Aug 17-19 Gimmewald is slowly losing it’s status as one of the best-kept secrets in Switzerland. The local saying is that “if heaven isn’t what it’s cracked up to be, send me back to Gimmewald”. And rightfully so – it’s easily one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever been. We arrived shortly after midnight because, oddly, the impeccably efficient Swiss train system broke down on our way there (anyone familiar with my train-luck can appreciate the fact that my karma single-handedly took down the Swiss). Luckily, we caught the last cable car (apparently they’re called “gondola’s”, even though there are no Italian guys singing in them) up and found ourselves on a steep mountainside in total darkness, with some cowbells ringing eerily close to us. Armed with our printout map, we made our way up a rocky trail and found our hotel/hostel/whatever you call it, only to be greeted by, well, a building with all the lights off and nobody awake inside. After trying to figure out how to contact someone for about 15 minutes, we finally decided that we weren’t going back outside, and that we’d find an empty room and just sleep in it, and deal with everything in the morning. For the record, I would NEVER do this in the US. Anyway, we came down to breakfast the next morning, and the owners had a good laugh about it, as they had heard us come in but said in their singsong german accented voice “we were too lazy to get out of bed to show you the room, we figured you would find it”. Great place – and the views were spectacular.
When we woke up, our plan was to go to the top of the Schilthorn (used as the bad guy’s lair in the only James Bond film starring George Lazenby ) to look at some mountains, go for a hike to look at some more mountains, and then come back to Gimmewald to, um, spend the evening looking at mountains. We accomplished all this, and even managed a couple other things, such as: we saw part of the “Inferno” triathlon, which involved swimming through glacier water, mountain biking, and running uphill well past the tree line; ate some wild blueberries and raspberries; walked through fields of grazing cows; filled our water bottles with fresh swiss alpine water; etc. And speaking of pictures, we took 378 of them! They’re not all posted on Shutterfly, but a lot of them are – we tried to keep it to a reasonable number though.
On Sunday, we had to take it a little easier, since we’re not as young as we used to be, and hiking an alpine mountain path puts a bit of strain on the body. We still walked a good three hours, but it was more along a mountain stream on a well-worn footpath. While the original hike was awesome in that it took you completely away from any remnants of modern civilization, this second hike was nice in that it was geared towards the masses, meaning it was really easy and still had great scenery.
Overall, there were a lot of cool things about this weekend. For instance, the owners of the hotel were this old Swiss couple, and the guy would just shuffle around in his overalls and laugh as he spoke a few random phrases in English, and the woman would cook dinner for the guests every night (which was probably the best food we’ve had over here, by the way), and that was pretty much their thing. They were just cool. There was also this middle-aged British guy who stayed there in the summers to help them out, and he would go paragliding just about every day. And of course the views of the Alps – you’d have lush, green meadows below you, imposing cliffs across the valley, and snow-capped peaks above – good stuff. We also met a handful of travelers one night, and got to share interesting stories as the night went on, as well as discussing that since we’re in Europe, man-purses are completely acceptable (so are tight pants, as well as the color pink. Speedos are still a no-go though). We jumped a lot of cow patties, ran into a herd of wild mountain goats, learned what the “mountain” setting on the camera does, cheered with about 50 people jam-packed in a cable car as it broke through the clouds to get the first up-close view of the Swiss peaks, had a local guy teach us a couple German phrases on the train; and what is really odd, is that even the cats in Switzerland are nice. They don’t try to bite you, and actually want to be petted! Guess the mountains just make everything a bit nicer.
Next weekend: Barcelona!
