Switzerland 2: Old relatives and the long trip to Lucerne

Today, we woke up to a beautiful day.  On our way to Konstanz, Germany, to drop off the rental car, we stopped at two castles that Stephanie's family reports are connected to their family history.

The first was a little over an hour away, Schloss Sonnenburg and then twenty minutes farther, Schloss Altenklingen.  The first one had scaffolding covering all sides, so we took a picture from a distance and then moved on.  The second one allowed us to get a little closer, but only on one side.  Stephanie knocked on the door of a nearby building and talked a little with the lady inside about her history.  I will be adding pictures of both castles at a later time.

From there, we drove yet another twenty minutes, to Konstanz, Germany, where we filled up the gas and returned the car.  The Hertz dealer gave me a hard time because of three small scratches on the inside metal part of the wheel hubcap.  The guy wanted to charge me 160 euros, as this was the "lowest he could charge."  I found this completely absurd.  I spoke with the manager, wrote a statement, and will be hearing back from Frankfurt's Hertz office.

We took a very short taxi ride to the Konstanz train station and took the next train to Lucerne, stopping at Zurich to switch trains.  We are allowed to go on as many train rides as we wish, since we bought the fifteen day Swiss Travel Pass.  Since Konstanz is on the border with Switzerland, the train there was included.  The total train ride was two and a half hours.

I looked up local restaurants, including Chinese, Thai, and Mexican.  Every restaurant had entrees that started in the low twenties and went up into the thirties.  No thanks!  We went to the local coop, just down the street, where things are still expensive, but not even close to approaching those numbers.

We left late evening for a walk around town.  A one minute walk from hotel and we were at the river that goes through the town.  Chapel Bridge, a 1300s era covered bridge, was the first thing that caught our eye.

From there, we walked to the Lion Monument, dedicated to the Tuileries war heroes.  Unfortunately, the area below the lion was under construction.  I took a picture with a zoom lens and inadvertently cut off some of the writing.  It looks to be in latin, so I doubt that that should bother anyone.

We walked next toward the old city walls, stopping to take a picture of a building with an extraordinary amount of plant growth.

There were quite a few towers, with city walls connecting them.  I walked up to the second floor and then briefly out to the balcony.  Stephanie went to the top of the tower but didn't end up walking the walls.

We walked toward the outside of the walls and walked along the road there, following the wall.  It was here that I was fortunate enough to spot a quintessential photo opportunity.

Here you will see the quintessential photograph.  First, you have the standard elements, the castle walls, swiss alps, and the moon.  However, I was fortunate enough to find the fourth elusive element, a tractor.

We followed the wall to its end and went through the final gate back into town.  Just nearby was the second covered bridge, Speuerbrucke.

As we returned to our hotel, we saw that they had funneled the river through one small space, which made the rushing water look beautiful.

Switzerland 1: Three days in the mountains of Appenzell

With a small cold and sore muscles, we drove an hour away to our next destination, a hotel on top of the Ebenalp mountain area, part of the Appenzell Alps.  We parked our car at the cable car station and took the terrifying trip up to the top.  It was full of fog.  All I could see was the singular cow in front of me.  I dragged the luggage up the small hill to our hotel.  We would be staying for two nights.

The fog was very heavy for most of that first day.  I was tired, so I stayed in the room for a while.  Eventually, we took a two hour hike that brought us down the side, around, and back up to where we were staying.  It had unremarkable views until the end.  By then though, I was pretty exhausted and not feeling well.  I took some quick photos of the Aescher restaurant built on the side of the mountain.  Just past there was the Wildkirchli cave system that brought us into the mountain and then up a few flights of stairs until we reached a higher part of the mountain.



I declared the next day to be a day for myself to recover.  I needed rest.  The morning was incredibly foggy again, but toward mid afternoon it began to finally clear up.  I walked around outside twice.  The second time I noticed that paragliders were jumping off the mountain by the cable car station, so I walked on over.  I think the whole idea is nuts, but I appreciated their bravery.

Just a view from my first outing.

Near sunset, we took a forty minute walk, each way, toward the higher mountains.  The view from the other side must have been breathtaking, but I was still not feeling well, and some of the walk was steep according to Stephanie, which had taken the path the day before.

  As we were getting ready to turn back, a child, along with his mother and dog, were gathering their goats and bringing them home.  The boy, who had a curved cane similar to Little Bo Peep, my only point of reference, began milking one of the goats.  It was a very cool thing to see.  It is definitely a different life than I lead.



The sunset grew more and more beautiful as we returned to the hotel, so I walked five minutes below our hotel to what I assume was a nearby house and barn, and took pictures of the sunset colors.



The next day was sunny and perfect, just as we were leaving the hotel!  I pulled the luggage downhill and we took the cable car back down.  It was still scary, even with almost no one inside.  The next location was only a nine minute drive away, Brulisau.  We'd be staying at the bottom of the mountain, near a cable car station this time.  We dropped off our luggage and drove 20 minutes to the Kronberg mountain.

A little bobsled coaster was advertised here, and I wanted to check it out.  You were able to control the speed of the descent, which was neat, although a bit jerky.  Stephanie didn't participate because of her neck.  There was also a zipline area nearby that we didn't do.



We took the longest cable car ride I've ever been on, up the mountain.  It was long because it went quite a distance across the fields before we finally began our descent.  We then took a 2 hour walk along the riddge and then down and around until we were back to the station.   The walk was quite varied, from farmland to forests and the weather was perfect.




We stopped at a Coop on the way back to Brulisau and then took two hours to rest.  At 5:00, we walked two minutes to the cable car station and took one of the last trips up to Hoher Kasten mountain.  The views from the top were breathtaking.

View from a platform at the top.  Like usual, I had to inch forward, take a picture, run back, look at the picture, and then repeat the process.

We took a path that weaved in and out, then below us and then slowly down the mountain toward the lake in the distance.


I was nervous along the walk, but there was no reason to be.  It was a very reasonable trail, yet the height got to me a little bit near the beginning.

Eventually we came down and through fields.  It was all beautiful.  We passed many cows.  We ended up in sight of the lake, but then the path veered and by the time I realized it, I was just too tired to turn back.  We also saw a few donkeys next to a guesthouse.  The whole hike took three hours.

Liechtenstein 2: The Historical Eschnerberg Trail

I woke up in the middle of the night with a sore throat, so after breakfast I napped for a little bit so that my body would have extra rest.  We ended up leaving around 12:30 for the Historical Eschnerberg Trail.  Luckily, the trail begins less than a fifteen minute walk from our bed and breakfast.

Before I begin with that, I wanted to note a few things.  Our room's bathroom door is glass and completely see through.  I end up going to the communal and always empty bathroom downstairs more often than not.  On the Furstensteig hike yesterday, we didn't see a single person. 

Now that that is over with, when we began I had thought I had read that the hike was three hours long.  It turns out that it is four and a half.  It took us a little over five, with picture taking and a bathroom break. 

The hike has signs pointing the way, but many times it was still unclear which path they meant you to take. 



There were also many information signs, with historical information, but it was all in German. The hike started on a semi busy(for Liechtenstein) street.  I noticed a billboard that advised using seat belts that was fairly convincing in my eyes.



We found many benches along the path, but two stood out to me as rather creepy.



We also came across two men talking with umbrellas that we found interesting for some reason.



The path took us up streets lined with houses, dirt paths, into and out of a forest many times, along grassy fields, and through two unremarkable castle ruins.  There were some wide spaces that let me test my new lens. 



Tomorrow we move next door into Switzerland, to stay on a mountain top for two nights.

Austria 3, Liechtenstein 1: A brief stop in Alpbach, Austria on the way to an insane hike in Liechstenstein

The drive from Hallstatt to our next main destination, Liechtenstein, was too long.  Therefore, I decided to have us stop somewhere in between.  I picked Alpbach, Austria, a small village with beautiful views in all directions, which took just under three hours to reach.  It is also known for handcrafts from what I read online, but that turned out to be completely unfounded.  It is also known for its wintertime skiing, which obviously does not apply here.

The hotel was our cheapest so far, at 90 euros for the night, but had a massive room with incredible views.  It also had the first tub of any of our hotels on the trip.  The tub was also the longest bathtub I've ever been in, with a full foot more legroom when sitting down with legs out.  Here was the view from our room:



We mostly spent the day resting.  We tried two shops, but they were overpriced and didn't offer anything interesting.  To be fair, one had a snow globe that I considered as a gift, but it seemed unlikely to survive the rest of the trip.  We ate both lunch and dinner at a local publike restaurant, Postalm.  I tried a beef consomme soup, with cheese "pressknodel."  It was good, though the cheese bit was an odd texture.  Later, we both tried a mushroom dumpling with vegetables, which was quite good and again, quite odd.

At night, we tried to get some shots of the town at sunset, but we couldn't find the best route to take pictures.  We settled on a hill across from town, facing the sunset. 

Look closely to see Stephanie

Here are some other shots I took:



Today, we had another near three hour drive.  About forty five minutes into the drive, at Innsbruck, we stopped at a camera store to pick up a wide lens for me.  I figured that it would come in handy in Switzerland.  We arrived at out bed and breakfast around 1:00.  Unfortunately, the owners were not in.  I happened to look up and another guest was opening the window.  She came down and let us in.

My booking confirmation showed check in time at 2:00, but when no one came, we decided to use their desk phone to call the number on the reservation information.  I actually tried this earlier, but accidentally used their international code first, which didn't work.  This time we tried it without the code and got through.  The owner told us the code on the lock box to retrieve our room key.

First we drove to the tourist information center, which is about fifteen minutes away.  Liechtenstein is tiny, so we first had to cross the bridge into Switzerland, drive a few miles, and then go back over the bridge into Liechtenstein.  We were given some maps for the three hikes we are interested in.  The first one began about 15 minutes away from the office.  They informed us however, that due to construction, we had to take a different route to the hike, which would take a few minutes longer.  We drove up the mountain and parked our car at the hike beginning.  As we had read online, there were nice free bathrooms at the parking lot.

Not many people bother stopping in Liechtenstein because it is expensive and there is not much to see.  One reason to stop is for their hikes.  This first hike was the biggest and hardest of the three we picked out.  I had actually picked out two hikes before the trip, and found the third hike that I was interested in, the night before.  The name of today's hike is translated as The Prince's Way hike, known as Furstensteig.

The trail reportedly is very well maintained, but not supposed to be great for people with height problems.  Since people ranted and raved about how good it was, I decided to push myself to do it.  The weather for the two days we are in Liechtenstein report the same, scattered rain throughout the day.  I packed our two ponchos into a tiny backpack and clipped it to my belt.  I also only brought my handheld camera.  We found mixed reports of how long the hike would take, ranging from three hours and seventeen minutes to five hours.

We began the hike, which started easily enough, through the woods, winding upwards.  Then, we suddenly reached the cliff sides.  It was at this time that it began to rain.  We donned our ponchos and waited.  After about ten minutes it began to subside.  As I said earlier, I decided to push myself, hoping that the more scary looking area would not be long.  It was long.

I kept my poncho on in case it did rain and I would be too afraid to put it on due to how narrow the trail was.  This provided the additional benefit of partially obscuring the view.  The negative effect is that I sweat into the poncho and soaked it from the inside out.

I only got two pictures while on the rock cliff portion of the hike:



I walked in front, and due to fear, I kept moving until this part of the hike was done.  It was tough for me due to the heights.  Unlike the crags in Taiwan, I did not feel the same level of elation and pride after I had completed it.  I decided that I really don't enjoy pushing myself, and from now on I will pick less fear inducing heights.  The problem with this, of course, is that most hikes involving any kind of movement near the side of anything invokes fear for me.  It will be interesting to see how I will do on the mountains of switzerland.  I am dreading all of the cable cars/ropeways already.  I didn't like sky rides as a kid and I don't like them now. 

Here is a picture in front of a bench.  I sat on the ground instead.



After the more terrifying portion, it turned into an easygoing gravel path downward, which then turned into an ascent.  I wasn't scared here at all, as the paths were wide.  My legs were simply tired of stepping upward.  Once at the top, it brought us to a grassy path that very slowly descended on the other side.  We were treated to beautiful views and a constant ringing of cow bells.



About halfway down the path toward the parking lot, it began to rain.  I put on my poncho, despite the sweaty interior, and we continued down.  Due to the rainy weather, it became so foggy that all good views disappeared.  Near the end, we discovered one of the sources of the cowbells.



Back at the car, I ducked into the bathroom to unzip the leg portion of my convertible pants, which were wet from being below the poncho's cover.  We finished the hike in about two hours and fifty minutes.

We were hungry, so we located the nearest coop, which was closing thirty minutes later.  It would take us twenty minutes to get there.  We pasted by Vaduz Castle, which is an oddly shaped castle.  I stopped in the side of the road to take a picture, but someone was trying to make a turn to where I was.  I decided to skip the picture and move onward.  They then pulled into my picture taking spot and sat there.  Oh well.

We got to the coop in time.  It was in a tiny two floored shopping area, with an ATM out front.  I retrieved some Swiss Francs here, as Francs are the currency of Liechtenstein and Switzerland.  We used the last of our euros at a gas station before the border.  Stephanie asked why the groceries were so expensive.  I explained that the prices in Liechtenstein are supposed to be super high.

Back at the hotel room, Stephanie looked into it, and it seems like this country has the second highest GDP per capita, following only Monaco.  Stephanie also said that the internet refers to Liechtenstein as a tax haven, among other odd things such as only giving women the right to vote in 1984.  The internet also claims that the country has more registered companies than people.

In any case, the food was good.  I tested out the new lens from our window.