Sabbatical - 8/19 - Swiss Villages
My first morning in Switzerland was gray and gloomy. We spent the morning hoping it wouldn't rain as we hiked alongside a river. The river in question had recently been hit by a flash flood. A bare trickle of river went through a giant gouged out bed where rocks and trees had been thrown in all directions. It was stark proof that mother nature is quite powerful, and you do not want to mess with her.
From there we walked on paved roads through the locality of Praz-De-Fort. This is a charming little village that many Swiss citizens use as vacation homes. Mostly, it felt like it had been there forever, but there were some newer homes that definitely reminded me of the upscale lake cabins some people back in North Dakota build as retirement homes. It's good that we were hiking in August. Based on the size of the firewood piles some of these houses had, I wouldn't want to be there in the winter. I saw many piles that dwarfed the size of my father's firewood pile, and speaking as someone who moved a lot of firewood when I was kid, that's no small feat.
We stopped for lunch in another small locality further on. Instead of our usual "build lunch in the morning and eat on the road," our guides had reserved a back room in a local tavern. As long we bought drinks they were happy to let us bring out own food, so our driver had outdone himself. Our lunch spread was usually impressive, but this day it rivaled many of the dinners we had on the trip. I had a lot of different lunch meats and fishes that I don't normally see back home. We all ate very well. As a bonus, the sun came out during lunch!
Fun side note: I went into the tavern to order my drink. This part of Switzerland spoke mostly French, so I rehearsed my order in French and then ordered... in flawless Spanish. Oops. Fortunately, the bartender understood me.
After touring an old mill, we headed off road along a trail in the Swiss National Park system. Most of the trail was not particularly challenging, but there was one stretch where someone had embedded a chain into the cliff face so you had something to hold. Interestingly, I remember the chain, but I don't recall if it was actually necessary. This particular trail had also been decorated. Someone had taken many tree stumps and carved them into various animals and plants with a chainsaw and various hand tools. We passed a chamois, a morel, an ibex, assorted squirrels and some birds. Just as reached the end of the decorations we ran into a fortified bunker that overlooks one of the valleys leading to Germany. It's still officially military property, although I doubt it is much used now.
Next up we encountered a Swiss Boy Scout encampment, full of kids doing the usual Boy Scout stuff. This was an indicator that we were very close to Champex-Lac, which because of its idyllic location between a beautiful lake and the Mt. Blanc Massif has long been a tourist destination. It's also near the Great St. Bernard Pass, which brought us giant dogs. The only discordant note was the bomb shelter we passed. During the Cold War Switzerland recognized that being neutral might keep it from being targeted by ICBMs but wouldn't protect if from fallout, so every municipality was required to build a bomb shelter and outfit it with enough food to support its residents for a week. What would have happened after that week is an excellent question, which thankfully never needed to be answered with real world experimentation.
After we cleaned up at the hotel, we watched a video our guides had about the Tour du Mt Blanc Ultramarathon, which was due to start the day after we completed the Tour. We had seen posters for the race everywhere, so our group was quite curious to learn more. The video was about the 2008 race, which went about 103 miles and covered the vast majority of the distance we were going to cover in 10 days. Frankly, it seemed simultaneously very impressive and utterly batshit crazy, but that's just me.
From there, we had an excellent dinner at the hotel restaurant. A few of us wandered down to the lake, but since it was already rather late and not much seemed to be happening in town, I opted to return to my room. I had a James Lee Burke book that I had borrowed from the lending library at our first hotel, so I finished that off and went to bed.
Photos six through twenty-one of this set are from August 19.
From there we walked on paved roads through the locality of Praz-De-Fort. This is a charming little village that many Swiss citizens use as vacation homes. Mostly, it felt like it had been there forever, but there were some newer homes that definitely reminded me of the upscale lake cabins some people back in North Dakota build as retirement homes. It's good that we were hiking in August. Based on the size of the firewood piles some of these houses had, I wouldn't want to be there in the winter. I saw many piles that dwarfed the size of my father's firewood pile, and speaking as someone who moved a lot of firewood when I was kid, that's no small feat.
We stopped for lunch in another small locality further on. Instead of our usual "build lunch in the morning and eat on the road," our guides had reserved a back room in a local tavern. As long we bought drinks they were happy to let us bring out own food, so our driver had outdone himself. Our lunch spread was usually impressive, but this day it rivaled many of the dinners we had on the trip. I had a lot of different lunch meats and fishes that I don't normally see back home. We all ate very well. As a bonus, the sun came out during lunch!
Fun side note: I went into the tavern to order my drink. This part of Switzerland spoke mostly French, so I rehearsed my order in French and then ordered... in flawless Spanish. Oops. Fortunately, the bartender understood me.
After touring an old mill, we headed off road along a trail in the Swiss National Park system. Most of the trail was not particularly challenging, but there was one stretch where someone had embedded a chain into the cliff face so you had something to hold. Interestingly, I remember the chain, but I don't recall if it was actually necessary. This particular trail had also been decorated. Someone had taken many tree stumps and carved them into various animals and plants with a chainsaw and various hand tools. We passed a chamois, a morel, an ibex, assorted squirrels and some birds. Just as reached the end of the decorations we ran into a fortified bunker that overlooks one of the valleys leading to Germany. It's still officially military property, although I doubt it is much used now.
Next up we encountered a Swiss Boy Scout encampment, full of kids doing the usual Boy Scout stuff. This was an indicator that we were very close to Champex-Lac, which because of its idyllic location between a beautiful lake and the Mt. Blanc Massif has long been a tourist destination. It's also near the Great St. Bernard Pass, which brought us giant dogs. The only discordant note was the bomb shelter we passed. During the Cold War Switzerland recognized that being neutral might keep it from being targeted by ICBMs but wouldn't protect if from fallout, so every municipality was required to build a bomb shelter and outfit it with enough food to support its residents for a week. What would have happened after that week is an excellent question, which thankfully never needed to be answered with real world experimentation.
After we cleaned up at the hotel, we watched a video our guides had about the Tour du Mt Blanc Ultramarathon, which was due to start the day after we completed the Tour. We had seen posters for the race everywhere, so our group was quite curious to learn more. The video was about the 2008 race, which went about 103 miles and covered the vast majority of the distance we were going to cover in 10 days. Frankly, it seemed simultaneously very impressive and utterly batshit crazy, but that's just me.
From there, we had an excellent dinner at the hotel restaurant. A few of us wandered down to the lake, but since it was already rather late and not much seemed to be happening in town, I opted to return to my room. I had a James Lee Burke book that I had borrowed from the lending library at our first hotel, so I finished that off and went to bed.
Photos six through twenty-one of this set are from August 19.