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 two women somewhere over 50! (Wink) Couldn't have done it without good hiking shoes, ski poles, my elastic knee brace, sun visor, sunglasses and water, cheese, rolls, an egg each and of course, the best Swiss chocolate bar to share, in my pack. Ah youth, where hast thou gone? I was grateful I could do it. We came back to the Scharaffenland B&B where we are staying in Rüderswil--directly across from the Gemeindehaus (like city hall) and the only B&B in the village I believe--showered and headed out about twenty minutes by car to Affoltern to look for Swiss textiles. I found beautiful towels at a Käserei (basically a tiny cheese factory) there and bought a few. Then we returned south to Zollbrück, where we had a delicious dinner al fresco. Tortellini with Pesto Sauce for me. Yum.
Tomorrow before we return to Zürich where I'm staying, I hope to visit a Leuenberger who is living in Rüderswil. A distant cousin? Very distant if so, since my six times great-grandfather, Hans, was the one who left the village and came to America in 1753. We think he was perhaps a nephew of some sort, I think, of the famous Niklaus Leuenberger, peasant king of the Peasant War of 1653.
Maybe we are more closely related to Niklaus than we think. My father bore a striking resemblance to the images of Niklaus.
Back to the trail, we've decided we must stop by the Gemeindehaus tomorrow and suggest they improve the signage. We had to stop and ask the friendly and helpful Swiss in different villages occasionally, "links oder rechts" because there was no way to tell sometimes. Nevertheless we made it! We stopped and ate our lunch sitting on a bench inscribed "Klaus Leuenberger" beside and looking over the Niklaus Leuenberger home at Schonholz, as it's called. What a vista! After that, we started back down. Here's the funny thing: the website of this tiny village of Rüderswil said the trail was created to honor the 350th anniversary of the Peasant War. I got so excited, I didn't bother to do the math until we were back today; 350 years was 2003, so we memorialized the 361st anniversary! One more thing, it was inevitable on this day and in this place -- I broke out in song while hiking across one high mountain meadow. Of course you guessed it: I Love to Go a Wandering, from The Sound of Music. I just couldn't help myself.