So much of what I do is an auto pilot. It's as if there is a master puppeteer inside me, pulling my strings. Especially in the mornings. Perhaps we're all tightly programmed like this? Perhaps this is why we have this fascination with intentionality, which stresses a greater awareness of our movements through the day? Because we know we're anything but intentional at the first blush of daylight?
This morning I woke up, glanced at my phone, saw the time (nearing 7:30) and patted myself on the back for sleeping so well. This is exactly the hour that I've come to believe fits well into the structure of my days. I nearly always get up around 7:30, even when I don't have to, even if I did not sleep well.
I looked outside: a little gloomy still.
No matter -- I hear that it will be a fine day. Partly cloudy. I get ready for breakfast, check my emails and go down. Only then do I remember -- Europe's Daylight Savings starts today. The thing is, had I not remembered, it wouldn't have mattered at all. My watch, my phone -- they switched to the new time automatically. I would have gone about my business never knowing that something had changed. Perhaps I would have wondered in the evening why it is still light at 7 (sunset here is now at 7:54pm), but in the mountains, cloudiness can darken an evening quickly, so perhaps I wouldn't have noticed then either. The puppeteer within me would have directed me to get up at the new 7:30, get going, move along, with or without my knowing what had happened to time overnight.
I eat a big breakfast. Call it an early brunch (as you may have noticed, I tend to skip lunch). And I linger.
The hotel is busy this morning. And so is Grindelwald. Weekenders have descended! Sunday draws overnighters and day-trippers.
I think about my spring break trip: it's one third over today. When you travel, time takes on strange qualities of at once speeding up and, too, slowing down. The day goes by fast, but at the end of it, you feel a lifetime has transpired between dawn and dusk. Has it really been a week since I left home? That's unreal!
There's a shift in my attitude now: I know that my bug did go away (with magic Zurich herbal potion!) rather than unfurling into something that would cause travel headaches. (Though ask me how my ears feel when I switch elevations! Can't hear a thing!) It's all behind me. Layer of anxiety -- removed. I know, too, that it did not rain the whole week I was in Switzerland, which surely is a gift, given what the forecast had been. Too, I know that I'm leaving here early the day after tomorrow, so I want to be sure to pack in full days. None of this slo-mo stuff, right? I wont see a tall mountain again until the year 2026. I need to take it in. Yes, with intentionality, but without wasting time!
I turn to Andras (the guy with the Sharpee that creates magic on a map) once again. What are my options?
He asks me -- do you have the Swiss hiking app?
Oh no, what's that? Have I been missing something? He shows me what to download (Swiss Topo). It will tell you where you are, always, with all relevant topographical information. Impressive! Now they wont have to worry about me losing my way here.
The recommended outing for today is a little depended on schedules: I am to take bus no. 126 from downtown Grindelwald and that bus operates every two hours. I could rush to catch one right after breakfast, but Andras advises against it. Do not rush. Take each moment with ease. Why is it that I always have to be reminded of this??
So I do my laundry in the hours I'm waiting for the next bus. (They have machines downstairs set up so that all you have to do is put in a coin and it all unfolds on its own.)
By noon I'm at the bus terminal. (Take a look at that sky! It's turning out to be a beautiful day here, in Grindelwald!)
I wait. 12:10, the slated time of departure comes and goes. No bus. I check the posted schedule -- one ostensibly in effect until March 30th. Today is March 30th. It says 12:10. Ten minutes later -- still no bus. Either the vehicle went off the cliff in a tragic accident or something is not right with the schedue. I ask one of the other bus drivers. He tells me -- well, actually that one stopped operating a week ago.
I call Andras. We need a Plan B! (We never do find out why the sudden change. Things happen. Buses stop running. That's life.)
Andras is quick to come up with an alternative. Do you have access to your email? I'll send you instructions.
I do have my email on my phone and within two minutes, I'm opening his detailed message. It's complicated. First a train, then another, then a walk, then a gondola, then another train, then a walk. He spells out side trip options along the way.
This is going to be tricky. I'm not sure I fully visualize how it all connects. I call him back for clarifications. The gondola goes where? And where do I get off? To do what?
A minute later I more or less get it. In the course of the afternoon, I will have taken a total of six different trains and two gondolas. It sounds like I spent the day riding trains, but in fact, the segments are brief. And here's the beauty of it: just one ticket, purchased at the station in Grindelwald, will suffice. It's good for the whole trip.
The day stays sunny and beautiful. Any wait between connections allows me to sit on a bench and soak in the warmth of the day. I feel I'm in Alpine heaven!
So let's do this together, step by step: first, a train from Grindelwald to Zweilutschinen.
(view out the window)
There, I pick up the train to Lauterbrunnen. I also pick up not a small number of day trippers here. It's Sunday, the weather is fabulous. Wouldn't you head out to the mountains if it would take you just a few minutes to get there?
Lauterbrunner is a tourist destination in its own right. Yes, it's a pretty Alpine town.
(we are in a different valley now, with a different mountain view)
And it also has magnificent waterfalls.
As I get closer to them, I am awed by how steep they are. Of course, these are not the only waterfalls in the area.
But these are the impressive ones!
After a closer look...
... I walk back to the station. From here, I take the gondola (once I find it!) up to Grutschalp -- which I mispronounce and call Grut-schlep. German is challenging.
This is a huge gondola car. Maybe thirty people pack in. It's a short ride up, and from there, we all switch to one of those mountain trains, which takes us to Murren. I could have hiked up (this was one of the options suggested to me), but it would have required adjusting train schedules and I decided it's best to get to my final point and do any walking once I'm there.
(the view from the last segment on the train)
Besides, I wanted my early afternoon coffee before it stopped being early afternoon.
(who decided to build a town so high up?)
Murren is pretty. It's car-free and it does in fact offer many strolls, hikes, and even skiing opportunities, though the snow seems to me to be very slushy by now. Most people, like me, come for the views and the strolls.
(I do not Photoshop-out lines and other objects from my photos; a blog requires some adherence to reality)
I do pause for a coffee and cake. It comes from a small cafe and what's attractive is that it has a nice warm bench outside, where I can sit and enjoy my snack and talk to Ed who is, of course, just waking up back home.
He tells me he hears birds chirping loudly and it's true -- they are the big source of noise up here. I reach for my bird app and see that I am hearing the music of a Common Chaffinch (very pretty and very loud), a Great Tit, a Coal Tit and a Yellow billed Chough (which to me looks like a blackbird straight out of Wisconsin, except that this guy here is unique to the Alps and has the status of being the highest nester of them all).
I take a short walk til the end of the village...
... then turn around,
... to start the journey home.
Train, then gondola...
Then train again.
On this next to last train -- the one to Zweilutschinen, I find myself in a wagon with a handful of skiers, clearly returning to Interlaken (the final stop). They must have come down from way up there. That's where the snow is after all. I notice a family, still with helmets and ski boots on. Many choose to wear this stuff even on the trains, since it's all ridiculously heavy to carry on top of the already cumbersome skis and poles. There are two kids -- a girl, maybe six, and a boy -- wait, is he even a boy yet? He looks like a toddler! Feet, so far from the ground...
The Swiss woman sitting next to me follows my gaze and smiles. I say to her -- he couldn't be more than two. Is he even two? She laughs -- they have to be two to start. They haven't the strength to do it before that.
I wonder if there are Swiss children who do not ski. Who hate the sport. Who prefer summers to winter snow. Or is it in your blood?
I get off at Grindelwald (last stop!) and walk back to my lovely green room at the Fiesherblick. The flowers are fully opened, the scent is of Alpine fresh air...
Dinner tonight is at Pinte -- a restaurant just a short walk into town. After last night's climb, anything is easy peasy!
And if I wasn't fully tuned to the "spring forward" time change this morning, I surely woke up to it tonight! Sunset at 7:54? Indeed! This is when I'm out heading to dinner. And despite the band of clouds (or perhaps because of it), the colors are astonishing! Not only to the west, but to the east, as the mountains pick up the colors of a pink and orange sky.
(and toward the west...)
(and to the south)
When I come to the restaurant, I find the staff outside, taking pictures. I've been working here for half a year and I've never seen anything like it!
The dinner is very good. What I used to call "fresh and honest." A Swiss salad followed by a fish dish today -- something that they list as "salmon trout." It's a label that is completely new to me. According to the internet, it's trout that behaves like salmon. My taste buds tell me it's trout.
I walk home deeply satisfied.
They say it may snow lightly tonight. "They say" I've learned means nothing at all. I almost wanted to cut my stay here by a day or two, so convinced was I that I would have six days of rain. Instead, I had to walk into a pharmacy and buy a stronger sun screen than the one I brought with me.
I offer you no predictions for tomorrow, which will in fact be my last full day here. We will see what the mountains deliver.
with love...
