intact.
One day I had to hike with a pulled muscle in my leg. I was a little slow but ok on level and uphill but found downhill stretches rather painful. I hurt it two days before on a long but fairly easy downhill stretch. It was partly a case of bad timing because the painful day started from the one place where our luggage couldn't be shipped to meet us. That was a problem because I didn't have access to the Ace bandage that I had brought along. Once reunited with my luggage, I wrapped my leg and everything was fine. I don't know if the problem was caused by not taking any training hikes or some leftover problem from the ankle I injured last year in Nepal.
The last problem was connecting with my flight home. My flight was at 10am and there was no combination of trains or buses which could get me from Grindelwald to the airport that day in time for the flight. I had to leave the previous afternoon and ended up spending the night on a bench in the Zurich airport.
This was a wonderful trip and I would like to do more like it. However, next year will probably be back to a more ambitious trip for me. I'm looking at one called "The Mountains of Ecuador", a mountaineering trip which goes up three different peaks, altitudes 16,400, 19,300 and 20,500 feet.