Sunday morning found me up, bright and early (well, 10.00am is early if you’re on holiday!), ready for some good old-fashion Swiss action: hiking!
M and I took the train and bus up to the Schwägalp, all intent on walking up to the top of the Säntis. So off we set, striding along in good spirits. After half an hour we’d mastered the hiker’s etiquette (greet everyone you meet by saying “gruezi”) and had come to one of these yellow signposts that indicates which path to follow. Hello, we thought, the Säntis doesn’t seem to figure on this post! So we stopped a fellow walker who told us that yes, we were heading the wrong way and should hurry back if we wanted to reach our destination (2502m) before the rain came. Having said this we glanced up and saw ominous rain clouds gathering at quite a speed. “Don’t you have a map?” Our friend asked us (he was an old grandfather figure). When we admitted that no, we’d thought we would rely on these signposts, the father (grandfather) in him came out full force and we had the pleasure of him rambling on about various other paths and the dangers of mountaineering.
Nearly falling over ourselves to escape, we thanked him profusely and shot back to the Schwägalp as fast as we could. There we discovered that a cable car goes right to the top of the mountain in about 20 minutes. Hmm, M said. Hmm, I replied. 30 minutes later we were freezing at the top of the mountain, the panorama completely obscured by heavy clouds! The only thing we managed to see was a bit of the glacier, which had once covered the mountain.
So this is it?! I asked myself.
Frozen, we took the next cable car going down. After that temperature drop we thought a change of scenery was the order, so we took bus and train to the beautiful city of Rapperswil.
Rapperswil is situated on the boarder of the lake Zürich, with lots of little cafés along the water and a charming old town. After relaxing we boarded the boat to Zürich, and hunger made me crack open a packet of biscuits. Suddenly we saw a seagull following the boat, so I threw a bit of a biscuit out at him. 30 seconds later, 10 – 15 of his feathered friends had turned up and another family had started to throw bread at them too!
Arriving in Zürich, we stumbled upon a huge open air salsa party with many bars and food stands, serving up all sorts of ethnic dishes. But it was late and after sampling some Indian and Thai food we set off towards the station.
We heaved our bodies into the train and whilst speeding homewards, I believe my sleepy mind located my Swissness: It resides in the cities, lakes and towns of this beautiful little country and not upon mountain tops.