| JUNE 14
Early morning showed low
clouds. By 10:00 the clouds had sunny breaks and our hopes of going
to the peak of Schilthorn heightened. |
| Ester was hanging
duvet covers on the clothesline when we arrived to
pick up bread and yogurt from her stair-top store. |
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At the
mountain lift terminal, where Gimmelwald is the junction
between the valley station and Murren station, men were unloading boxes and articles on to a little
farm truck for delivery. Many of the articles were not
boxed; huge cow bells with wide leather belts and
buckles, bed frames and a new gadget that the younger
fellow couldn't help but test its seat and movable
parts. |
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| As they were
speaking German, we could not understand, but whatever it was
tickled their funny bones and they all laughed making a fellow that
looked like he could be fabled Heidi's grandfather look like he was
Santa Claus working to pick up a few extra Swiss Francs. |
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The gondola took
us from Gimmelwald at 1367m (4485 ft) to Murren at 1638m (5347 ft)
where we stopped to have some of Ester's yogurt and granola for
breakfast and watched how they slung specially designed shipping
crates below the people carrying gondolas to carry freight directly from the valley
floor to Murren. |
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| The next leg of
the trip to Schilthorn took us from Murren at 1638m (5347 ft) to
Birg at 2677m (8783 ft).
Birg sits on a pinnacle of
rock. We had hoped to walk from here back down to Gimmelwald but the
trails are closed due to late spring snow.
We transferred at Birg to yet
another gondola that took us up through the thick clouds to the top
of Schilthorn at 2970m (9744 ft). |
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| Mountains
pointed up through the clouds as the restaurant we had lunch
at made its hour long 360 degree revolution. |
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Thinking
we might catch a picture of the restaurant itself, we
went outside but the cloud only closed around us. |
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| We dropped
in to see clips from the James Bond movie "On Her
Majesty's Secret Service" (certainly not one of the better
ones) and the role the Schilthorn summit played in the film.
The mountain-top hide-a-way destroyed in the film was the
then-under-construction revolving restaurant and tourist
facilities we were now visiting. |
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| We took the two
gondolas back to the traffic free village of Murren. It certainly
looked different from yesterday when we were here in the rain and
its visitors were taking time to amble down the street and sit at
outdoor café tables. |
| We caught the
funicular [a steep hill tram] up to Allmendhubel at 1912m. The
funicular, built in 1912 and modernized in 1999, takes only a few
minutes to reach the top of Allmendhubel. We began our walk on the
Northface Trail. It opened in 2000. |
| Along the
hike that starts in Allmendhubel and ends in Murren there are
twelve information boards situated at view points along the
route. The boards provide the conquest histories of the
mountain tops we were viewing. Many pioneering achievements
have been accomplished in these Bernese Alps.
We looked across the
first valley we would be traversing just as the sun broke
through the clouds and accented a green which made us think of
Ireland more than Switzerland.
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| On the
other side of the valley we catch a glimpse of Murren below. |
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| The pathway was
decorated with tiny wildflowers beginning their short season of bloom.
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| At
one point we came over a hill and stretched out before us was a field with
a backdrop of Swiss mountains and we broke out in song "The hills
are alive with the sound of music ..." half expecting Julie Andrews
to come over the ridge and join us. The moment was upon us and without
inhibitions Sherrie leaped through the field singing in Julie's stead ...
until a young couple came along to witness the exhibition. To break the
ice we laughed and said "how could you not dance when surrounded by
scenery like this?" We took their picture and they took ours and we
went on our way. Just before disappearing completely over the next hill,
we looked back as he was leaping through the air and she was taking
photographs.
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| The next valley opened to us and we
could see below farm buildings on both sides of a silver thread of stream.
Once down, we crossed a bridge over the stream and carried on the trail
that wove itself through the buildings. Some of the farm homes we had
passed along the trail are set up to provide refreshments to tourists walking by,
supplementing their farm income.
As we climbed up the mountain side
towards a forest we stopped at a few mountain huts (some more modern than
others) ... perhaps a little
disappointed when we did not encounter Heidi's grandfather. These huts are
set up for the herdsmen to shelter themselves, and livestock if required,
plus do the milking and make alp cheese (some of which we were carrying in
our day bag). |
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| The forest reminded us again of how
well the people of this region balance nature and their needs.
On the edge
of the forest, just above Gimmelwald, we stopped and enjoyed our picnic
dinner with the rings of different sized cow bells providing fitting
background music.
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| As we walked back down into
Gimmelwald, we wondered how the citizens of this tiny village felt about
visitors invading their mountain perch. |
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| If they went to that extent ... would they like
not to have tourists at all? We wanted to ask. |
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| Almost sixty years
ago the residents of Gimmelwald, led by the
teacher who preceded our host, petitioned the government to declare
Gimmelwald a landslide hazard area which would in reality limit the
building permits and keep out any ambitious projects by tourist
accommodation promoters. |
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Maria, our hostess
along with her husband, Ollie, came to Gimmelwald twenty years ago
(the day after they married). Both are teachers and they are the
only teachers in the Gimmelwald school for the 17 students from
grade one through nine. When Maria was asked the question, she
responded that tourism is good for Gimmelwald. No longer can
the farmers make enough from the land to support their families. She
talked about how many of the people here worked in tourism, from
providing lodgings and food to working at the lift stations.
"We could not afford to have the lifts if the tourists stopped
coming," she said. "If the people here cannot make a
living from farming and if tourism stopped, there would be nothing
here to hold the people."
We talked on with her about
other issues and could have been talking to someone in Italy, France
or Canada. We travel the world to experience differences but find
that although the scenery may change, people are very much the same
... sharing the same concerns over care and education of
our children, health care and taxes. |
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JUNE 15
We woke to clear blue skies. The
roosters were crowing and
little goats were out of the barn and investigating the big outdoors.
We walked down the quiet street.
The stairs for the cheese hut were tucked under the narrow porch. We
filled up the water bottles with some more sweet mountain water.
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Hans
called out and we back-tracked to say our good byes. He is going to help
them move the town's cows up to higher country before he returns to
Geneva. The field near the water trough had been cut yesterday by scythe
ready to grow a second crop. |
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We rang the bell at Esther's and
bought some yogurt and muesli to take with us. We asked her the question
and her answers were similar to Maria's. The town's people could handle
the tourists and enjoyed doing so. Because of regulations the town was
limited to the one hundred and thirty beds that now existed. After those
were full the tourists are sent away. One two-edged sword that has comes
from having the world visit (and Esther credits Rick Steves with that
accomplishment) is that the people of the town have wider understanding
and more information from which to make decisions. The other edge of that
sword, is with so much knowledge of what can be part of their lives, they
are not always satisfied with what they currently have and yearn for
things that would not have been part of their thoughts and vocabulary
before. Computers are having a similar effect. Every home in Gimmelwald
has a computer and the small school has six which are in constant use
opening the world to the people and the citizens of Gimmelwald, both young
and old.
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As we waited to be carried back
down to the valley floor, we watched the crowd of day trippers get off the
gondola. With clear skies, most of them carried on to the other lift on
their way to the top of Schilthorn. Gimmelwald disappeared from our view.
More tourists awaited at the bottom for their chance to be lifted to
Gimmelwald. |
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It was a short wait for the bus to
take us to the train station. We looked once more at the tumbling
waterfall (the same water we had crossed over between Murren and
Gimmelwald). Like the continuous stream of water that flows through
Gimmelwald, so will there be a steady stream of tourists for years to come.
We only hope the people of Gimmelwald continue to see them as a positive
impact on their village life. We hope also that these visitors leave with
similar positive feelings and wonderful memories as we most certainly do. |
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On the way to Colmar, the train
sped along the shoreline of Lake Thun and later the River Aare which flows
into the Rhine.
Our first phone call from a booth
at the train station secured a room for the night ... but only one night.
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Maison Jund is an accumulation of connected buildings that seem to be
making an effort to hold each other up as if they all have had too much
wine. Perhaps the wine that is made by the owner/wine-maker, Andre.
Perhaps Andre thought this too and painted these four hundred year old
half-timbered structures with the barrel dregs of his red wine.
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We took to the streets.
What is now Colmar's University
Institue of Technology was built between 1738 and 1744 on the site of a
Franciscan convent which had been used as a hospital from the middle of
the 16th century. Freestones originating from the old town fortifications
were used in its construction. |
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| Colmar's covered market was
constructed in the mid 1860s using a metal frame supported by cast iron
pillars and filled in by brick and freestones. Big doors opening to the
canal allowed the gardeners to unload their produce from their flat
bottomed boats. In the south-west corner, a niche was built to hold the
1869 "Petit Vigneron" statue created by Bartholdi who also
created the Statue of Liberty. |
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| Nearby a colourful row of
half-timbered houses line Rue de la Poissonnerie where the fish mongers
had their shops. |
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| A part of Colmar is nick-named
"little Venice" because of it's network of canals (they even
shuffle tourists around in little motorized gondolas (more of those flat
bottomed boats ). |
| A five star
hotel (left:light green building on right) , that from outside appearances looks
like many of the other half-timbered structures in this city, sits on a
canal in the "little Venice" district. As we let our
imaginations take us a couple of centuries back, the sound of horse and
carriage completed the mind pictures. |
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| All those hundreds of years ago
when many of these homes and shops were built, they may not have had
building codes, but they did have taxes and the amount of property tax was
based on the amount of ground on which the structure sat. Just as now,
people weren't keen on paying any more taxes than they had to. To that end
the owners built the ground floor of their buildings as small as
reasonably possible and then made each additional floor larger and over
hanging the floor below. |
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There are always surprises in
yesteryear freestyle architecture. Take for example the high gabled statue of
a man trying to squeeze through a small round window. Could it be that the
father of the household arrived home unexpectedly and the young man is
trying to flee from an upstairs boudoir?
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| The ornate house of the wine
merchant constructed in 1609 evokes the golden age of the merchants which
started in the 16th century. On top of the gable another work by (Statue
of Liberty) artist Bartholdi is of a wine cooper.
This street of affluent
merchants is also home to three beautiful shop signs (there are many
throughout the city) by artist Hansi -- the Swan Apothecary (pharmacy),
the bakery and the butcher. Hansi, a great patriot, included the colours
blue, white and red within his signs. Other signs, old and new,
throughout Colmar add their own charm to this unique city. |
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| We slowly
drifted back to our circa 1600 room passing a mother swan with
four little ones and picking up dinner supplies on the way. |
| After
dinner and a little travel day snooze, we went out to
"Folklore Evening" put on by the Tourist
Office of Colmar ... unfortunately leaving the camera
behind. |
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The show took place around a large
bandshell in a park area called Place Rapp. A thirty-piece band was in the
band shell while right in front of where we were sitting ten dancers in
traditional costumes did folk dances to music supplied by three
accordionists.
In between music selections a lady
spoke of the meaning of the music, dances and the 18th century style of
costumes.
Costumes have changed over
centuries, adapting to local life area by area and even town to town. They
characterize age, religious and political beliefs. Materials (linen and
hemp) created in rural houses, colours and cut defined the Alsatian
costume. As people began to purchase manufactured products the costumes
became larger and used bright colours.
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For the females costume the linen,
and later cotton blouse, is decorated around the neck. The 18th century
sleeves became longer and puffed out then tied in with ribbons. The collar
either square or circular is knitted or in linen and is trimmed with a
plain lace that matches the end of the sleeves. Farmers wore their skirts
at their calf while urbanites wore them to the ankle. The Protestant skirt
is usually decorated at the bottom with ribbon, while the Catholic's wore
theirs plain. A corset was usually made of a precious material, laced at
the front and hooked at the base. The apron of the Alsatian costume was
made of linen. In later years flowered patterns, silks and satins were
used. The bottom of the apron can be decorated with ribbons or lined with
lace. Stockings are white and hand knitted. Shoes with low heels were
decorated with ribbons or a buckle. The shawl is not only decorative but provides extra warmth. It is usually tied or crossed and can be adorned
with fringes, flowers or embroidery. The typical headdress of the Alsatian
costume is a ribbon bonnet. Around 1830 the headdress was like a large bow
and in the nineties it reached a metre diameter. The colour of the ribbons
depends on religious beliefs: black for young Protestants and married
women, red and multicoloured for the young Catholics.
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| The older
dancers felt very comfortable with what they were doing
and having fun by acting out the dances and not just doing the steps. One
of these older gentlemen was quite sassy and captured the audiences
attention with his playful antics. Some of the audience which was sitting
informally around the bandstand, sat quietly in appreciation of the
entertainment before them, while others tapped their toes, moved their
legs and hands in remembrance of when the had learned these traditions.
One lady in white slacks and standing close to the fence was struggling to
contain herself and would every so often break out in dance on the
sidelines. Near the end of the program the ten dancers went out into the
audience and selected ten partners to join them in a dance. The sassy
fellow picked Sherrie (oh for a camera!). After that dance they selected
ten more members from the audience and the lady in the white slacks was
selected. She was in her glory and her face shone with glee. |
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JUNE 16
We spent the morning securing
accommodations, since an opening had not come available at Maison Jund.
Our new accommodations lacked character but would suffice for one night's
lodging.
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| Our next stop was the train station
to check timetables of train departures and connections in Paris for the
Eurostar. While we waited in line in the information office, the lady in
the white slacks from the night before came in and recognized us. She greeted
Sherrie as though they were long friends of a dance team. Her conversation
in French would have usually triggered Sherrie to say, "Desole. Je ne
parle pas francais. [I'm sorry. I do not speak french]" however, she
just watched her enthusiastic explanations with an understanding smile on
her face and seemed to nod at the appropriate times. |
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| Once Sherrie smiled
in agreement and said, "belle [beautiful]" and it seemed to fit
in because the lady continued talking as though we understood each and
every word she was uttering in French. Finally she slowed down and with
some words around "Au revoir [good bye]" she grasped Sherrie
hands in good will and then departed. |
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| On the way back we stopped for
brunch in a recommended cafe. It had a salad bar and a cooked vegetable
bar. We chose the vegetables and savored green beans, spinach, carrots
and cauliflower which all seem to be absent from most European menus. |
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We cut through the park which was
the scene of last night's entertainment and took pictures of children and
adults running through the sixty intermittent spouts of water without
getting wet. Then, of course there were those that would stand on a spout
and let the wetness happen.
The bandshall was empty but the
images of last night played on.
Part of the afternoon was spent in
museums and churches.
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| The Unterlinden Museum collections,
housed in a serene cloister, are for the most part, religious paintings
and artifacts. |
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| One small room holds several large
and ornate wine casks as well as two wine presses.
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| We were pleased
to find one religious
statue that looked pleased with the life God had created, rather than
expressing the serious, sad or pious face usually found on religious
statues.
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| A new acquisition for
the museum is a still life painting of a dentist cabinet. It is believed
to be the oldest still life painting in existence. The word on the white
mug means "toothache". The bottle on the left has a parchment
paper stopper. |
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