Rheingold's travel blogs:
|
|
  | |  |
Hinterlands of Switzerland: Graubunden & Beyond
Entry 12 of 13 | show all | print this entry |
|
Family friends, Kurt and Gertraud were spending August at their summer cottage in Brigels, Switzerland when they invited me to visit during the weekend of August 24-25th. My overnight bag spent that Friday sitting anxiously by my desk at work. Finally, at 5pm I grabbed my bag and headed out of the office and caught the train from Basel to Chur, in Switzerland's easternmost canton, called Gräubunden. In Chur, I had to "umsteigen" (transfer) to the little red Rhätische Bahn train, destination: Tavanasa.
The little train made its way up a river valley that is the origin of one of two forks of the Rhein. It was weird seeing the water in the small river, knowing that it would merge with other rivers, swelling into the large Rhein River that empties from Rotterdam into the North Sea.
When I stepped off the train in Tavanasa, 3 1/2 hours after leaving Basel, the air was cool but smelled sweet of cattle and grass. I was in the heart of the Swiss Alps, far from industrial Basel. Kurt greeted me at the railway station of Tavanasa. It was great to see him; the last time I saw him was when Guy, Dad, and I were in Germany last summer for the 2006 FIFA World Cup...quite a different setting from now. We walked down the street and joined some of his friends at a nearby tavern where they were finishing dinner.
It's worth mentioning that in this part of Gräubunden, locals don't speak to each other in German or French, not even Italian like in neighboring Ticino. Here, they speak Romansch, a Latin-derived language that looks and sounds like a cross between latin and Italian. So unique to Switzerland is this language that although only about 1% of Swiss speak Romansch as a first language, it is one of 4 recognized Swiss national languages (along with German, French and Italian). If you want to see an example of what the language looks like, you can go to the website of the village of Breil/Brigels, where I stayed, which is written in Romansch:
http://www.breil.ch/romanisch/index.cfm?content=seiten&s eite=269
From the town of Tavanasa we drove up the mountain to the mid-mountain village of Brigels (Breil in Romansch) where Kurt and wife Gertraud have their cozy flat/cottage. I've been on this road before in wintertime and it was a lot nicer going on it in August. The dramatic hairpin turns seemed a lot less menacing under Kurt's Formula One driving without the snow and ice. Back at the house, we caught up a little bit but decided to call it a night. When we got up in the morning, I accompanied Kurt on a walk into the village, stopping at the baker's shop, the dairy shop, and the supermarket. We then did a brief tour of Brigels
before prepping for our hike to the neighboring town.
Our hike took us through fields of wildflowers that made me feel like I was either in the Sound of Music, or in a Ricola commercial.
We had great views of the valley below while we walked to the town with a little church where Kurt and Gertraud renewed their wedding vows a few years ago.
There are some photos I've included in the accompanying slide show. The rest of the day was spent eating, drinking, and let me tell you, the walk back to Brigels was a real struggle after having some beer under the midday sun.
So that was Saturday. On Sunday it was already time to go. We decided to go to Disentis and visit the old monastery which was quite beautiful inside.
But in the rear chapel, there were these weird drawings, one of a caucasian Mary and Jesus saving Africa (WTF) and the other drawing showed a man pushing his wife down a set of stairs. I'll let you decide what this all means.
In any event, after that, we had lunch and I boarded the Glacier Express train to Andermatt. The train went up and over the Oberalp Pass. Stefan picked me up in Andermatt and showed me the incredible Rhone Glacier, which in our lifetime has melted substantially due to global warming and is expected to disappear altogether.
From there we drove up and over the Furka Pass, which was really eery because we were in and out of the clouds and the lakes around us also disappeared into the clouds.
We then parked the car and traversed a pedestrian rope bridge spanning a deep gorge (scary).
Of all things, the bridge led us to the worlds steepest railway. Although only 1 km long, this railway built by the local energy company averages a 43% grade over the 1km climb!!!
The rest of the day was spent making our way back to Lucerne from this incredible part of Switzerland.
|
|
If you like this entry, search for other entries by rheingold, from Switzerland or try a new search. |
| |
Back to Entry - Back to Home
|
2 votes 
