Gudo, Ticino, Switzerland

On Saturday morning we left for our next destination Gudo inTicino.  Ticino is a region in southern Switzerland, just north of Milan in Italy.  We are staying with Reinhard and Elisangela at their holiday house.  They were our hosts in Zurich.  We had planned to take the train all the way, but it wasn’t running due to snow and avalanche risks so we had to train the first part and then catch a bus.  Rosemarie came with us some of the way which was great as we went on a bit of a side tour (where the train would have gone) and saw some of the Limestone rock faces at Versam Safiem which is on the famous Glacier Alpine Train tour.  It was well worth the detour.

 There was still plenty of snow around Chur and even further down, but about an hour later as we went through the St Bernadino Pass we noticed a difference, not as much snow and the houses were a different style and we could see the Italian influence creeping in.   The bus trip was really great, the road pass was very steep and wound its way through the valley and right down to Lugano.  There were lots of cool bridges that interested Murray and  roads carved into rocks - where no roads should be! typical of Italy I think, I remember it from our last trip.

Chur

The first of many long tunnels we went through, I think the longest was 7 kms

Road just cut into the rockface with this pillar type side rails

Looking down the St Bernadino Pass.  This is just one level there was about three or four levels to the bottom.

If you look closely you can see three huge bridges

By the time we got to Bellizona, the people appeared different too.  A lot of Italian was being spoken – whoops should have brought my Italian dictionary!  Again we were greeted by people dressed in weird costumes, they had had their big festival parade and it had just finished, there were people everywhere, it was party central, the street was a mess with paper streamers, rubbish etc.  The streets were closed and the bus stop was on the street so after asking the bus man at the station were to go, not believing him, walking up and down the street and then going back to re ask him, we finally stood and waited for the bus where he had originally said – yes we should have listened he did actually know what he was talking about .  Reiny and his friend met us at the bus stop and we walked up the hill to his little oasis.  A lovely little old cottage, that was right by a river – which had running water, not frozen and plenty of it.  It was getting dark so we were promised a tour in the morning.   Reinhard and Elisangela had been to Bellinzona earlier in the day and had brought home a Swiss tradional soup.  Tripe and vegetable !  OMG  - it was actually quite a nice flavour but I couldn't swallow the tripe.  Murray enjoyed it.   Note to self – listen to directions carefully

Proof that I ate Tripe soup !

Grabs Lims - part two

Ernst and Murray on a coffee break

The road up to Wildhaus in Toggenberg Alps

I love to camp - but count me out 

Our horse and sleigh ride

Rosemarie and Ernst kindly took us for a drive this afternoon.  We visited the old part of town and also a really old mill.  The walkway up to it was of course covered in snow so was a bit slippery to negotiate, it followed a stream up which was all frozen including the water falls, it was really pretty, and it had deep holes where the stones had washed away the bottom.  We then went to the alps that “Heidi” from the storybook lived in, the school she went to and the old village railway station, it was really interesting.  Right at the top of the hill was huge park that I guess was kind of dedicated to her.

At Heidi Alps

The front entrance to the hot pools

  We then continued through the villages until we came to Bad Regaz.  There was flashing bright lights at the end of the drive to a casino, and the baths looked amazing.  Lantern lights lined each side of the driveway and up to the underground parking area.  On walking in it became clear this was no ordinary AC Baths or DeBretts – not that there is anything wrong with either of those places.  The place was massive with huge big white arches inside and out, a huge outdoor pool, with bubble jets scattered around and reclining seats in the water, a waterfall, a whirl pool that when you got in the current it took you right around a pool off to the side of the main one.  The snow was all around the pool and it just looked picture perfect.  Inside there were five more pools, at 17 degrees plunge pool, a 39was degree, a 32.5 for exercising, a 36 for soaking and massage and the best one was at 34 degrees.  It was a big pool and was designed so that you could move around the pool visiting different massage stations.  Down one side there were 8 massage jets at different levels of your body and opposite on the wall (outside the pool) was an illuminated arrow.  Every two minutes the arrow flashed and this meant that everyone moved along one jet – amazingly everyone did it, it worked like clockwork!   After you had been to these jets, there was a section with foot massage pads, several different water spouts, more reclining chairs and then these really cool armchairs that you stood in and they wrapped around you with loads of tiny jets.  Real cool!

The next day we decided to work all day so that we could have Friday off.  We started about 9 and finished about 5.30, getting all the wood cut and stacked we were wrapped and so were our hosts.

Delwyn at the splitting station

The house and more wood 

The two huge stacks

Murray showing off his hard work

We woke to a perfect day.  Rosemarie and Murray decided on skiing and Ernst and I decided on snow shoeing.  We all caught the bus up to Wildhaus their favourite ski spot.   They took off skiing and after putting our snow shoes on we climbed about 150m straight up to we could join the track. When I say track I mean the designated area for walking.  Sometimes it was a track and sometimes not really.  Walking in these contraptions was really easy both up and down hill.  It just felt like you had hugely oversized fluffy slippers on.  The scenery was spectacular; the track meandered its way up the mountain sometimes through the pine trees, blue sky, jet vapours, and so quiet.  There were little ‘summer huts’ scattered everywhere and we met a few people along the way.  About 3 hours later we headed down to a mountain cafe at about 1200ft and waiting for the skiers.  We had been getting texts from them and one of the t’s had broken down so they had to walk up it in the deep snow – which Murray said later was the easy part.  He found the skiing really difficult that day, it  was deep snow and you really needed to lean back and try to lift your ski tips up at the front or you would end up stuck.

Views for miles

Coffee stop

Snow Shoeing at Wildhaus

Hard day for both of us - but fantastic!

Sleighing

Murray and Rosemary

By the time they got to the cafe he was stuffed. We all had to walk down a bit of a hill until they could ski again and we just continued on down the track to our next meeting point.  The skiers were well ahead of us so it was decided via txt they would go home and get the car and bring some sleighs up for us to have a go on.  After we met up again to be quite honest I was thinking I really can’t be bothered.  We had walked for around 3.5 hours and around 15 kms,  Murray looked terrible and I thought maybe we were pushing it a bit.  But man am I pleased we took our ‘man up pills’ and got on those sleighs.  It was so much fun.  The very next day there was to be a big sleigh race with big sleighs that carry 5,6 or 7 men, so the track had been groomed and was pretty fast.  My sleigh was a plastic one and Rosemarie and Murray choose the traditional wooden ones.  It was so good and a great way to finish a perfect day and in fact a great way finish another awesome helpx experience.  We are off to Gudo tomorrow.

Note to self – sell skis and buy a sleigh !

Really high snow in parts

Log house built for the view

Liechtenstein Blurb

 It is Sunday tomorrow and no work is to be done outside – so basically we have a day off.  We will see what the morning brings but may travel into the next country Liechtenstein.  It is the fourth smallest country in Europe and sixth smallest in the world.  It is 6km across by about 25km long, has a capital, a ski field, three museums and of course it will have at least one church!  It is long been said it is a money laundering country and due to its low business taxes it has 8000 registered companies and about   35,500 population.  The Liechtenstein family invented the country in 1712, and it got its independence in 1866 – the only country in the world to be named after the purchasing family.  It is still governed by an iron-willed monarch who lives in a Gothic castle on one of the high jaggered rock faces.  It is also the world’s largest producer of dentures – yep it is !  So if anyone’s in the market for some new pearly whites here is the place to come. 

Yep we are off to Liechtenstein! We walked to Buchs, about - 2o minutes then  caught the bus to Vaduz the capital , then decided to stay on the bus  to see what we could see – and that was a whole lot of snow, old buildings, churches and up to the minute new houses, castles and of course the Prince’s castle too.  We stayed on the bus to the end which was Sargens were we got off and had some lunch then caught a train for a change back in Sevelen, where it was our intention to catch a bus to Vaduz, but being Sunday it didn’t run, so we walked the 1.5 hours crossing the Rhine and into Vaduz in the freezing cold, it was chilling to the bone.  There we caught a bus up to Malbun a ski field at about 2090m.  It was a real climb for the bus as the steep road  wound around the mountain face in between houses and farms.  You could look out the bus window and almost straight down to the Rhine.  Once at the top, it flattened out a little, we went through the tunnel at the top and then into the ski field area.  The sky was blue, sun was shining – it was awesome!  Everywhere you looked there were people skiing or walking about, there seemed to be numerous lifts and big runs down.  There were holiday apartments scattered in the lower parts – sort of up to top of the rock garden at Whakapapa.  A cafe had music playing and people out sitting drinking hot drinks and beers.  Really neat happy environment – made us quite jealous that we never had time or $$’s to ski there.  After awhile we headed back down the mountain and changed buses again and headed towards Kilkirch, another good touristy spot to visit.  Unfortunately by the time we got there it was getting pretty late and we never saw much, just a whole lot of random people wearing weird clothes – we found out later that they must have been to a festival.  Kilkirch is in Austria.  We pretty much headed back into Vaduz and then back across the Rhine and home to Switzerland.

How bizarre – three countries in one day – Switzerland, Liechtenstien and Austria.  Also found out when we got home our ticket never covered the trains at all – so lucky for us the ticket controller never came on board = we would have made his day!  Not sure what the fine would have been but they are not very sympathetic about those things.

Liechtenstein photos

No buses on a sunday, so we had to walk 45 minutes in -12, bloody cold!

Crossing the River Rhine

Looking down the hill, Onion Church in forground

Looking down the mountain road towards Vaduz and the Rhine river on the way to Malbun

On top on the hill

Malbun ski field - Prince Charles learnt to ski here

Another view of Malbun ski field

and another

I want one .....

another view of Malbun - an amazing place!

Grab Lims, Switzerland

Ok – thanks Russia we have had enough of your cold weather.  Can’t remember when we had a day that wasn’t a minus something!   Just need to see some sun please.  We have actually seen the sun through the clouds, but it never succeeds to push its way through.

Well Grabs Lims is a beautiful place, an alpine village sitting at 800m, surrounded by  very steep jaggered rock faces, some covered with snow and some just too steep for it to stay on.  We are staying with a lovely swiss couple in a gorgeous traditional house, complete with the barn and cellar below.  In the barn they house two black sheep and one white, all with bells on them and in good health.  They spent winter here at the house in the barn over night and out if it is suitable during the day.  When the weather warms up they go up to the mountain meadows.  They also have four hens and a cat called car-lick.  Firewood is high priority here, so we have shifted about  ½ m2 firewood from the outside shed, into the basement for easy access and then Ernst has had  20 birch logs delivered that Murray has been cutting up with the chainsaw .  In the afternoon Murray went skiing with Rosemary to Wildhaus ski fields, had a great time although it was really cold.  I went for a walk to the next village and had a look around.  Real pretty, the little lake had almost completely frozen and they had cordoned off an area for people to walk on – pretty cool the kids were having so much fun.  Today, Murray cut some more logs up and Ernst has been using the electric splitter to split and put in the outside shed ready for next year.  Murray had to put the chainsaw down on the ground today for a short time while he shifted something and when he picked it up again, the chain had frozen to the blade!   In case you are wandering what I did today, well I pulled a sicky – nope-   I have got a sore throat and runny nose so spent the day in bed.  Feel pretty good now.  Hopefully a rest day will put a hold to it getting any worse. 

On the train between Rapperswill and Wattwill

Alt St Johanns for lunch

Sunrise over Lichtenstein out our window

Grab Lims

Murray measuring the logs with a ruler and felt pen before cutting them

Murray skiing at Wildhaus

Zurich, Switzerland

Standing at the Maur jetty, looking towards Uster

 We didn't think we would be in Switzerland this early in our trip, but we are and it is truly beautiful. After our 3.5 hours train trip which had 4 train very quick changes we arrived in Zurich.  We had about 3 hours to kill before we were meeting our helpx host.  We locked the packs away and headed of to try out some cheeses and buy some more gloves!  and then headed to the Federal pub a neat pub at the central station. Reinhard arrived and after a few more drinks we headed via tram and bus to Maur.  A small village about 35 mins from Zurich on the edge of Maur see (lake). He made a traditional dinner of swiss cheese fondue.  The next day we cleaned up the rental cottage next door, before heading off to explore the village. It was lightly snowing and about -7.  Maur is very small, with about four restaurants, a PO, hairdresser, garden shop, small expensive supermarket and a shop for Murray.  It is called Landit, and it is full of hardware, farming stuff, wine and plenty of bargins so I am told !  Actually it was pretty cool.  We walked down to the Maur jetty and past the church, called in to get some groceries and headed home again as we were cooking that night.

 

Maur's only church - really only one !

No water out of this tap anytime soon ...

  The next day Elisangela, kindly took us into town and showed us some sights.  We visited the design museum of Zurich - we didn't go in, but the outside was of course impressive.  Walked along a bit of the lakefront and visited the St Peters Church and the 13th century clock tower which has a clock face on it 8.7m in diameter.  We also went inside the 13th century Frauminister cathedral which is famous for its stained glass windows.  Walked through the 'swiss banking' area - very posh.

Inner courtyard of the Design Museum

The Limmat River - which divides the city

St Peters clock tower, with me at the bottom.

Looking down the river toward Lake Zurich 

Frozen waterfalls everywhere

Sunrise from our bedroom window -  its going to be a goodie.



Adieu

Murray and Delwyn