Hiking in Heaven

[I haven't been able to download anything for a few days since I've been on the road. This is where I left off after the previous blog. I was hoping to put up my own digital photos, but that's another story...]

The fine summer weather promises to hold, although heavy thunderstorms are predicted for the alpine region for tonight. This is the day to do a hike in the mountains. I headed west along the lake, passing through Vevey, Clarens (where Stravinsky stayed for a while and wrote "Sacre du Printemps" and where Vladimir Nabakov is buried) and the jazz festival town of Montreux. Leaving the lake behind me I turned left into a major side valley, passing Aigle with its fairy-tale castle surrounded by vineyards, and began a steady climb. I bypassed the turn-off to Leysin, the enchanting mountain town where I spent three glorious summers some 20 years ago. One of the most spectacular views in all the world is of this long valley with the majestic, snow-covered Dents du Midi towering over the far end. You get a great view of it from Leysin. I continued on over the Col des Mosses (a high pass, but nothing like the Furka, thank god), to Chateau d'Oex (pronounced "day") and into the next valley. My goal was the town of Saanen which neighbors the fabled ski resort of Gstaad. In the winter this whole region is hopping with skiers. Now the primary attraction is hiking. I opted to hike from Saanen back the way I had just come to the town of Rougement. The language and the cantonal border is between these two towns, the former in German-speaking Bern and the latter in the French-speaking Vaud. The guide book I consulted rated my chosen hike as a moderate one. Ha!! What were they smoking, I wonder. It was pretty hard and it wiped me out. But, it was glorious. I lingered for a while in an alpine meadow, breathing in the sweet, pure air, enchanted by the twitter of birds in the tall fir trees, delighting in the fields filled with wild flowers and the granite peaks. It was, in short, heaven. This is why we go hiking in the mountains: to commune with the purity and grandeur of nature. This is why people like myself come to Switzerland -- because that experience is going to be the best here. I couldn't imagine a more beautiful place. By the time I got to Rougement I was pretty tired. It had also heated up quite a bit and I had gotten too much sun. Rougement is another of those impossibly quaint and lovely old towns. Nearly every builiding is an old, elaborately carved chalet. I had lunch in the Café du Cerf (the Stag Cafe). The service and the cuisine were impeccable. I opted to take the train back (all of one stop), and didn't mind waiting for a while at the Rougement station, drinking in the superb view of the high peaks carressed by a few wispy clouds.
Driving in Europe takes a little getting used to. European drivers are, for the most part, very skillful, but they execute maneuvres like passing and entering traffic more quickly and in a smaller area. They assume that you know the rules of the road and will react appropriately. One really has to pay attention all the time. The signs do not often provide a route number, so you really have to know the names of the upcoming towns for the direction you want. I have missed a few turn-offs that way. So far I have done very well (if I may compliment myself). The roads are in excellent repair; some seem to have been paved yesterday. There is no litter anywhere. Switzerland is immaculate. There are, however, strict regulations and heavy fines for non-compliance regarding just about every aspect of life in Switzerland. You can't mow the lawn on Sunday, you can't flush the toilet between certain hours of the night, you can't run a vacuum cleaner in the afternoon, you can't put the trash out too early, etc., etc. It is a highly regulated society. This is the downside to living in a country this well-ordered. To me it is like a prison, albeit a beautiful one. There is no elbow room, no breathing space. Everyone marches to the same beat. It would make me crazy to live here. We may be a little unkempt around the edges in the US, but I don't feel like I have Big Brother breathing down my neck every minute, watching my every move. (Though nowadays they may be listening to my every telephone call....)
Tomorrow I'm leaving Lausanne and headed for Austria. I will be relieved of another 20 francs from Le Parking Montbenon one last time and be on my way. I'm taking the autoroute north; it's much quicker and I'm a bit tired of mountain driving. I wonder where I will be tomorrow night...

The Furka Pass

I thought that, once I had gone through the San Gotthardo tunnel, it would be clear sailing west on the other side. Boy, was I wrong about that! The tunnel, about 15 miles long, is a major feat of engineering. Amazing. After I found the turn-off to the fabled town of Andermatt (known for high altitude skiing), I headed west again. The next surprise was having to cross the Furka Pass. If I had examined the map a little more carefully, it wouldn’t have been a surprise. The narrow road, sometimes one lane in width, ascends from a flat valley, snow-covered peaks on all sides, to an altitude of 2,400 meters. That is not only over the tree line, it’s in the range of eternal snows and glaciers. The scenery was breath-taking, but it was a harrowing experience. There was plenty of traffic going both ways: cars, busses, camping trailers and lots of motorcycles and bicycles. (Those poor guys, huffing and puffing for hours on end up those mountains! You couldn’t pay me enough to do that.) There were countless hairpin turns and blind corners. One had to be alert every second to avoid colliding with a passing motorcycle, running down a bicyclist (puff, puff), or careening off the mountain. With all this mountain driving, I am now the master of the stick shift! The drive was so nerve-wracking that I felt sick by the end of it and nearly lost my breakfast.
The descent on the other side eventually became more gradual, passing through a number of charming alpine villages, then a few larger towns like Brig. One also crosses the linguistic boundary, where French predominates. This is the valley of the Rhone, which flows west into Lake Geneva, then south, eventually emptying into the Mediterranean. This route has been the way of counquerors; Hannibal (with his elephants), Julius Caesar, Charlemange and Napolean all passed through this valley. After Sion the valley broadens and the road became a freeway again. In the mid 1980’s I taught in a summer program in the alps above Lake Geneva and I know this area very well. Soon I saw the names of the places that were familiar to me: Martigny, Les Diablerets, Aigle, Leysin. At Villeneuve the lake comes into view -- and a spectacular sight it is, dominated on the eastern end by the massive Dents du Midi and the Alpes Vallaisiens. The northern shore, the Lavaux, is covered with vineyards. Fine wines are produced here, but not enough to export, so everything is consummed locally. The landscape has a grandeur and a sweetness to it. Soon I drove passed the Chateau de Chillon, the famous lake-side castle visited by Byron and Shelley in 1816, Montreux, Vevey, and finally Lausanne, the capital of the canton of the Vaud. The city is built on the mountainside and is one of the most confusing places to get around in. Even though I know Lausanne fairly well, it took me a long time to find the Gare Centrale (the central train station). My friend, Dr. James Gordon, lives near the station. It was so good to finally arrive at my destination and greet my old friend. We hadn’t seen each other for six and a half years. It was a very warm day. In the evening thunder storms rolled in. The crash of thunder is dramatic in the mountains, but a more cacaphonous event was yet to come: this was the day of the European soccer tournament final, taking place in Vienna. It was Spain vs. Germany. Spain must have won because evey Spaniard in Lausanne came down to the Centre Ville about 10 PM, blowing horns, screaming, waving flags and making a god-awful racket. They take their football (=soccer) very serious here. It went on until midnight, then finally died down.