Views from the Slow Lane

Going to Switzerland in the summer is one of our favorite trips, but we have not been since summer 2003 when we spent two weeks in Gstaad. In 2004, we went to England and France and skipped Switzerland. In 2005 and 2006, we went to England in the spring and did not do a summer/fall trip. How could we have ignored Switzerland for these past three years? Well, we are about to correct that error! I am planning our trip to Europe for this summer and so far have booked two weeks in Switzerland and one week in Umbria (read more about our Italy travel next week).

We thought we might do a last minute fall trip to Switzerland last year, but we could not make the time. I had started planning the trip and had my heart set on a couple of weeks in this chalet in the Vaud region:

Slow Travel Classified - Chalet Damani, Leysin: Traditional Swiss Alpine Chalet with three apartments. I wanted the master apartment (1bed/2bath) which has a balcony, lots of windows and a large kitchen.

We have that apartment booked for the first two weeks of July! Switzerland in July is my idea of paradise. The summer season in the Swiss mountain areas is short and peaks in July. The weather is usually good (sunny and warm), the snow is gone from the alpine areas and the meadows are filled with wild flowers. On my dryer I have a photo of me in a field of wildflowers outside of Grindelwald from an earlier trip (pre-digital, July 1997). It is a great photo because not only am I ten years younger, but you can see that year was exceptional for wildflowers. They had heavy rain in June and the first part of July and we arrived at the end of it. The meadows were full of flowers.

Pauline in the Grindelwald wildflowers.

Why This Vacation Rental?

- The owner has also been on the message board and seems like a good traveler, so I figure he would pick a great place to own a vacation rental.

- The apartment has high speed internet and a good kitchen.

- This is a new area for us. I like to try new areas in Switzerland on each trip.

- The location is great. Leysin is a popular ski resort and has many shops and restaurants. There are many hiking/walking trails right from the village and more in the close by areas. For day trips, we can get to Lake Geneva easily, or go the other way into the Valais.

- Leysin is in the French speaking part of Switzerland and Steve’s French is much better than his German. I even understand a little French.

On our last trip to Switzerland, we stayed in Gstaad which is only 30 minutes by car from Leysin. We loved Gstaad and the surrounding area because the towns are delightful and the walking/hiking is very good and plentiful. Leysin is close to the Valais, another canton that we like.

It is that time of year again, when I start to think about flying to Europe. Maybe a spring trip? Definitely a summer trip.

I waste hours and hours sitting at the computer, looking at flights and prices, but I don’t book anything because we have not made up our minds about when to travel. The most I do is print out possibilities and put them in a file. We have enough frequent flyer miles on British Airways and Delta to upgrade to First/Business Class, so I focus on these airlines or on airlines having Business Class sales.

Why do I put us into these expensive Business Class seats? Because once you have flown Business Class to Europe, it is hard to go back to coach. Because we have managed to upgrade or get tickets at super sale prices every year since 1999. Because I am tall and don’t fit into those coach seats. Because we are flying babies and need to be pampered. Because I turn 52 tomorrow and Steve is already past that, and life is short. Just because.

I go on British Airways (BA) to see if there are seats available to upgrade, but I plunk in FROM and TO, select a month (March? April? May?) and it says NO or, even better, “We regret to advise that this section of the site is temporarily unavailable.” I should just pick up the phone and call them!! But, do I? I don’t want to talk to anyone. I want to look at options online, because I have no idea of when or where we are traveling. I don’t like phoning and making someone run all these arbitrary options so I can see what might be available if we decide to do the trip. I want to sit at my computer plunking in options: different dates, different airports, different airlines, until – bingo!! – a magically good fare with good routing and good dates pops onto my screen. Preferably with a low cancellation/change fee.

Lots of leg room in BA Club World. I have never been so comfortable on a flight.

Up until last week, I was sitting here in Santa Fe with sunny cold winter days and two month old snow in my yard, trying to plan a trip to Europe for this summer. I have a hard time switching between the seasons in my head. Last week the weather changed, we put away our winter coats and I got down to some serious summer planning. I always do my best planning when the trip is not too far off. I lock in the important vacation rentals six months or more before the trip, but I can never decide on the whole trip until closer to departure.

Steve and I have been dithering back and forth about our “year in England”. The positive part of this: we don’t buy anything new because “we are going to England”, so we keep our old car and furniture and save lots of money. The negative: we no longer plan Europe trips in advance because “we might be living in England”. Last week I officially decided that we will never get it together to move to England this spring (which starts next week!!) and I am going to plan a nice long summer trip to Europe.

I wrote about our two weeks in Switzerland in an earlier entry – Switzerland in July! Now it is time to think about the Italy portion.

I have never been to Italy in the summer, but have read so many trip reports and posts about summer trips that I feel like I have been. This July we will be at Villa Rosy from July 15 – 21. Corinna, who runs the San Potente vacation rentals, offered one week at Villa Rosy as a prize in our last Slow Travel Contest. Janet picked that prize and then asked Steve and I to join her, her husband Alan and some friends for their week.

Porto Santo Stefano, Tuscany

On April 12, I did a live interview for Around the World, a travel show out of Santa Barbara. This was my second time on the radio (the first time was on Tuesday) and my first time live. Around the World is a great travel show and the host made me feel at ease immediately, so it was fun. You can listen to it here (10 minutes).

The topic was traveling in England and I spent a day putting together notes for the interview - I was ready for everything (more or less). Since 10 minutes really isn't that long, we did not cover everything, so here are my England notes.

Traveling in the Cotswolds

Vacation rentals are good quality and well priced

Length of trip divided by two is the time before a trip when I start to panic. This trip is 48 days long (almost seven weeks). Half of that is 24. That sets my "start to panic" date as June 1. That is about when I started to panic. I paniced for several days, ordered new clothes for the trip (this is part of my panic) and now I am in that calm part of the panic zone, where I think I am pretty organized and everything is going well and this time I will not go into major panic. Except, of course, I will.

I am not a calm person in the best of times. I am a bit highly strung, a bit intense, somewhat obsessive. Steve says I am "high maintenance" (but, I don't think I really am - he just forgets what high maintenance is really like).

You need to panic more for a long trip. The watering system could break, your housesitter might not notice, and for seven weeks water could pour from your yard to the street. A neighbor could bulldoze your house (don't laugh, one time a neighbor changed our driveway, raised it by four feet and removed our parking space - this is Santa Fe - these are the types of people who live here). Your cat could die (my wonderful Butch died on our May 2005 trip).

On a shorter trip the water would be a trickle, not a river; the neighbor would just change your driveway; the cat would get sick. It is those extra weeks where things happen. Bills don't get paid, weather changes, trees die, pets forget who you are, battery dies on the car.

You would think that after doing many long trips like this, it would get easier. It does - but it was so difficult before, that easier still involves panic. Remember, I am in the calm zone now.

My pre-trip panic has been mild this time, but I can feel it starting to kick into high gear. I gave myself a lot of time to get ready. I have not packed yet - will start this evening - but I have organized all our electronic gear. I seem to spend more time organizing computers, GPS, cameras, noise canceling headphones, etc. than clothes (this says a lot about me). I have our hiking gear packed. And I decided on a small crochet project to bring (slippers!! something we need anyway!!).

In this entry I am going to track the weather we have on this trip. It is linked to from the sidebar.

Today is day four - my official start of the trip. Arrival day does not count. The next day is jetlag-hell. By day three we are functional and usually heading to the real destination. So day four starts the trip.

It seems the more I travel to Europe and the older I get, the worse the jetlag is. Our flights went well, but we were tired by the time we got to Geneva. Our luggage did not all make it with us - two bags delayed in Dallas, one in Gatwick. The only bag that made it was the one with most of our hiking gear. But the lost luggage line at the airport was short, we filled out our form and it all arrived our second night in Geneva.

Tap dancing through the streets of Geneva

Don't hike downhill for two hours when ... you are the kind of shape that I am in. Our first day in Leysin we did an easy walk around town. It is about 15 minutes from our chalet to the center of town. The second day we did a lovely hike where we drove to the southern edge of town (above Feyday), parked and walked to the Prafandaz view point, then walked down the ridge to another viewpoint and cut back across the hillside to where we parked. Just under two hours and pretty easy.

The third day, that was where we went wrong. We had pictured a lovely two hours hiking down a nice hillside to the town of Aigle, on the valley floor below Leysin. Then exploring the town, maybe getting a bite in a cafe, and taking the cog train back.

"Cog train" should have been the first clue. You only need a cog train on a very steep hill.

Checking the map should have been the second clue. Leysin is 1253 meters, Aigle 405. The hike time is two hours. You do the math - or more appropriately, I should have done the math - before the hike! That is 848 meters - or about 2600 feet - in two hours. Add my age, 52, divide by my current physical condition and you get - - - don't do this hike you silly nit!

The downhill path from Leysin to Aigle (Vaud)

When I was cleaning up after dinner tonight, just around 9pm when it was still light out, I saw the fox running across the yard. It looked like a small dog or a big cat - but it was the fox. We watched him check out the yard and then the deck for the apartment below us (we are on the first floor - American second). Richard, who owns this chalet, said in his notes that badgers also come into the yard. I have never seen a badger (alive) and was obsessed with seeing them in England on a trip a couple of years ago. You have to go out at night to see them and I went out on several different nights and never saw one. Maybe this time I will.

Today we did a FLAT hike. It hurts to walk down a flight of stairs, but I can run up the stairs.

We drove to Gstaad, a 30 minute drive on a narrow mountain road through a beautiful area. The last time we were in Switzerland, summer 2003, we spent two weeks in Saanen, a village near Gstaad.

The Palace Hotel sits above the main part of Gstaad

The Palace Hotel in Gstaad was featured in the 1975 movie "The Return of the Pink Panther" with Peter Sellers.

"He is on his way to Gstaad."
"Gstaad?"
"Yes, today a paradise in the Swiss Alps. Tomorrow a wasteland."

Today we drove to Evian, on the southern shore of Lake Geneva! We were so excited - to be in France, to see Evian. Found a parking spot immediately, then realized we had no Euro for the parking meter! I never even thought of it. I had US Dollars, Swiss Francs and UK Pounds in my wallet, but my Euro notes and coins were in a ziplock bag, in a suitcase, back at the chalet. Duh!!!

It was raining anyway. We looked for a cash machine, looked for free parking, drove around town, it started to pour - so we drove back to Switzerland.

Dogs are everywhere - on the streets and trails going for walk with their owner, in the yards, sitting beside their owner in restaurants. Big dogs like Sennenhunds or Great Danes; little dogs too. But we have never seen dog shit on the sidewalks.

Yesterday, walking in the rain in Villars, a group of three male young teens were ahead of us on the sidewalk. They were bouncing around, talking nonstop, carrying junk food. One of them took an empty pop can, threw it to the ground, stomped on it so it stayed on his foot, then walked with it like that to make maximum noise. I turned to Steve and said "teenagers are the same worldwide, it doesn't matter which country you are in". Then the can fell off his shoe and he kicked it forward and picked it up. A few feet down the road he saw a garbage can and deposited it. Okay, maybe teens are tidier here.

We have always loved the coffee at cafes in Switzerland. Each cup is brewed fresh, from a machine that is sort of like the espresso machines in Italy, but is less manual. When you order a coffee, you get a long espresso with a "cream" on the top.

After our 2000 trip to Kandersteg, we bought a Swiss coffee maker at home. We got the Jura Capresso - the cheapest model which was still around $1000. Put water in one side, beans in the other, turn it on, press the button and you get a perfect coffee in 60 seconds.

It broke down last year and we were heart-broken (and caffeine deprived) until the replacement latest model arrived (given to us for half price when we sent in the old broken one).

When we arrived, jetlagged and exhausted, at Geneva airport just over a week ago, the first thing that I saw on entering the terminal was a huge poster of George Clooney advertising the Nespresso Coffee machines.

The weather has not been good this week - rain showers throughout the day, but sunny periods too. On Monday we did a car trip, so did not hike. On Tuesday we were in a lazy mood, so just went out for a lovely lunch in Leysin, bought a bunch of French magazines and watched the rain from the apartment. In the evening we had drinks with our upstairs neighbors - four Brits on holiday for the week. The bad weather is supposed to clear on Friday and then we go back to sunshine and temperatures in the 70s.

Today I wanted to be up on the mountains and did not care about the rain. When we headed out, around 11am, it was sunny, but had been sunny then raining then sunny all morning. It was cool - in the 50s - so we bundled up with polartec sweaters, rain coats and long pants.

We did an easy walk from the house, up the hillside to the Les Fers restaurant. The walk up was 1hr, 30min and down was 1hr, 15min. Elevation gain 400 meters. The walk up was perfect. We got rained on only for a few minutes. Sometimes it was sunny, sometimes we were walking through clouds. The view down to Leysin and the valley below changed minute by minute. You would see the sun on Leysin, then the valley would fill with clouds. The wildflowers are out in full force and were beautiful. We had lunch at Restaurant Chalet des Fers, then walked back down in a drizzle that turned into a pouring rain.

Looking down to Leysin and the valley behond from the hike to Les Fers

On July 1, England banned smoking in all public buildings, including restaurants and pubs, joining the rest of the United Kingdom in banning smoking (Wales and Northern Ireland instituted bans in April, Scotland last year).

Other European countries have instituted similar bans: Ireland was the first in 2004. Sweden, Italy, Malta, Belgium, Finland, Lithuania, and Portugal have smoking bans (full or partial).

In the next two years the following European countries will institute smoking bans: France, Denmark, Hungary, the Netherlands, Switzerland. (From the International Herald Tribune.)

We have noticed smoking in restaurants here in Switzerland.

Smokers at restaurant in Leysin, Switzerland

According to our currency converter, SFr 1.00 (Swiss Franc) is $0.82 USD. Swiss France is written as SFr or CHF.

VAT (sales tax) is included in all prices, but if you look at the receipt, it shows how much VAT was paid (7.6%). The price in Euro is sometimes displayed on the receipt.

We woke up Saturday morning to the best weather of the whole trip (so far). Bright sunshine, not a cloud in the sky.

I am writing this on Sunday evening in the middle of an amazing thunderstorm and pouring rain. Leysin is perched on a shelf on the side of a mountain, overlooking a narrow valley below and the large Valais valley beyond (we look down at Martigny, on the way to the St. Bernard pass). It is very beautiful here. We also look across to snow and glacier covered mountains. All this makes for excellent thunder and lightening. I thought we got great storms in Santa Fe (we do!) but tonight's is incredible. The thunder echos around the valleys and BOOMS. Since we have such a great view, you really get to see the lightening.

But yesterday there was not a cloud in the sky. We had been waiting for a good weather day to do a hike in Gstaad, where we spent two weeks our last time in Switzerland, in September 2003. I read back through my old blog entries and my SlowTrav pages to remember which were our favorite hikes.

Horneggli Chairlift at Schonried, near Gstaad

A quick post to say that we woke up to brilliant sunshine, then walked out to get fresh croissants and bread for breakfast and by the time we got back to the house (30 minutes later), it was overcast and cold. Once we got inside it started to pour and poured all morning. Fine, we were tired anyway from our big day out yesterday.

By 1:30pm, it started to clear. We got ready for a hike and drove across town to a hiking area just above Feyday (where we went for our first hike in this area). This time we walked up across the hillside above Leysin to Lac du Mayen. It was 1hr 30 minutes up and just under an hour coming back. The trail was along a narrow paved road, only used by the local farms. One or two cars passed us.

A very quick post to say that we got together with Wendy and Richard yesterday in Vevey (WendyAsh and Riccardo on the board). They are staying at a wonderful hotel, with a large room looking right out on Lake Geneva. I loved their room! We sat on the terrace when the sun was out, then it clouded over and started to rain, so we moved inside. It was amazing watching the storm from their room. We had a great dinner at the hotel with them.

Today we had breakfast at the cafe in Leysin - usually we have it in the apartment, but we were out of bread. It was overcast and the valley was filled with clouds. This town is really growing on me. The cafe is very friendly and fun, the Coop grocery store has everything we need (including organic brown rice!), the newspaper/magazine store is good (bought a Donna Leon mystery today AND they have Pocket Coffee, Steve's favorite Italy candy), the bakery is very good (I just remembered we bought fruit tartes today!) and they have a good pizza restaurant.

Steve in the snowfall at Lac Lioson, near Col des Mosses

The weather changed on Wednesday afternoon and we have been busy ever since. We did a short hike Wednesday near Leysin. Wendy and Richard came up to visit in the early evening and we got takeout pizza for dinner! Had a wonderful visit.

Thursday we drove back to Gstaad and did another hike. Friday we climbed from Leysin, up for 2hr 15min, to the top of Berneuse where the Gondola ride goes to, then rode the Gondola back down. Stopped part way up at Lac du Meyin for a lovely lunch sitting on their terrace looking at the alpine lake and mountains and blue sky. Heaven!

Tomorrow we drive to Diana's B&B in the Piedmont (Baur B&B) for just one night (we had to meet Diana!!), then to Assisi to meet up with Janet and Alan and their group. This is going to be one busy week - we are visiting with someone every single day!! I am looking forward to seeing everyone.

We changed our plans for our three days before we fly from Geneva to England - cancelled the booking in Annecy, France and (you guessed it) booked three nights in Gstaad!! We want two more days of hiking!

But now - to bed and then - to Italy (where it has been sunny and hot this whole time)!!

We left Switzerland around 11:30am, the sun blazing and the town full of people, and by 5:00pm we were pulling into Diana's beautiful B&B (Baur B&B). I am sitting on the terrace with a breeze and a beautiful view. This is a very tranquil corner of Italy!!

Now I am going to take some photos!!

Rural Retreats. Nice places, high prices, zero service.

I used to be a big fan of the agency Rural Retreats (vacation rentals in England). Not any more. Each year that I book with them, I like them less.

I have used them in the past for two reasons:

1) I have been so busy with work (mine and Steve's) the last few years that I did not have time to do a good search for England vacation rentals (we really need more England vacation rental reviews on SlowTrav!);

2) Some of their listings have phones and we need a phone or an internet connection.

Really, I have just been lazy. This year I used them only because we wanted to stay near Stroud and one of their listings that we stayed in before and loved is near there.

We are in Switzerland now. We spent three weeks in Switzerland at the start of the trip, then drove down into Italy for a week. We had a wonderful week in Italy, staying with other Slow Travelers at Villa Rosy near Assisi. We visited a lot of people and Thursday's GTG was fabulous. I will post more about our week in Italy later.

We both forgot how beautiful Kandersteg is! We spent two weeks here in September 2000 and enjoyed the town and the hiking. Since then we continued our mission to spend a week in every main valley in the Berner Oberland (and into the Vaud canton on this trip), so have not returned until now.

Kandersteg is at the end of a long valley south of Lakes Thunder and Lightening (they join at Interlaken). The road ends at the town, but you can take a car-train through the mountains to come out in the Valais. Kandersteg is at the end of this long valley, in a small, spectacular valley of its own. The valley floor is flat and the moutains rise straight up at the edges.

View from our apartment at Adams Alpine Eden

We are having the best time in Kandersteg! It is a very different experience here, in the middle of summer, than when we were here last time at the end of the season (early October). The town is lively and full of people. Tables are set up outside all the restaurants and cafes, people are out and about all day and all evening. Tonight there was live music down the street (a local children's band judging by the sound).

Yesterday we hiked up to Oeschinensee, an alpine lake in the mountains above town. The walk up was about 1.5 hours and was mostly a pony trail (easy). You can also ride a chairlift up most of the way, with a 25 minute downhill walk from the chairlift to the lake. We decided to walk up then ride the chairlift down.

On Tuesday, the day we moved from Gstaad to Kandersteg, it was overcast and drizzling. Wednesday was perfect - bright sunshine, clear skies, temperatures in the low 70s. The trail starts from town, from beside our vacation rental, and goes across the valley, then slowly uphill through woods on a wide dirt road. There is a nice "excercise" trail through the woods, where they have workout stations. You find these in most Swiss mountain towns. But our trail was mostly on a dirt road that must be used some times for cars, but we did not see any.

After about 45 minutes of easy uphill, you leave the road and switchback up a steep mountain side for about 30 minutes. Then a last easy 15 minutes on a path to the lake.

Oeschinensee - lake and restaurants

It took all week, but things are resolved and we have the rest of our trip planned.

We were scheduled to fly from Geneva to London on Tuesday, then have 16 nights in a Rural Retreats cottage near Painswick (Plough Cottage). We spent a month in this cottage in May 2000 and have kept in email contact with the owners, so they emailed us about the floods that happened the weekend before our scheduled arrival (they emailed us to let us know what was going on and that the cottage was okay). From the news reports it looked like the situation was going to get worse, so we delayed our arrival by four nights. We figured by then we would have an idea of how bad things were.

This is the big downside of vacation rentals (and Slow Travel); for most you have to prepay 30 - 60 days before arrival. If you think about it, the business could not run any other way. Vacation rentals are usually individually owned (some owners may own a few vacation rentals, cottages on a farm for example) and booking is done either directly with the owner or through an agency which represents owners. It is not like a hotel with 100 rooms who takes bookings and cancellations up to the last minute. Most vacation rentals are booked months ahead, so if you cancel at the last minute, the chances are that it cannot be re-rented. So we had prepaid 16 nights with an expensive agency in high season, knowing we would not be changing our plans.

I am such a Slow Traveler - I love to settle into a new vacation rental!! We are in Gstaad, in an apartment I found on the Gstaad Tourist Office website. I was a bit nervous about the apartment because there are only a few photos and they don't look great, but the location was good and most vacation rentals in Switzerland are good quality, so I emailed the apartment manager and she said she would hold it for us.

On Saturday morning we packed up in the Kandersteg apartment, said goodbye to Bill and Pam who own Adams Alpine Eden, and had breakfast in the cafe before leaving town. I don't remember going to any cafe regularly on our trip seven years ago (I have a good memory for that kind of thing and can point out years later hotels we stayed in, restaurants we ate at, shops we went to - but I can never remember how to spell a town name!!). Maybe this cafe was not there then, but more likely we just did not try it. It is attached to the bakery, in the next building (heading up the valley) from Adams Alpine Eden. We had a good Swiss breakfast of a basket bread, boiled egg, orange juice and coffee. In the US we have the refillable coffee - order a coffee, get one or more free refills. In Switzerland you pay for each coffee but they have a refillable bread basket. If you are still hungry, they will bring you more bread.

Breakfast (Früstück) in Kandersteg

Quiz Question: What is the Ovomaltine thing on the table?
Answer: This is where you put your breakfast garbage - butter wrappers, jam containers.

On Wednesday we did a very easy hike. After lunch, we drove up to Gsteig (15 minute drive), then drove another 5 minutes to the Sanetsch gondola. We had not been on this mountain ride before. The gondola holds eight people and takes ten minutes to go to the top. As with most gondolas, as one goes up, the other goes down. They pass in the middle. We were the only ones on the gondola.

I am afraid of heights. I always have been. But I can ride the gondolas and chairlifts in Switzerland and not be terrified. Possible reasons: Most of them don't go that far above the ground; you are enclosed so can't fall out; I trust everything made by the Swiss. But on the Sanetsch gondola I was terrified. The little gondola starts out up a steep valley, then goes straight at a rock face, just missing it by a few feet as it goes over the top of it. The elevation change is 800 meters, from 1200 to 2000 meters, similar to the gain on the ride in Leysin. Both Steve and I stumbled off the Gondola gasping.

Sanetsch Gondola from Gsteig to the Valais Alps

The Sanetsch gondola takes you right up to the alpine area in mountains that we look at every day from our balcony - the rocky ones at the south end of the valley, behind Gsteig. There is a cluster of old weather-beaten buildings, including a good looking restaurant, and a good sized lake - Sanetschsee or Lac du Senin. There were a lot of people out and about and we started to think this was a big mistake coming up here late in the day on the Swiss National Holiday. But then we saw all the cars.

Everything seems to speed up at the end of a trip. At the beginning, when I emerge from jetlag and start to feel human, the whole trip stretches out in front of me. I write my journal, I write in the blog, I organize the day's photos. I can keep this up for a few weeks. Then things speed up, the photos are not so organized and I start to write in point form.

Another wonderful day! Do you know the South Park episode where Cartmen gets a lot of money and buys an amusement park? He is standing there in the park and says "I am so happy". Well that is us. Switzerland is the amusement park, but, unlike Cartman, we are sharing the park. However, some days it does feel like you have it all to yourself. Switzerland is not crowded. The buses are hardly every full, you wait in very short lines for gondolas if there is a line at all, there is always a table available in the restaurant and the even serve all afternoon (past the normal 2pm cutoff) in the hiking areas, you can always find a parking space.

Today we did the same hike we did four weeks ago, when we were staying in Leysin - Walking from Horneggli to Rinderberg. It was almost the same - a sunny, warm Sunday with lots of people on the trail. This time I did not have the video camera and only took a few snapshots - so the hike went much faster. An easy two hours and a bit, with a stop for lunch at the start of the hike.

The cost for the mountains rides (a chairlift and a gondola), plus the train is 49.50SFr each, but we had our Easy Access pass, which cost 44.00SFr for 4 days - so the cost of today's hike paid for the four day pass. I had suggested that we ride every gondola up and down today, to get full use of the pass, but that idea was shot down. :)

We are scheduled to fly from Geneva to Gatwick on Thursday evening, spend the night, fly home on Friday. Today I thought to myself - why are we going home? I checked the Stroud newspaper (in the Cotswolds) and it looks like all is back to normal. Everyone has water and it is now drinkable (just announced today).

We are thinking we might spend a week or two in England. We could fly to England on Thursday, but change our return flight from England so that we could have a week or two in the (now dry) Cotswolds!! I checked the weather and the next two weeks look good in the Cotswolds - temperatures in the high 60s, low 70s, rain on two days. The Switzerland forcast calls for more rain.

We're going to sleep on it and decide tomorrow morning.

We are sticking to the original plan. Leaving Switzerland tomorrow evening, overnight near Gatwick, home on Friday. I thought the cottage we had originally booked was available for the next two weeks (except for a few days when we would move to one of their other cottages), but some last minute bookings had been made. I figured no one would be booking in the Cotswolds after all that flooding - but I was wrong.

Rural Retreats had a few other cottages available, but none was what we wanted (too large or not in the right area or no phone/internet/cell reception). I did some quick searching, but realized we had left it too late to get everything organized. We would have had to book today and changed our flights tonight.

After two long days of travel last Thursday and Friday, we got home to Santa Fe on Friday evening. We are getting caught up on work, caught up on some things around that house that need fixing (we got some type of power surge during a thunder storm and it knocked out our phones, DSL and some electricity in the house), adjusting to the time change, and adjusting to the higher altitude.

Most towns in Switzerland are below 5,000 feet, but Santa Fe is at 7,000 feet. After all that great exercise in Switzerland, I come home to Santa Fe and feel like I am out of breath after five minutes walking!!