Legends of the Fall

Zurich, Switzerland - Unlike the San Francisco Bay Area, Switzerland has seasons. For the last few weeks, this has meant we've taken in spectacular fall foliage. What makes the changing colors particularly great here is the topography: the rolling hills and mountains mean that land is often rising up around you, giving your eyes more colorful forested surface area to take in.

Hannah - a California girl with a strong affinity for indoor activities - is like a child who has tasted candy for the first time. Our walks are punctuated by small gasps and then long pauses in which Hannah photographs various trees, woodland paths, and piles of leaves. Below, you will find a small collection of those photos.

Uetliberg, Zurich

The Uetliberg is the tallest (870 meters) of several mountains surrounding Zurich. We do many of our runs and hikes on the Uetliberg because it's so close to our apartment. I wrote in some detail about the Uetliberg in a previous post, so I'll spare you the details here and just share some photos from our recent hikes.

Marbach, Lucerne

We recently visited Marbach (population: 1,217), a small village in the canton of Lucerne, for a hike. Marbach is about 90 minutes by car and about 3 hours by train, so we chose to rent a car, though - to be honest - we're largely avoiding mass transit these days now that coronavirus cases are spiking.

This particular hike was recommended by the Swiss tourism board as among the "top hikes for autumn." For Hannah and me, this implied that the foliage would be vibrant. In retrospect, it seems fall foliage is not the leading/only priority for the Swiss tourism board in determining the best autumn hikes. The hike was indeed beautiful, but most of the trees were evergreens and we only really saw some colors at the very end as we descended out of the mountains and back into Marbach.

Adlisberg, Zurich

The Adlisberg (701 meters) was a surprise for us. It's a wooded mountain on the Eastern side of Zurich. We had never ventured over there because the Uetliberg is so close. But the Adlisberg yielded some of the most beautiful foliage we've seen this season! Near the peak of the Adlisberg is a 33 meter high wooden observation tower, which affords beautiful views out to Lake Zurich and the Pfannenstiel, another mountain to the south. Hannah was - let's call it "uncomfortable" - with the height of the observation tower and preferred to keep herself away from the outer railing (and better views).

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We're Back!

Paris, France - We've returned to Europe for a three-week sojourn in France, Switzerland, and the UK. We're obviously very excited. We arrived in Paris Sunday around 11AM. Our approach to jet lag is akin to tearing the bandaid off quickly: We purposely sleep little if at all on our transatlantic flight (below is a photo of Hannah, trying not to sleep on the flight), consume copious amounts of caffeine after we land, slowly descend into irritability and mild delirium, and then collapse after staying up as late as we can on our first night in Europe. Our body's, overcome by shock from this maltreatment, eagerly accept a full night's sleep, even if it's offered at an hour that's entirely out of keeping with our normal schedule. Works like a charm. After depositing our things at the hotel, we aimlessly wandered around Paris for a few hours before meeting up with Maggie, an acquaintance of Hannah's from work. Maggie took us to the wine bar Delicatessen where we ...

Fording the Fjords

We stayed one night in Ålesund and for a few days in Øye. These cities are fun for me at least partly because they use letters unique to the Danish-Norwegian alphabet, the 'a' with the circle on top and 'o' with the line through it (official letter names pending further review). Ålesund is a port town of about 70,000 on the western side of Norway on the Atlantic coast. We landed there around 1100PM, but it looked more like 700 or 800pm, owing to the latitude (about 62 degrees north). Throughout our stay here, I've been very excited about the (nearly) never-ending daylight. The sun sets at about 1130PM rises about four hours later, but the hours between are marked more by a duskiness rather than a true darkness. We only stayed in Ålesund overnight (if you want to call it "night") before departing the next morning for Øye, which lies at the tip of a remote Fjord, the Norangsfjorden. Some locals told us that another nearby town, Urke, had less than...

Edinburgh

We stayed in Edinburgh for two days to conclude our Scotland adventure. Hannah spent a semester in Edinburgh in her spritely college days and she remembers it fondly. As we wandered through the city, Hannah would point out various places and reminisce. Here was the restaurant where she would gather with friends to celebrate special occasions (The Outsider), here was the local café they frequented between classes (Peter's Yard), this was the park she walked through to get home (The Meadows), and there is the shitty hostel she stayed in when she arrived (less interesting!). Edinburgh was fun. We liked it more than Glasgow. Edinburgh had more to see (more ancient castles, museums and monuments) and the city was denser and more lively. Glasgow just felt more utilitarian. Hannah - of course - led me to the far-flung corners of the city in an effort to find the newest and best food, including marching me straight out of Edinburgh and into the neighboring city of Leith. We ate well...

The Neutral Zone

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