Les Vacances de M. Brydon

Tomorrow morning I set off for my Christmas vacation - nine nights in Paris. I'm leaving early Tuesday morning on the TGV, direct from Stuttgart. It's been a long year, and I'm looking forward to a bit of down-time (although Paris is unlikely to leave me anything but exhausted!) I've still got a bit of packing to do, so I thought to keep this short and wish you all a very merry Christmas and a happy new year, and to thank you for reading this blog. Look forward to new updates soon!

The night after

OK guys, it's a Ruddslide! A Kevolution!

I'm rarely as pleased to be wrong as I was on Saturday morning. Listening to the ABC coverage streaming live down the internet on 702, it soon became clear to me (and everyone else) that the Liberals were headed to disaster, and that for only the third time in my life we would have a change of the Federal government. Elections nights are always high drama, as the calculations, congratulations and recriminations unfold over only a few short hours. Although I'm sorry I wasn't able to share this with anybody, the quick phone calls to the clan down under certainly got my blood coursing. I understand that my sister had quite a night.

There is something especially poignant about the result in Bennelong, where Howard looks to be unseated by the ex-ABC reporter Maxine McKew. What a fickle world politics is! Barely one year ago, Howard looked comfortable. Although poor Beazley seemed to be making up ground, few thought that Labor could win government at the next election. Had Howard left then, he would have been able to mimic his great hero, Sir Robert Menzies, in being only the second post-war prime minister to leave at a time of his own choosing (of course, one could argue that Gorton didn't have to go, and I'm not going to touch Harold Holt). But in every other case, the PM was ousted by an unforgiving electorate, or succumbed to a party challenger. How hard it is to know when to quit.

A subject which has understandably been somewhat neglected in all the excitement is that the ALP is going to have a rough time of it in the Senate. This will be a very tricky situation, with the Greens, the Family First fellow and new South Australian anti-pokies Nick Xenophon holding the balance of power (and only after July 1). Perhaps this is all for the good, as I think that the enforced humbleness this will imply will help to steady the ship in the first term. Personally, I will be missing the poor Democrats, who now seem a spent force. In their heyday, it was always nice to know that a good, moderate and centrist party would be keeping the bastards honest.

Kevin, Julia and Wayne are going to face some daunting challenges on the environment, the economy and also national security, and I think it unlikely that they will get the easy ride that the Libs did. Optimistically, however, I think they have the "vision thing" which the Libs lacked, and this will be crucial if Australia is to come through alright. The work begins tomorrow, so I'm told, but until then, enjoy this IWW classic from Pete Seeger.

Election Night

It's a funny thing watching an election from overseas. Most people here don't have a clue about Australian politics, my awareness-raising by wearing a "Kevin 07" shirt to work notwithstanding (thanks to Naomi). It's a bit strange not to go into a shop and have an impromptu exchange with the check-out chick/chook about the latest "who said what" on the campaign trail. As such, all my information comes through the news websites, and so it sometimes feels as if this is just an exceptionally long game of cricket. There's a score to keep track of (the polls), every now and then somebody takes a wicket, but for the most part the commentators just have to talk about, well, not very much really.

My fearless prediction? As a pessimistic man of the left, I predict a tight result and I would tend to think that the Liberals will just scrape a victory, something like a repeat of 1969. I've read that many voters, perhaps as large as 10-20%, make their mind up the day before or thereabouts. I'd say that many of these people would probably decide to stick with the Libs as they are the more trusted on the economy. This should be particularly strong in marginal electorates, exactly where Labor needs to pick up the votes.

Of course, I thought Rudd's big night out in Noo Yoik would be a terrible blow, so don't take my word for it. Because I don't get those random encounters with the vox populi, it's impossible for me to judge the popular mood. Maybe there is a real desire for change out there. But the election booths are now just about to open in the eastern states, so we will know soon enough.

The last ride of the year

As I write this it is a wet but relatively warm November night in Stuttgart. Last week we had intermittent snowfalls, lightly dusting the rooftops and fields - it seems as if the mild winter we had last year is not going to be repeated. Although the clear skies of early October are so very distant, the memory of the last bike ride of 2007 is still fresh...

Before putting away my bicycle for the winter, I wanted to make a return trip to the Schwaebisch Alb, where I had two of the most wonderful rides of this year. There was one obvious place left to visit - the ruined castle of Bad Urach. Unlike the week before, the skies to the south looked clear, and the morning train ride to Reutlingen was how it should be - the air was still, and a slight fog hung in the Neckar valley.


Arriving in Reutlingen around 10am, I followed the same path as I did on my last ascent of the Alb, heading east towards Talgut. To compare with my June trip, I took a panorama shot at roughly the same location as before. As you can see, the vivid greens of early summer had already been replaced by an orange-brown patchwork of dead leaves. After exhaling a little sigh, I turned my back and started my climb through the forest. As in June, for the most part this was fairly easy-going, except for the 17% incline at the end.

After a brief pause, I headed off across the Alb in the direction of St Johann, passing (perhaps?) the same goats that I had met in June, now much larger. Although the sun was shining, a brisk breeze from the south made my progress almost painful, and I was glad to make the relative shelter of the forest. From St Johann (really nothing more than a collection of a few farmhouses) I continued down a magnificent tree-lined path, busy with people enjoying one last walk in the Autumn sunshine. Thankfully I seemed to leave them behind at Fohlenhof, another large farmhouse on the edge of the Alb (panorama below).



Cycling on towards Bad Urach, I pushed through a forest and into a field which reached right up to the sheer cliffs of the Alb. The view from here was just magnificent (panorama above). On top of the hill in the middle you can see the ruins of Hohen Bad Urach. The very faint cream blob on the left is another ruined castle, Hohenneuffen, which plays an important role a little later. After enjoying the view from the cliffs, I decided to push on to the castle itself. Entering once more the forest, I coasted down a winding pass to the base of the hill on which the castle stands, pausing every now and again to admire the magnificent view (as right). Arriving at the bottom, I then made the mistake to push my bicycle to the top, which was much further away and higher than I had anticipated. Eventually I came to a pile of rubble where I sat to eat my lunch, feeding scraps to a field mouse hiding in the crevasses of the fallen masonry, before setting out to explore the ruins.

In its heyday, Bad Urach must have been a very impressive sight. The natural fortifications of the hill upon which it is perched, the two lines of defensive walls and a tall keep (of which now only a single wall remains) would have made it a formidable task to besiege, but I don't know if it was ever attacked. With the advent of gunpowder, however, castles such as Bad Urach became obsolete, and were either abandoned or converted to other purposes. Indeed, at the end of its life, the castle was reduced to merely a prison. Eventually the dukes of Wurtermburg found that they could do without this anachronism, and displaying a remarkable degree of foresight ordered the castle to be (imperfectly) ruined for the benefit of future tourists, of which there were many.

After a little while exploring the ruins I decided to push on and do something quite remarkable - attempt a second ascent of the Alb. I wanted to revisit the ruined castle of Hohenneuffen, which I had visited with Lydia and Chen last year. I figured that after a short trip across the small town of Bad Urach (in the valley below the castle) I would come to a pass that would bring me within only a few kilometres of the castle. The path was strewn with dead leaves, so thick that I could barely see the white gravel underneath. Yet this obscurity is undeserved - the climb was remarkably gentle, even easy.

Arriving once more on the Alb, I quickly took my bearings and headed off towards Hohenneuffen. On the way, I noticed something rather strange on the horizon - what appeared for all the world to be a pair of gigantic broken spectacles. Fortunately some near-sighted giant was not stumbling about the countryside, as it turned out to be only a modern sculpture, which I felt somewhat blighted the view out towards the castle and the Neckar valley. Remounting my bicycle, I resumed my journey, and taking a short-cut through the forest before too long I found myself walking through the imposing castle gates...


It has been said, and it is true, that if you once went to a place and loved it, you should never go back. For me Hohenneuffen just wasn't the same as last year - the much greater crowds and the great bustle of the place grated on me. Nor was the view what I had hoped for, as the mid-afternoon haze greatly limited visibility. After a little time, then, I decided to head down into the Neckar valley and make the ride to Nurtingen, tracing back the path I took with my friends in 2006. As I rode into the gathering twilight, I reflected on the past year. I have discovered so many wonderful places, seen so much of the countryside, that I have begun to feel almost a sense of belonging. This may sound silly - I can barely read the language let alone speak it - but the fields and the forests have no tongue, and knowing the geography is fundamental to any notion of one's place in the world. And for the forseeable future, my place in the world is here.

Wine Country

Summer officially ended in the last week of September, and we are now very much in the depths of Autumn. Dead leaves clutter the paths, the days are quickly getting shorter, and the cold air on the ride to and from work makes my eyes water. Although I do like this time of year, it makes me a little sad to think that I have probably no more than a fortnight left on the bicycle. I had wanted to head south to the Alb, but although Sunday the 30th was forecast to be fine, the weather to the south unfortunately looked a little dismal. Reasoning that there was no point climbing a mountain if I couldn't enjoy the view, I decided instead at the last minute to head north to clearer skies and cycle from Marbach to Heilbronn along the Neckar.

In the event, the day turned out to be quite fine, but I did not regret my choice. I had visited the area around Marbach on the very first trip I did this year, when the leaves were still not yet out on the trees and the vines. Returning now at the end of Summer, it was almost difficult to recognise the place. I remarked before on the sense of aridity that the terraced vineyards produced in Winter. This time, with the vines in full leaf, the overall impression was of fertility and bounty, a fact reinforced by the vintners picking the grapes. I was most struck by the strangely sweet, sharp stench of over-ripeness that hung in the air, as the fallen apples rotted underneath the trees, and oozing grapes on neglected vines shrivelled in the sun.

A word on the grapes of this region is in order. It seemed to me that the most common variety growing along the Neckar is the Trollinger, a variety that is used to make the signature red wine of the region. I must confess that I don't really like it very much - it is too sweet and insipid for my tastes. Truth be told, I haven't been much impressed by any wine in this country, as they are usually not dry enough for my palate. Methinks the Germans should stick to making beer.

For lunch I climbed out of the valley, up to the plateau just behind the small village of Klein Ingersheim. This was actually quite close to where I ate lunch the first time I was here, and my next destination was the scenic lookout which marked my northernmost progress in March. I didn't take a panoramic shot this time, but you can at the left a photo of the lock (with a ship approaching) and the vivid green on the vines on the steep slope in the background.

Cycling a short distance through the forest I eventually arrived just above Besigheim, where the river Enz joins the Neckar. It is a reasonably large town, and the speed with which I got through it owed more to luck than any plan (actually, the plan had been to avoid the town altogether, but I took a wrong turn coming out of the forest). Passing a couple of more "heim" towns (Walheim, Gemmrigheim, Kirchheim am Neckar) I came to the most memorable part of the day. After curving around a bend in the Neckar, just opposite the nuclear power station at Neckarwestheim, I climbed out of the valley through orchards of bright red apples. Reaching the top, I gingerly crossed a major road and came to the edge of the strange elliptical valley of Lauffen.


The valley curves around in a smooth ellipse-like shape, with a very steep outer rim but on there inner side there is a very gentle slope up to a small hill in the middle. I'm not quite sure what the deal is here - naively looking at my contour map, it seems that once the Neckar flowed around the edge in a great bulge. But eventually the river cut through the small spit of land at the edge of bulge, closing off this loop for good - forming a so-called Oxbow lake. This would have eventually silted up, leaving the fossil river we see today.

Coasting down through the vineyards to Lauffen, I set out to investigate what appeared to be a Medieval walled city (this can just be seen as the long smudge on the right of the panorama above). Indeed it was, and took sometime to slowly cycle through it. But like the walled city of Marbach, the evident care with which the buildings had been maintained verged too close to the twee for my likings. The view over the Neckar towards the church was nevertheless worth the detour.

After a short-cut across the rolling hills of the Neckar valley to Nordheim, I rejoined the Neckar for the sedate 5km remaining to Heilbronn. Of course, I got terribly lost in Heilbronn itself (why don't they put signs to the Bahnhof? That's where I want to go after all). Sitting on the train back to Stuttgart half an hour later, the cool wind blowing through the open window, I reflected on the wonderful day I had enjoyed and wondered if I would not come this way again next year, if indeed I am still here.

September Update

I've been a bit neglectful of this blog over the last couple of weeks, and I think it's time for an update. I've had quite a full August and September, but unfortunately not full in the sense of lots of outdoors activity...

So much for Thermidor

Although August should be a very warm month here in Germany, you wouldn't have known it from the weather we had this year. It was mostly cool and overcast, and frequently also cold and wet. All the Germans I have talked to have complained bitterly about how awful the Summer has been, forgetting of course the wonderful and unusually warm Spring we had. The weather hasn't really picked up for September, and last week we were down to low teens. I'm told, however, that in many respects this is the late-Summer weather that was typical a generation ago. It remains to be seen if we're staring down the barrel of an old-style winter.

Along the Kocher

As explained in the next section, I only made one bike-trip in August and September, cycling from Schwaebisch Hall to Heilbronn, roughly following the path of the river Kocher to where it joins with the Neckar. Unfortunately, there must be something about Schwaebisch Hall that does bad things to my camera - like last time I ventured out here, the camera battery died very early in the day. Naturally, I forgot my replacement batteries, so I was only able to take a few pictures before the camera gave up the ghost.

The day started out rather cool for the middle of August (see above) with low-lying fog obscuring any view from the train for most of the hour-long journey from Stuttgart. It had really only just lifted when I arrived in Schwaebisch Hall at about 10am. The town of Schwaebisch Hall is actually very well preserved for a medium-size German town and certainly it deserves at least a good hour or two to wander through its cobbled streets. Remembering how far distant Heilbronn is, however, I could not afford to spend too much time there.

The first hour or so of my ride was overcast and pretty unremarkable - in this stretch the Kocher is a wide but deep valley. The only really memorable part of this section was the large motorway bridge across the valley, which reminded me of those pictures of Roman aqueducts. Although we're used to such feats of engineering, the scale of thing and the way its slender legs gracefully soared above the valley managed to stir some admiration for the anonymous architects who built it. That made me think, in turn, whether the Romans regarded their amazing water works as deserving of little more interest than a motorway normally arouses in us?


It was just after the bridge that I decided to climb out of the valley to get some more expansive views of the countryside. It was just at this time that the sky was starting to clear, and by the time I made it to the small village of Rueblingen just out of the Kocher I could feel the sun on my arms. Rueblingen is a small little village with not much to recommend it to the tourist, but it's sedate and laid back feel set the tone for the next hour or so. As I cruised across the plateau I had the bike paths to myself, travelling past fields of corn already at my height and though charmingly rustic villages that pepper the landscape.

A little after mid-day I made it back to the Kocher valley, sitting just above the walled medieval town of Niedern Hall to eat my lunch. The Kocher valley is much narrower here than before, but it is just as deep and steep. The northern side of the valley opposite me was carpeted in vineyards, with the brilliant bright green of the vines contrasting greatly with the golden-brown of the crops on the plateau behind them. It was only with great reluctance that I resumed my wanderings at the end of my meal.

After descending into Niedern Hall I joined up with the Kocher and started on the long trip to Heilbronn - almost 60 kilometres still to go. I can't say there was very much to remember about this part of the journey: it was pretty without being spectacular, and I found no reason to stop and have a closer look at any of the villages I passed. After about three hours I had made it to almost to the end of the Kocher; instead of reaching the very end of the river, I cut across the low, rolling hills to the Neckar. The change in scenery was dramatic - in this region, the banks of he Neckar are covered by heavy industry, including one of the main coal-fired power plants for the Stuttgart region. There were also many more bicyclists about, which made the last 10km or so to Heilbronn rather slow. But after already doing 90km since Schwaebisch Hall, I was happy with the more sedate pace. I arrived at the station sometime about 5pm, and back home in Stuttgart two hours later.

Health Woes

A little after my trip along the Kocher I started experiencing some pretty serious discomfort around my ankles, just above the ball of my foot. After applying an absolutely useless "anti-inflammatory" cream from the doctor for about a week, the pain strongly worsened and I could only walk with difficulty. I sought out a referral to a specialist, but this is when I discovered a big problem - a very large percentage of the doctors in Germany go on holiday in late August/early September, and most practices were closed. I finally got an appointment, but only in a week's time. Eventually I was persuaded to go and see the nurses at the Institute's medical centre (on-site rapid response for accidents, but normally bored out of their minds and happy to hand out aspirin or ibuprofen). The nurse was very kind and tried to change my appointment - and as soon as she mentioned I had private health insurance the consultation was mysteriously moved to 8:15am the next day. There is very much a first and second class when it comes to medical treatment in this country. Health insurance for foreigners like myself is mandatory and very expensive - but at least I'm getting some benefits.

Although I had feared Achilles tendinitis, the problem wasn't the tendon per se, but rather where it joins the foot. Due to my flat feet, this is always under stress - and probably it was my feats (harhar) of athleticism in the alps that finally triggered a flare-up. Although I got fancy shoe inserts and constriction bandages, the primary recommendation was to stay off my feet - so this pretty much killed any possibility of bike riding in the near future. This wasn't such a problem, as it coincided with an explosion in the amount of work I had to do, so staying in at the office on the weekend was very much a necessity.

Unfortunately, typing would soon become a problem. On the morning of Monday the 3rd I woke up with intense throbbing pain at the tip of my left index finger, which was also all swollen up and red - a finger infection. I dutifully trundled off to the doctor the next morning, and got referred on to a day surgeon to get the infection cut out. I'll spare you the details, save to say I was walking around with an oversize bandage on my finger for two weeks, completely out of proportion with the incisions that the surgeon made.

Sunsets

One of the things I like most about this time of the year is looking at the view from my office as the day draws to a close. On a clear day I could sit there transfixed for hours as the sky imperceptibly darkens from light blue through purple to dark grey. But the recent spate of poor weather has meant that the tranquil twilight hours have been replaced by dramatic and fiery sunsets, as the menacing clouds light up with the last gasps of the day. Below are a selection of some favourites:























The building in the background is part of the University of Stuttgart.

Phil and Shev's Excellent Adventure, Part II

In the last installment we left our two intrepid heroes awestruck by a mountain thunderstorm, after a long but spectacular walk. According to the good boffins at meteoschweiz, the next day would start off OK but we could expect rain at some point, before everything would clear up for a fine Wednesday and Thursday.

On Tuesday morning we awoke to relatively clear skies and a bit of mist in the village, not unlike that of the day before, so we figured that the weather would be much like that on Monday. We therefore decided to do another walk, this time from the small village of Wengen up the side of the Lauterbrunnen valley to Maenlichen. Walk is probably not entirely the right word - prolonged, steep climb is more appropriate, with an altitude increase of about 1km but barely any horizontal displacement. By the time we had taken the train to Wengen, the fine morning weather had become more menacing, with thick grey clouds above us. More ominous still were the few drops of moisture that appeared to come from above. Perhaps a little pumped from the day before, we decided to keep on going, even when the few drops of moisture turned into a moderately-light rain.

After about an hour's climb, the treeline gave way to mountain meadow, but the gradient was now pretty intense and the rain showed no sign of stopping. On a fine day this part of the walk would undoubtedly have been spectacular, but the thick clouds lying in the valley obscured the view, so we pushed on. In any case, we were now only interested in reaching the top to get out of the rain. When we finally got there I was soaking. Although I had worn my water-proof jacket, the rain rolling down my neck was enough to drench me. Which would have been OK, were it not for the fact that it was not at all warm at Maenlichen, and I wasn't keen on hypothermia. Maenlichen itself is not so much a town as a restaurant, a gondola station and a cable car stop. Making the obvious choice, we headed for the restaurant and warmth. Despite the signs of "No Picnic" in the restaurant, we found ourselves a little out-of-the-way table at which to eat our packed lunch. We also bought a cup of coffee and a cake to distract attention from our sandwiches. We probably shouldn't have bothered - the staff looked pretty bored actually, and we were able to sit there for a few hours as it rained outside.

After a little bit it seemed to fine up outside. Since I was soaking, Shev lent me his backup shirt and after a final hot chocolate (we became addicted to chocolate during our time in Switzerland) we decided to venture outside to see what we could of the view. Although I couldn't clearly make out most of the valley, the view down to Wengen was nevertheless dizzying (left, yes, that is looking down), and I think we were a little surprised to see just how far we had managed to come. I convinced Shev that we should go to Maenlichen peak, just a short walk from the restaurant. Our first attempt ended with a return of the rain, which sent us scurrying back inside he restaurant. A little later we tried again, and reached the top where we were rewarded with a vista across the ridge where we had walked the day before (below). It was nevertheless pretty cold, and still feeling a bit wet we decided to call it a day by taking the long gondola ride down to Grindelwald-Grund. This is apparently the longest gondola ride in the world, and it did take quite some time to get to the bottom. We got back to Gimmelwald much earlier than the day before, and had a fairly relaxed night, as tomorrow would be the climax of our trip.


Although I wondered if tomorrow could be as good as the Swiss weather service had predicted, my faith should never have wavered - their forecast for Wednesday turned out to be just right. We therefore awoke early to find a cloudless sky, and so we decided to take the big ride up to the Jungfrau itself. Back in the early 19th century, some Swiss entrepreneur had the bright idea to bring tourists up to 3454m, within a whisker (OK, 704m) of the top of Jungfrau itself. This he accomplished by drilling a tunnel for an electric rack train, which was an engineering marvel for its time (and is still pretty impressive today!). Roughly half-a-million tourists annually make the trip to the final station using these remarkable trains. To avoid these crowds, we aimed to leave early, and so we caught the second train to the top which left Lauterbrunnen at about 7:55am.















On the slow journey out of the Lauterbrunnen valley we had ample time to admire the sunrise over the mountains - as the Lauterbrunnen valley is so steep and deep, the sun does not penetrate the bottom until very late in the day. By the time we reached Kleine Scheidegg, a few wisps of cloud had started to accumulate about the bottom of the mountain itself, but we had no time to think as we scrambled to find a seat on the train to the top, competing with large Chinese and Korean tour groups, and an enourmous number of other tourists. After only a very short journey we entered the mountain itself. There are two "intermediate" stops on the way to the top, where windows have been carved into the mountainside and spectacular views can be had - but we only had what seemed a few minutes at each viewpoint before we were herded back onto the train.

At the summit station, which is also hewn out of the mountain, it was freezing and we were a little concerned that we would be uncomfortable all day. Our first stop was the "Sphinx" observatory, which apart from a tourist observing platform, also doubles as a major scientific facility, where numerous atmospheric and astronomical measurements are made. Considering how cold it was inside the mountain, we very tentatively ventured outside - only to find that it was remarkably warm! From here we had a magnificent view across the world-heritage-listed glacier that is central to the Jungfrau massif. On the other side of the observatory we could see down to the Grindelwald (or at least, we could have if it was not so cloudy). The wires you see in some of the photos forms part of a "Faraday cage" - essentially a shield against electric fields. This is important because apparently at this altitude lightning can strike even on a clear day.


















The next logical desination was to walk out on the snow-covered plateau beneath the observatory. Spurning the chance to go for a husky-dog ride, we decided to walk to the small hut at Moenchsjoch, which is just at the foot of the Jungfrau itself, and where hikers attempting the summit might be able to spend the night. It was quite warm out on the snow, perhaps due to the reflected sunlight, and walking on the slippery snow was pretty tough going. By the time we reached the top, which wasn't that far from the station complex, I was pretty knackered - a combination of the sapping glare from the snow, the hard slog up the snowy slope, and maybe even the altitude.
After admiring the view, now come the treacherous part - the walk downhill back to the station. If you've ever tried walking on snow, you will know that walking downhill is neither easy nor graceful, especially when your shoes have less grip than you ideally would like them to have. I went down on my posterior in the first 10m from the hut, providing quite a spectacle for the other tourists, so after that I took it very easy.

















Returning to the underground station complex we decided that it was time for something to eat, and this is where we discovered the management's dirty trick to make people go into the restaurants - there were very few benches at which to sit down for a small snack. Eventually we found a bench with a view over the glacier, but a rather obnoxious couple refused to share it with us so we sat on the floor of an out-of-the-way corridor to eat our lunch (no view, unfortunately). The last bit of fun on the mountain was the trip to the ice cave, which we decided must be carved out of the glacier (although we might be wrong - could they do that to a world heritage site?). Of course, there were plenty of kitsch ice sculptures for the tourists to have their photos with, But the scale of the place was nevertheless impressive, and as you can see from the photo on the right I did enjoy myself.

The trip back down the mountain was rather soporific - no stops at the viewing platforms this time. At Kleine Scheidegg it was crowded, so instead of taking the train down to the valley we decided to walk along the gently Panoramaweg to Maenlichen, affording us fantastic views over the mountians. Of course, the weather was much better than the day before, and so we had the view down the Lauterbrunnen valley that we were denied on Tuesday. It was now about 4pm, and I convinced Shev that if we hurried we would have enough time to make it to First, the end-point of our walk on Monday, where we would have an even better view of the Jungfrau itself.

Taking the gondola down to Grindelwald Grund, then barely making the train to Grindelwald proper, we hurried to the gondola station in Grindelwald, arriving just at 5pm. This meant that we would have only 15 minutes at the top, before we had to catch the final gondola down. As soon as we reached First, we raced outside to the small lookout above the gondola station. Although we had cut it fine, the view was worth our race against the clock, and we were in a triumphant mood.
My thoughts had become more subdued, however, by the time I reached the cable car station below Gimmelwald some two hours later. Watching the mountains ahead of me turn deep purple in the evening light, my heart was heavy with the realization that my time here was almost at an end. It's the same feeling I have during twilight at the end of a clear Autumn's day - grief that this beautiful moment cannot last for longer, if not forever. Perhaps it is at these moments we grasp the notion of our own mortality - tomorrow these mountains will be here, but I will not; in a thousand years these mountains will be here as if no time has passed, but I and everyone I know shall be long gone. Maybe you will find this an unneccessarily bleak view, but it need not be seen as such - I think the word "wonder" is more appropriate to describe the sensation, the same feeling we get when looking at the night sky.

On our last day we had absolutely perfect weather, without a cloud in the sky. After making the long journey down the Lauterbrunnen valley, we parted company at Interlaken - Shev was due in at Lausanne, where he would spend the remainder of his time in Switzerland, while I was heading back to Zuerich, via Thun. But instead of taking the train to Thun, I took the scenic option, getting off at Interlaken West to board the Thunersee ferry. If the weather is fine as it was on Thursday, this is undoubtedly the best way to get around - the ferry makes a serene journey, criss-crossing Lake Thun, stopping at many small little villages along the way. All in all, the ride takes over two hours. Sitting facing backwards as I was, I watched the snow-capped peaks of the Monch, Eiger and Jungfrau grow small in the distance.

The ICE left Zuerich Hauptbahnhof at 5pm, and I was in Stuttgart three hours later. The last week had been such an amazing experience, and such a departure from my normal life, that Stuttgart seemed almost unfamiliar. Lying in my bed that evening, I heard something that I had never really noticed before - the faint sound of the cars in the distance.