(shoutout to my friend Sennah for the blog title idea, you marketing genius)
hi lovely friends!!!! this post is long overdue BUT i want to make sure i write it all down because it was a good time.
after Berlin, Ian and I took an overnight (!!!) train to SWITZERLANDDDD!!! y’all it was SO COOL!! we both booked the top bunks and we shared the room with this cute Swiss couple. it was very new this train. I felt like I was in a spaceship!!!! the beds were nice and spacious. the ladder was fun to climb. there was lots of room for our bags!!! i kept getting excited about things!!! i thoroughly enjoyed it. even though i did not get very much sleep!!
our train took us to Zurich and then from there we were training to a smaller town in the mountains called Leukerbad!! we got some hot tips from my relatives who spent a year in Switzerland that they really recommended getting out of the city and heading to the mountains, since we enjoyed nature!!! and boy am I glad we did.
after some trains, we piled onto a couch bus that would take us up, up, up to Leukerbad and dammoramma SHOUT OUT TO THIS MAN!! you know how people like to clap after plane lands for the pilots? i think we should switch gears and start clapping for these drivers who take us to safety, making very tight turns on switchback roads in a coach bus!!! we were very close to the edge but, spoiler alert, we made it safely.
our Airbnb was very close to the bus stop and had a balcony that had great views of the mountains. fun fact: apparently there are rules about what you can and cannot put on your patios in order to preserve the views. it was pretty crazy just being iN the mountains. you go outside and its like oh hello there majestic huge mountain. it was so big our eyes couldn’t really adjust to what we were looking at.
one of the biggest reasons we decided to go to a mountain town was to go hiking!!! our first hiking day (13k for those curious) was a big boy and was very incredible. one of the best hikes i’ve ever done. really good views of snowy peaks, a walk through a cheese farm with the goats and sheeps right there, and fun bridges and big waterfalls. the first part of it was this fun route on a path of the side of this cliff that looked out to the thermal water below.
again the views were incredible throughout and it was a great time. amazing weather and perfect challenge rating.
story time though: there was a lot of cows just … around and on the paths. they seemed to want pets and were curious, coming up to us. we of course tried to move away and keep our distance, and not pet them but we came across this one part where someone was herding the cows down our path and we caused a bit of a road block. we tried to get out of the way but i guess we weren’t in a great spot because their herder started yelling at us and we weren’t able to understand him unfortunately. but sorry sir. i am not sure what we did wrong but did not mean to disrupt your herding.
also i think we saw a huge bearded vulture??? it was massive. i was scared it was gonna take me away until we looked it up and it was a vulture so as long as i stay alive we gucci.
something fun about Switzerland is that there are basically 3 national languages: Italian, German and French (there is also Swiss German, Swiss French and Swiss Italian which are slight variations of the languages). It depends a lot on what area of Switzerland you are in. But it was quite a brain challenge to switch between them, and anticipate what language to use. At the grocery store, the cashier spoke German but the man I was talking to behind me spoke Italian so I was struggling to switch to say goodbye.
side note: their money is VERY fun colours. did Canada steal the idea for fun coloured money from them? their 10 bill is VIBRANT ORANGE!!!
after our big hike day, the next day I explored around the town. there was a lot of fun outdoorsy stores that caught my eye. the people in the town were ALL dressed in outdoorsy hiking clothes; if you weren’t, you would stick out. hiking poles out everyone!!!!
there was also a cute little market in town with local vendors. we met this nice person at the cheese station and got a couple of delicious Swiss cheeses!! she was so kind and they were from the lovely little place in the mountain we hiked!!! how cool. we met those goats from which the cheese came. she asked if we had tried Raclette, to which we answered no, and she went and bought us some at the person in the market. basically, they melt the top of this cheese and scrape it off. its melted delicious cheese, which they add some sauerkraut on the side. very tasty.
Leukerbad had this great pass you could buy where you get 3 hours in their thermal pools (which seems like what they are known for), and access to the two cable cars that are close by, one to the great Gemmi Pass and one to Torrent. Our last day in Switzerland, we got this pass and boyo was it worth it.
We took the fun cable car up to Gemmi, saw the lake and hung about here for awhile. If it was warmer, we would have swam in the beautiful glacial lake up there but alas, it was not. I have never swam in a glacial lake and it is something I really want to do.
on our way down we made friends with this baby who was very smiley. he played peek a boo with us, but we tried to do it back and bad idea. he didnt like that. also he was poking his dad in the face and we laughed and so he upped his game and started to SLAP his dad and smiling. it took a lot for us to not laugh and just avoid it so he would stop. sorry father. didn’t mean to encourage him.
We then headed to the other cable car, Torrent, because there was a hike we wanted to do there. Y’all this hike was not messing around. It was 5k but it was steeep and it was higghhh. the views were outstanding, but I had not brought my proper hiking shoes, so i was in just running shoes. Usually, i am not at all freaked about steepness or height but i was nervous to go down a little because you are just… going down. and could slide right off. but it all worked out. and it was so so nice up there. great hike, stunning, lovely j’adore. hiking peeps I recommend switzerland.
we then went to the thermal pools!!! was very very busy but was a lot of fun to play in the water for awhile. there was a fun swimming tunnel from the inside pool to the outdoor pool!!!
there were also water slides and hilariously, no one monitoring them. so these kids be just going 6 at a time and extremely fast. the slides were also really cool and fast, there was a part that was pitch black which was scary but super fun.
something that some of you may know is that i have been struggling with ~ who am i ~ questions, and something i was thinking about a lot during this stretch was am i “outdoorsy” enough to be considered outdoorsy. i love hiking and nature, but i am not hiking every day and posting hiking photos, and doing a career in outdoors related fields. how much does one need to do in order to label themselves as “outdoorsy”? what do these labels mean?
that was basically our time in switzerland but i was one of my fave places so far. i miss the mountains already. will definitely go back. also how cool i have now made swiss and irish cow friends?? is this my cow tour of the world???
Some images
