Zürich, Switzerland - We've spent much of the fall hiking and taking in the colorful foliage. For some of these trips we've ventured out on our own - just Hannah and me - while on others, good friends joined us.
Lech
Lech is among the more posh ski towns in the alps. Wikipedia describes Lech this way: "Catering to wealthier clientele, particularly to the international jet set and foreign royalty, the municipality is an internationally known winter sports resort on the mountain range Arlberg. The Dutch royal family and Russian oligarchs regularly ski there." We visited in the fall shoulder season between the peak summer and winter periods. Many of the restaurants and hotels were closed ahead of the winter rush. When you're plebs like us, this is how you afford and gain admittance to such an exclusive place. Needless to say, we did not rub shoulders with royals or oligarchs.
We visited Lech with our good friends Ben and Laura where we celebrated their recent engagement with a 4-hour meal at Klosterle. Klosterle is among our favorite restaurants in all of the Alps. The setting (nestled into the Alps near a wood), the building (500 year-old farmhouse), and the food are all spectacular. Regular readers might recall that we visited Lech late last summer, at which time we also ate at Klosterle. Hannah maintained contact with the chefs via instagram. In fact, Hannah retrieved and returned to them black curry paste they had left behind in Zurich from a recent visit. Said paste later ended up on a dish we ordered, so we were happy to have made the effort.
The Dolomites
Hannah was smitten with the Dolomites from our visit this summer, so she insisted we return for her birthday in early October. It's very pretty, the food is excellent, and the prices are lower than Switzerland (but lets not go so far as to say they're 'low'). We recommend the Dolomites.
Specifically, we visited a place called Sudtirol (South Tyrol). The historical journey of this area is confusing and I will give a brief recounting here because these things are interesting to me: About 900 years ago, the Princely County of Tyrol was established as a semiautonomous principality within what was then the Holy Roman empire (not Roman and not particularly Holy). Tyrol had risen to some importance because it controlled major passes across the Alps. Fast forward a few centuries: In a fit of pique, Napoleon excises Sudtirol and Trentino (another part of Tyrol) from the Austro-Hungarian empire (effectively the remnants of the Holy Roman Empire) and gives it to Italy. The Austro-Hungarians promptly take this territory back after the fall of Napoleon only to return it to Italy after World War I. Somehow, in all this back and forth, Austria maintains possession of Nordtirol (North Tyrol) and Osttirol (East Tyrol), which - despite being two non-contiguous territories - they joined into the single Austrian state of Tirol.
Today all three regions: Sudtirol, Trentino, and Tirol form a Euroregion (of which there are a surprisingly large number) which coordinate and cooperate across borders on issues of tourism, traffic, infrastructure, social services and environmental issues. In Italy, Trentino and Sudtirol are autonomous regions with greater administrative, financial and legislative authority then other provinces in Italy.
Some highlights from this trip to the Dolomites included:
- The Seiser Alm, a high alpine plateau (1600-2400 meters above sea level) with stunning scenery and beautiful hiking
- Lovely German and Italian cities and villages nestled into the Alps like Meran, Glurns, and Burgeis
- Earth pyramids of Ritten, which are bizarre protrusions of dirt spikes capped by a boulder
Braunwald
We visited Braunwald (effectively, Brown Forest) in Mid-October with Ben and Laura. Braunwald is a car-free resort village in Glarus, a canton in Switzerland. We had a lovely hike to Oberblegisee winding through the woods and along the mountainsides. Oberblegisee is an alpine lake at about 1400 meters nestled below the peaks of Glärnisch, a massif.
Engadin
We visited Engadin in October with Ben and Laura. Hannah decided that we simply must visit this place after discovering that it was an ideal location to see larches, which are beautiful deciduous conifers that turn golden and proliferate widely on Instagram this time of year. We took a long hike through the woods and mountains here and the larches did not disappoint!
We stayed in lower Engadin and more specifically in a small town called Lavin. Here, the dominant native language is Romansch, a romance language with about 40,000 native speakers who predominantly live in this part of Switzerland. Romansch descends from vulgar Latin, and was subsequently influenced by Germanic languages. Romansch is recognized as an official language in Switzerland, so all official documents must be available in Romansch (at least in this canton) and it used as the language of instruction in some schools in this region.
Another draw was the adorable villages that were strung out throughout the Engadin valley. These villages - including Lavin, where we stayed - are sufficiently small and remote that train passengers must request a stop by pressing a small button in the train car ahead of their destination. As you might expect, the towns are quaint and quiet and you get the feeling that you are discovering them for the first time - though Instagram will immediately disabuse you of this notion - as you meander along the path that connects that them. We were particularly taken with the stucco exteriors of the buildings, which were often beautifully decorated.
Finally, the hotel. Hannah has a knack for finding very trendy and unaffordable boutique hotels. Hannah thought she had threaded an impossible needle for us when she booked us rooms at Hotel Piz Linard in Lavin for an attractive rate. Included in the rate was Piz Linard's renowned dinner and breakfast service. These meals were indeed wonderful, and the ambience was also delightful - the dining room had tall ceilings and wonderful wood-paneled walls. Unfortunately, Hannah didn't realize that our rate was attractive because we were staying in the less chic rooms without en suite bathrooms in an adjacent building in the back of the hotel. They were fine and comfortable enough, but didn't match the photographs Hannah had seen.
Uetliberg and Ebenalp
We were very fortunate to have Hannah's friend Sammi visit us in late October. However, Sammi had a very unfortunate experience flying here, as she missed her connection out of Dulles and so she was put on the next plane to Germany, which is notably not Switzerland. From there, she took another flight to Zurich. Most remarkable was that Sammi arrived in good spirits and was as delightful as ever.
During her stay, we hiked the Uetliberg, our local mountain, and Ebenalp, a peak in Appenzell. Like most of the rest of Switzerland, these mountains were showing their remaining fall colors - still strong, but clearly waning. Upon reaching the Uto Kulm (the peak of the Uetliberg), we feasted on wurst and Glühwein. Our trip up Ebenalp included a stop at Äscher, a famous restaurant and guesthouse built into the mountain cliffside, where we had coffee and ate stew and charcuterie.
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