We went for our first hike! How splendid! Esther's mother grew up in a small mountain valley close to Lucerne, and she was keen on showing us her birthplace. Not that we have never been there, but you know, mothers... And besides, hiking is never a bad idea. So off we went. The hike started in Schwarzenberg, with nice views of the Pilatus, that's the mountain in the back of the picture. Aptly named after a figure from the bible, because the whole place there is very religious. The local cemetery has even little dispensers with holy water in front of every grave!
On the first picture you can also see where we went: Up the valley on the left to the mountains, then a right turn (where we will vanish behind the hill in the front), and finally around the hill back to where we started.
The names of the places you pass are extremely Swiss and contain heaps of Umlaute. Cows galore, typical Swiss farmhouses (Buurehöf) are everywhere, all the stuff. Up there, they really hang bells on all their cows (makes it easier to find them if they go astray). Basically all the farms along the way also offer refreshments. Some of them have no licence to do so, so they just invite you and you donate something. The inofficial highlight of the tour was therefore a visit to the Alpwirtschaft Stafel, where we ordered Moscht (cider) and a Stafelplättli (a platter with a mountain of cold cuts, cured bacon, salami slices and cheese). Yeah!
By coincidence, it was also the yearly cleaning day of the local hiking trails. Honestly! They went up early in the morning, cleared all the tracks from whatever debris landed on them during the winter, removed litter and so on. Quite an effort. Of course this had to be rewarded with a beer and so it happend that we had lots of company in the Alpwirtschaft. Around us where muscular, bearded men that all looked like Alpöhi in the Heidi movies. One of them unpacked his alphorn and played it in front of the house. An alphorn sounds beautiful. The tone is low, the notes long and the echo from the rock faces that rolled back to us made us shiver.
On the way home we passed meadows full of flowers and the biologist in me couldn't resist to take at least one picture. This is the Knabenkraut, an orchid that is really abundant there. Their petals bear beautiful patterns that supposedly act as airstrips for their pollinators.
And what does the title of the blog mean? Well, the Mittagsgüpfi (noon peak) is the name of the mountain that dominates the valley we went up.
Saturday, June 21, 2008
Below the Mittagsgüpfi
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4 comments:
It is true: On the Pilatus lives a dragon. A lot of people have seen him. He looks like a Leguan. He likes the sunshine. He is very long, perhaps 500m. He has no wings. His pupils are round, not slitted. But on the back til the tail he has spikes like teeth. Younger dragons are lively, older lazy.
Aah, the good old Mittagsgüpfi... I could see it (and Schwarzenberg) every day from my bedroom window (seufz).
We're loving your blog Dom. It makes me want to move to Switzerland! I wonder if the cat will be happy with the move...
By the way, could you please post some pics of the techniques used by yodellers to cut stained glass? What function does the alpine horn have in the glass manufacturing process?
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