Hiking
After a few days of acclimatizing and adjusting to the new time zone, it's time to venture on a hike. The cousins don't hike and Tony doesn't arrive for another week. I'm on my own.
It's easy to find a hiking path in Switzerland because sixty percent of the country's terrain is mountainous. I am in the Bernese Overland, and villages are wedged between mountains. A walk out the front door and if there isn't a lake, you will be heading uphill.
I find a route that leads to a wooded path along a river bed. It's so beautiful and peaceful, that the next morning I head in the same direction. By the end of my walk, my thighs burn--but this is the best way to see Switzerland. It's better than sitting in front of the fondue pot (which I have done three times already).
Actually, there are many ways to see a country at its best: at the table, at the bakery window, in a chocolate shop-- just a few of the many ways.
But there's really nothing better than hiking its mountains and walking along the village's backstreets, communing with flowers, streams, and vistas extraordinaire--and the occasional fellow hiker.
Swiss Precision Timing
The Swiss are well known for precision timing. Their trains leave and arrive on time. In Brienz, the church clock chimes four times in an hour, twenty-four hours. At 8:00 a.m, it chimes four times then dongs eight times. At 8:15, one chime. 8:30, twice. At 8:45 three chimes. At 9:00 it starts the same pattern. So unaccustomed to this continual awareness, it takes me five days to figure out the pattern. Five days!!
In the beginning, I awoke to every chime, but at week's end, I hardly notice the nightly music.
My cousins do remarkably well keeping time. When it's time to leave, everyone is at the designated spot within minutes. I pull up the van and everyone climbs in. We're on our way within the ten minute pre determined departure.
I'm proud of those cousins. For some it's a stretch. For one cousin, her family has already planned her funeral accordingly. They will seat everyone. Five minutes later, they will wheel the casket into the chapel.
One morning, the same cousin catches me before I head down the stairs, "Come in and wait for me, so I won't be late by myself." I smile and happily comply. When we did make it downstairs a few minutes late, no problem. The family is engaging in something more important than punctuality: they're in the gift shop completely absorbed in buying matching hats.
Phew!
On Taking Photos
After a hefty meal of raclette, homemade bread, and vegetables, Vreni offers a walk to see the forest woodcarvings. It is called the Axalp Woodcarving Trail.
In 1998/99, "when winds and avalanches caused many trees to fall, the local woodcarvers turned a bad storm in to something beautiful. They transformed the tree stumps into professional sculptures."
It is truly amazing to see works of art, both playful and serious, on the tops of tree stumps: a badger, a laughing child, a loved member of the community. The cousins are so delighted that they stop at every single carving to take a photo. At almost every other one, they stop to curate a sister or a family photo. We get halfway through the intended loop, when Vreni realizes we'll never make it back to the chalet before the end of the month. She cuts the walk in half and disappointed (me), we take a shortcut pathway back to the waiting family who didn't go for the very short walk.
The morning comes when I will send Mom and the cousins off in the black van to Zurich airport. Some are returning to America, others are off to Italy.
I feel an emptiness. Tony is here, so it will soon be filled.
But I will dearly miss their company, their love, and the funny little things inherent to foreign travel with a group of seven women all related through the men our mothers chose to marry.
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