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.

Phil and Shev's Excellent Adventure, Part I

Earlier this year I got an email from my friend Shev, who I've known since undergrad. He was coming to Europe again for a conference, this time in Zuerich. Remembering how much my sister loved the Swiss Alps, I suggested to him that we should make a holiday together. And so it came to pass that I took the 12pm ICE from Stuttgart to Zuerich on what looked to be a sunny summer's day on Friday 20 July - my first real break since coming back to Germany in mid-January.

I met Shev at Zuerich Hauptbahnhof where we caught the train to Interlaken, changing at Bern. By now the "sunny summer's day" had been overtaken by intense storms (part of the system causing the recent flooding in England). At Interlaken we changed again, taking a train up to Lauterbrunnen; here we caught a bus up the Lauterbrunnen valley until we reached the cable car station at Stechelberg. Although the view of the mountains was obscured by the low-hanging cloud, it was still possible to get some idea as to the scale of the place: the cable car soars at an alarming angle up over a cliff of at least 100m to reach the small village of Gimmelwald, where we had our accommodation at a backpacker hostel. By now it was 8:30pm, and after a quiet beer outside we turned in for the night.

Despite my incandescent optimism, the next day we woke to find that Gimmelwald was sitting in the middle of a cloud bank. Checking the mountain webcams, however, we noticed that the view from the Schilthorn was clear. Gimmelwald (and the larger village of Muerren) sits just at the bottom of the Schilthorn and it is a quick (albeit expensive) cable car trip to the summit. Some of the James Bond aficionados out there will be interested to know that the cable car station and restaurant "Piz Gloria" at the top of the Schilthorn was the star of the 1969 movie "On Her majesty's Secret Service". I can understand why, as the view from the top was spectacular - in the cable car there was a collective gasp and fumbling for cameras as we emerged from the mist just before the intermediate stop of Birg. As soon as reached the summit proper, we raced outside to the viewing platform and took in the magnificent view towards the Jungfrau massif.




















After admiring the dramatic scenery we decided to explore the region around the summit, taking a short stroll down the southern side. I was amazed to find that although the mountain seemed desolate, if you looked closely enough you could find many very small little flowering plants, as well as an abundance of invertebrate life (spiders and dragonflies!). The clouds from the valley were starting to move closer, breaking like waves on the ridge before spilling over into the valley on the other side. By the time we made our way back to the top of the Schilthorn the view was totally obscured.

A little bit disenchanted we walked through the fog part-way down the mountain until Birg, where we caught the cable car back to Muerren - and were happily surprised to find that the fog at our "base camp" altitude had lifted. We spent some time exploring Muerren, which is much more orientated to the tourist trade than Gimmelwald, before making the 40 minute walk back home. Although there are (very narrow) roads connecting Gimmelwald and Muerren with the rest of the world, only locals are permitted to operate cars here, maintaining the isolated charm of the place.

The next morning was like the previous, with dense fog greeting us for breakfast. We started off by taking the cable car to Muerren, then the rack railway to Gruetschalp before heading down to Lauterbrunnen by cable car. The prospects for the day were starting to improve, so we went over to get a closer look at the waterfall that plunges more than a hundred metres over the cliffs to the valley floor. It's probably worth explaining here that the Lauterbrunnen valley was carved out by glaciers about 100000 years ago and the valley bears all the hallmarks of this sculpture - a largely flat floor and high cliffs for sides.


With the appearance of blue skies we decided to jump on the train for Interlaken, which as its name suggests is wedged between the serene light blue waters of the Thunersee and Brienzsee. Arriving in Interlaken, we first wandered to the river connecting the two lakes, and then along this until we came to the Brienzsee, where we had our lunch. To get a better look of the surroundings we took the funicular railway up the side of the steep valley sides to Harder Klum, where there is an excellent view across the Thunersee and up the Interlaken valley to the Jungfrau massif.


Since the afternoon looked so good we decided to get the most out of our multi-day train tickets and headed for the popular resort town of Grindelwald. Grindelwald is just the foot of the Eiger, Monch and Jungfrau, which rise up as almost sheer cliffs at the edge of the valley. Unfortunately, we still had a fair amount of cloud about and the top 2000m of the mountains weren't visible. After a bit of a wander through the (tourist-packed) town we decided to take the rack railway back to Lauterbrunnen, via the stop at Kleine Scheidegg, a small village just at the foot of the Eiger. On the first leg we had the train almost to ourselves, allowing us plenty of opportunity to admire the spectacular views across Grindelwald from the train as it crawled out of the valley. Coming down from Kleine Scheidegg the train was packed due to the day tourists to the Jungfrau, but more on that later (next installment).

On Monday we awoke to find absolutely clear skies, so we set out at once for Wilderswil, where we caught the antique rack railway up to Schynige Platte (all these railways were laid in at the start of the 20th century, when the region experienced its first tourist-boom). The wooden-slat seats of the train were pretty uncomfortable, and the slow progress made the 45-minute journey drag. But the view from Schynige Platte (panorama below) was well worth the sore posterior.


It's hard to describe what you feel when looking out to such a view. Firstly of course there is wonder, but also disorientation - the scenery seems to simultaneously violate all your established ideas of proportion and perspective; your intuitive sense of where the horizon should be is met by a wall of rock. It's actually rather hard to look at, as the mind seems to refuse to take it all in as a whole, the eye darting from detail to detail in some attempt to break down the vista into manageable chunks. It's also something that I think I would never get tired of glancing at. I've always had a soft spot for geology, and the experience of smallness and transience that one gets from places such as this is strangely soothing.

Our aim for the day was to walk from Schynige Platte to the gondola station of First - 6.5 hours away. The walk is entirely above the tree line (mostly above 2000m), across the verdant alpine meadows in full summer bloom. Of course we encountered herds of cows jangling their bells, as well as a flock of bell-bedecked sheep a little later. I'm not sure how people can manage to live with the noise. The route itself stuck close to a ridge, on one side dropping steeply away down to Interlaken and the Brienzee, while on the other sloping more gently down towards Grindelwald. For the first few hours we passed quite a few people, but by about midday we had clearly pulled ahead of the pack. The green verdant pastures had also given away to rocky outcrops, with some nearby mountains almost entirely barren.























All morning the bright sunny day had been almost imperceptibly fading as high cloud covered the sky, but it was still quite light when we finally came to the peak of the Faulhorn. Declining to take the gentle stroll up the western side, we bounded up the final 100m or so along the scruffy eastward path. This was the highest point we reached that day, at some 2680m. Bizarrely, at the top of the mountain is a rather dilapidated-looking restaurant; we ate our packed lunch sitting against the lichen-covered wall of the establishment, with the views below as our reward.


From here on the walk was down hill, which proved to be much more treacherous than the climb. The last point of interest on our journey was the Bachalpsee, a small lake with a wonderful view out towards the mountains on the other side of the Grindelwald valley - or at least it would have been, had not the mountains not been covered with thick swirling clouds. Nevertheless, the view was still magnificent, and dramatic in a brooding kind of way.

It was one hour more to the gondola station at First, and then another 30 minute ride down into Grindelwald. It was at least another hour before we made it back to Muerren, when the clouds finally let go with a soft rain. That night we sat outside and admired the awesome power of a mountain thunderstorm, a fitting end to the day.