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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Italy

Dear Reader: We visited Italy twice in two weeks in November 2021. This blog has been sitting in my drafts folder since then. I am publishing it now because my family will shortly be arriving in Rome and I have little confidence that they will manage this trip successfully without my guidance. Without further ado: -------- Our first trip was a weekend jaunt to Milan and our second trip was a weeklong sojourn to Rome during the week of Thanksgiving. Over the course of our several travels, we've developed a sociological theory: the triangle of rules. We believe that rules can roughly be arrayed in a triangle, with the points being actual rules, aspirational rules, and inscrutable rules. Societies can be positioned in the triangle based on the extent to which certain types of rules dominate the social contract. Actual rules are written rules with prescribed penalties that are respected and enforced. In Switzerland, there are many of these: trash may only be disposed of in specially m...

Amsterdam and the Netherlands

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We're Back!

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The Neutral Zone

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