Grouse Mountain

Last week we flew from Geneva to Vancouver for a little bit of R & R before meeting up with Emily in Mountain View after their holiday in Spain. I'd been to Vancouver several times and liked the city, but Dot had never been there and was willing to give it a go. Moreover, we had a mutual friend, Laura Bryce, who used to live in Armidale but had returned 5 years ago to live in Vancouver, and we wanted to meet up with her. However beautiful the city and its surrounds, the weather in Vancouver can be awful and it was not good during much of our stay, with maximum temperatures in the 13 - 16C range and lots of drizzling rain among the scudding clouds which hung low over the surrounding mountains.

The last day of our visit was billed by the forecasters as the best of the lot and we decided to chance our arm on Grouse Mountain which broods over the harbour to the north of the city centre. In essence, Grouse Mountain is a replica of the Swiss ski resorts we had just visited, with cable cars, ski lifts, a 'chalet', walking trails and other snow oriented paraphernalia. Vancouver is lucky to have these facilities so close to the city centre. However, the weather on Grouse Mountain did not live up to the forecasters' expectations, although the city itself was bathed in sunlight! We also had a good opportunity to see some of the local wild-life.

The view from the gondola car as we soared over the mountain was beautiful as this picture shows,

but as we rode up through the gathering mist,

we emerged into a freezing world of snow and ice. Yet the altitude was only about 1500m, whereas the snow-line in Switzerland was a full 1000m higher. And the ambient temperatures in the Swiss snow-fields were also much higher - I felt really cold on Grouse Mountain, perhaps because of the clinging mist.

Still, Grouse Mountain had a lot to recommend it. There were lots of wood carvings like those show here of three dudes playing a variety of sports.

And we managed to meet some local wild-life like this grizzly bear and the wolf show asleep in the grass.

We took a ride on the poorly patronised chairlift, which would have been brilliant on a clear day.

And there was a wonderful wood chopping display in which two dudes competed in a variety of events - cutting timber, racing up tree trunks, carving wood, and the log-rolling  shown here! This was great fun, especially as the participants were likely to fall in the water and duly did much to my sadistic pleasure!

AS

And so to Sion

One of the last places in Switzerland we visited was Sion, the seat of Cantonal government in the Valais (Wallis in German). It, like other places just mentioned, lies at the juncture of French and German culture. I had been through Sion many times on the train between Visp and Geneva airport, but had never alighted to visit the town and seen the jewel that it is. Sion is one of the oldest settlements in Switzerland and is dominated by two medieval fortresses that we'll see later. It is full of little alleys, old buildings, charming city-scapes, historic squares, and grand views from atop the fortresses sitting on rocky promentaries.

Have a look at the photos below and see if you agree with my diagnosis!

AS

A Quick Trip to Bern

After a few hours in Biel, we decided to pay a quick trip to Bern on our return to Saas Grund. Bern is the nation's capital and we expected to see some grand buildings and streetscapes like those shown below, but not some of the antics also reported here. To start with the latter, we arrived to discover that Bern was host to the Swiss Cup Final (soccer) between Basle and Lucerne and that supporters of the two teams were arriving in droves to be met by an army of police deputed to keep the warring parties separate. Indeed, on the arrival at the station to return to Saas Grund we discovered that we were locked out of the station while the trains carrying the Basle supporters arrived. We had already seen hoards of Lucerne supporters passing down the street to the stadium letting off blue flares - the team colours - as shown here.

I was asked to photograph the supporters head on by the police, but felt able to do so after they gone past!

That besides, the rest of my photos show elegant city-scapes suitable for a national capital, some grand public buildings and remnants of an older era of city-building down on the banks of the river Aare - a tributary of the Rhine. The centre is full of statuary, ornate clock towers, flags waving in the breeze, and earnest shoppers.

Here, for example, we have the Swiss national bank and the national parliament (with its name in Latin)

And, on the banks of the Aare, is the older settlement of Bern:

 AS

Biel

One day we decided to head for the northern part of Switzerland, an area hitherto unexplored by us. We chose Biel (Bienne in French), on the edge of the Jura 'mountains' and Bern (Berne in French), the capital, as our destinations. Note the dual German and French spellings of these places which lie on the linguistic border with Switzerland. This post concerns Biel. And once again we used the Swiss rail system as our means of transport: fast, always on time, and serving just about every town in the country. Have you ever considered how one of the most mountainous countries on earth manages such a dense rail network?

We found Biel an attractive city lying on Bielersee. The lake front was beautiful. Downtown near the railway station, the architecture was fairly modern but uninspiring, but further back the historic old town was a maze of alleyways and lovely old buildings attractively nestling together. These pictures show what I mean.

AS

Bettmeralp

Not content with the Jungfraujoch and Lugano, we set out the following day on another epic scenic trip, this time to Bettmeralp in the Upper Rhone Valley, a synthetic village of modern Swiss chalets devoted to the tourist dollar. However, the place has one great advantage going for it: gorgeous views. Once again we had to travel via Visp and Brig to our destination, but this time on the Gotthardbahn Line, home to the renowned Glacier Express between Zermatt and St Moritz. However, we only went two stops beyond Brig before leaving the train and catching the cable car up the mountain-side in two stages. Bettmeralp had one of the few cable cars still operating in the off-season. The following four pictures show the ride up the mountain, with the scenery getting ever more stunning.

The next few pictures show grand views at the top. The first looks SE though the village.

The second shows the Bettmerhorn, NE of the village.

The third looks NE towards the local chapel.

The fourth shows the newly constructed travelator designed to accommodate patrons standing on skis.

The fifth looks SW towards the high Alps, with the Rhone in the trough below.

The sixth shows the conical Matterhorn looming over the mountains in the centre-right.

And the seventh also shows the Matterhorn in the distance with the Weissmies (at 4000+m) to the right. Phil's chalet lies west of this mountain.

Don't you agree this is lovely?

AS

A Brush With Italy

During our recent visit to Switzerland, we undertook numerous forays across the country. One such trip entailed the transit of Italy to the Italianate Swiss city of Lugano close to the country's southern border. The trip experienced some glorious scenery and a substantial cultural shifts! As with all trips from Saas Grund, we first had to travel by bus for 50 minutes down an often steep and winding, but visually brilliant trial to Visp and on to the railway station at Brig.

The first picture above shows the entrenched lower Saas Valley tumbling towards the Upper Rhone Valley running right to left in the background. Behind the Rhone lies the wall of the Bernese Oberland. Visp is hidden deep in the Rhone Valley out of view and the picturesque village in the foreground is Stalden, which has huge vertical extension between highest and lowest points. At Brig we caught the express to Milan. Immediately on leaving the station the train plunged into the famous Simplon tunnel, one of numerous passages from northern Europe to Italy. Somewhere in the middle of the tunnel we left Switzerland and entered the EU, though border protection was skimpy. The train then wound down the steep valley to Domodossola pictured below. The third picture looks across Domodossola towards the Swiss border.

From Domodossola we caught a neat little mountain train whose coaches had panoramic windows. The line wound steeply upwards through beautiful Italian countryside like that shown in the first two slides below. Have a look at the lush deciduous vegetation backed by snow-capped mountains

Then the line headed down through the Swiss border through scenery like that shown below - past vineyards atop gorges with fast-flowing water. Eventually we reached Locarno - famous for hosting international discussions about the future political landscape of Europe post WW 1.

Then it was on to the city of Lugano, which Phil and I selected to mark the 50th anniversary of our first visit there in 1962! Back then I thought Lugano an exceptional place. And so it was this time around. I'm sure you'll agree that the pictures below show a picturesque, stylish and urbane place draping the shores of Lake Lugano.

The dude on the plinth is, of course, one William Tell. After some energetic sight-seeing, dining and shopping, we headed back the same route - four trains and a bus - well satisfied with our day out!

AS