The Neutral Zone

Zürich, Switzerland - Hannah and I hiked in Appenzell on Saturday and ate fresh trout at a riverside restaurant by the Hirzel hills on Sunday.  Saxer Lücke Hannah and I traveled to the Alpstein mountains, which are a group of mountains in the southern part of Appenzell near St. Gallen. We took a long gondola ride up to the top of a prominent mountain ridge (about 1,800 meters) and then hiked along the ridge to the Saxer Lücke, which is the saddle between the mountains we were on and the abutting mountain chain ( Lücke means gap) . In this case, the saddle was formed by a fault line. In fact, the layers of stone forming the ridge we hiked along were so affected by geological activity that in some places they had turned vertical. However - to my knowledge - Switzerland is not particularly seismically active: they get an earthquake of magnitude 6 every century or so.  The hike to the saddle provides stunning views.  To the east you see a low valley formed by the Rhine. On on...

Zurich, Switzerland - Dear reader, I apologize for my tardiness in keeping you updated on our comings and goings, but Hannah has kept us on a brisk pace. We returned to Switzerland in late June fully vaccinated and ready to venture forth. We have stayed at hotels, eaten at restaurants (mainly outside), and used mass transit. The delta variant has chastened us somewhat, and we don't want to get sick, but we also feel ready to once again take advantage of our time here, knowing that our risk of hospitalization or death from COVID-19 is low. Schaffhausen Hike This past weekend, we visited Schaffhausen, which is the northern-most canton in Switzerland and a short 1-hour train ride from Zurich. We arrived in the small, quaint town of Thayngen (population: 4,800) and from there, walked along the German border in a long loop that took us through the even smaller and quainter towns of Bibern (population: 250), Hofen (population: 120), Altdorf (population: 200), and Opfertshofen (popula...