Another rainy day sent us to the Aareschlucht, or Aare River Gorge, near Meiringen. In Zürich we had boarded the 9:04 train to Luzern, where we switched trains to reach Meiringen, then hopped the small shuttle train to reach the Aareschlucht West. I had remembered walking through cave-like stone tunnels, so it seemed a good place to be, sheltered by mountain walls. Well, not exactly. Having forgotten from long ago that most of the 1.4 kilometer length is on over...

Water, water everywhere . . . seemed to be the theme today in Luzern (Lucerne). Water falling from the sky, water in the river rushing by, and fountains pointing to the sky, burbling--water! Unintentionally poetic, but true. And then there was Lake Luzern. Today was gray and rainy, a good day for train hopping and gift shopping. Geez, what's with the rhyming today?! C'est la vie. We boarded a train in Altstetten to Zürich Bahnhof, where we hopped the next train...

After breakfast in Samedan, we left for Klosters. We opted to use the train to shorten the drive. Once the car was loaded upon the train, we rode in the dark through a tunnel twenty kilometers long. Lining up behind other autos reminded me a bit of loading for the ferry in the Puget Sound region of the State of Washington. That was where the resemblance ended. The train car was only one car wide of course, and we had to stay in the vehicle. Good time for a cat na...

My friend, Armando, smoothly negotiated the innumerable hairpin turns. It seemed the snaking mountain highway would never end. We were driving from Zürich to the village of Samedan, near St. Moritz. Twists and turns were so many I rarely stayed upright, rocking first left then right then back again as we climbed the mountainside to Julierpass at 2284 meters. It felt a bit as if I were on a small boat sailing a rocky sea. In spite of the constant swinging to and...

After arriving in Zürich, Switzerland, and wanting to turn around that first day and fly back home to my family, I'm now relaxing and enjoying time with my friend of thirty-plus years, Annelies. Gee whiz, it only took a week . . . But today . . . It took Annelies and I just under four hours to hike the "about 3 hours" Leuenberger Weg (WANDERWEG is the term for a path for people to walk between villages) above my ancestral village of Rüderswil. Not bad for tw...