Up an Alp in Appenzell

I'm going to use our day trip to Appenzell canton to make some generalisations about Switzerland, but please take them with a grain of salt - my conclusions are based on 3 full days and 2 half days, plus conversation with Andy's sister-in-law, who has lived there for nearly 2 years now. I'm using Appenzell as my example because it epitomises so much of what is Swiss about Switzerland, so even though the cities are not so much like this anymore, there are undercurrents of the traditionalism and conservatism demonstrated by Appenzell throughout the Swiss culture.  But also bear in mind that most Swiss make fun of Appenzell for being so backward (hello, giving women the right to vote in 1991).

First of all, Switzerland is an active country.  We took the adorable, red Appenzellerbahn, a small train with a whistle that sounded just like a toy train, to the base of Ebenalp.

This is a supposedly small mountain, at a mere 1640m tall.  There were two ways up - cable car, and walking.

And three ways down - cable car, walking, and paragliding.

We - three young, reasonably fit people - took the cable car up, and then walked partway down to have a look at the caves, with evidence of prehistoric human inhabitants.

The wildkirchli, or Wild Church, where hermits used to worship.

And the mountain restaurant. When we got here, it was full of people - who had walked up. People in their 60s & 70s. We were easily the youngest people on the mountain, and we were surrounded by people who had hiked all the way up.  Impressive.

Especially when, on the walk back up to where we had started, which was uphill but not steep, and maybe about 50m walk, we were so puffed we had to stop and take a break. As 60 year olds passed us without even working up a sweat.  As we sat on the bench, appreciating the scenery, a cloud rolled in.

We decided to wait it out in a truly Swiss way - in the cafe on top of the mountain.  Yes - there were two cafes on this mountain. Andy's sister-in-law translated the menu for us, pointing out in particular the "light choice", which was a salad served with a huge, greasy schnitzel on top.  This allows me to make another generalisation about Switzerland - they eat crappy food. Their meals are rich, full of sausage, cheese, and cream. As a result, it is not a terribly vegan-friendly country*.  The Swiss have the highest per capita consumption of both cheese and chocolate, but because of how active everyone is, climbing up mountains and that, they have generally low levels of heart disease, and they age really gracefully.

The cloud didn't let up, so we took the cable car back down, and returned to the town of Appenzell.

This place seemed to thrive on tourism, mainly from other parts of Switzerland, so it was full of stereotypes - cowbells, Swiss army knives, and cheese. 

Oh, the cheese was just horrible.  Appenzeller cheese is renowned for its strong, tangy smell, which pervaded the whole town of Appenzell. We went into a shop selling cheese, and were browsing in a different section, looking at all the flavours of schnapps, and it was such a strong smell that you just never get used to it.

We were just deciding whether we should stick around Appenzell or head back to St Gallen when we were surprised with an Appenzell tradition. Every autumn, when the farmers gather their cows from the surrounding mountainside, they celebrate with a cow parade through town. The cows were preceded by a deafening roar, the source of which we were unsure. Then we saw these poor cows with giant bells around their necks, and flowers on their heads.

Which leads me to another generalisation - the Swiss love cows.  Although, as a vegan, I am opposed to the concept of using animals for human gain, from a welfarist point of view, cows are generally well treated in Switzerland (except when they have to wear bells bigger than their heads and parade through town...).

We finished our day with a trip through a Swiss supermarket, Migros, where we picked up some epic Swiss junk food - Paprika flavoured potato chips, and - get this - peanut butter flips.  As in, like, cheese puffs, but peanut butter flavoured.  Best Ever Junk Food. And all vegan.

So in a nutshell - Switzerland is conservative, in a traditional sort of way. They love cows, cheese, and chocolate, but they're constantly moving so we saw loads of healthy-looking people everywhere we went. And, mainly, it is a country full of adorable, beautiful, quaint scenery.  So be prepared to go "Awww!" a lot if you ever visit.

*Though, I will admit that the following day in Zurich we ate a beautiful meal at the pay-by-weight buffet Hiltl, Europe's oldest veg restaurant, which was good but So Expensive. And in St Gallen's market, we picked up some vegan croissants, made with sunflower oil.

A Guten Tag on the Rhine

While in Switzerland, we were hoping to do a bit of travelling around - it's a small country, and you can basically get across it by train in a few hours.  But, as I mentioned earlier, Switzerland is very expensive, and although the distances are short, they are costly. And, as we were in a restful phase of our trip, we didn't really want to spend half the day on the train (since we certainly couldn't afford staying overnight at whatever far-flung destination we wanted to visit!).  So we looked through the guidebooks at Andy's brother's house, and talked to his sister-in-law, and decided we would head towards Rheinfell and then make our way back to St Gallen along the Rhine and the Bodensee (Lake Konstanz).


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We packed a bag with some leftover capsicum-loaded spaghetti, some apples, and a bottle of water, layered on as many clothes as we could comfortably move around in, and headed for the Bahnhoffstrasse - the train station.

We caught the comfy commuter train to Winterthur, and then changed to a smaller local train where we got off at our first stop, Rheinfell.  We had read about this in the Lonely Planet, which declared it not as impressive as Niagara by any standards, but Europe's biggest waterfall no less.  So we didn't have high hopes, though did think the castle on each side of the waterfall sounded like a nice touch.  We were pleasantly surprised with the waterfal, which was beautiful and impressive.

The castle on the far side of the river, Schloss Worth, looked more like a large house to us, so we didn't pay for the several Swiss Franc ferry ride over to see it.

Schloss Worth, though, was free to get into and was more imposing.

And it offered good views of the falls.

After admiring from several angles, we decided to continue on our journey.  Nachster Halt: Schaffhausen.  This was a very likeable town with an old, cobblestone centre which felt very German (having never, at that point, been to Germany). Apparently this was the only Swiss town to be bombed in WWII, because the Allies mistook it for Germany.  We had lunch in the square, eating leftover pasta and a fresh bretzel alongside locals eating sausage and bread (held in separate hands, one bite of sausage followed by one bit of bread).

We checked out a church built in ~1100, which was imposing inside, and clearly built in the 'frighten the bejeesus out of people to encourage religiousity' school of church architecture.

Even the entrance was, quite frankly, intimidating.

But it had a cool herb garden outside, tended since the Middle Ages.

And we walked up the hill to the Munot, a weird fortress/castle/round building from the 16th century.

It was all but empty inside, which makes me reluctant to use the term 'castle'. This made Andy speculate that, when under threat, this was the place everyone ran to, and hid.  I suspect there were strict selection criteria for entry, but maybe there's a chance it was egalitarian...

But it would be a good vantage point, with views like this.

We continued on our train trip, travelling along the Rhine through fields of veggies and apples.  We left the train once again in Stein am Rhein, the town declared by Lonely Planet to be the Best in All Switzerland.  (Their terminology may have been different, but that was the gist.) Andy's sister-in-law told us it wasn't that great, so we weren't sure what to expect. On our way from the train station, we got a close up view of something that we saw from a lot of trains - rent-a-gardens.  It seems that, in the bits of land near train stations that are too small for living but too big to waste, the rail company has hired out plots of land to people who want to grow stuff.

We also saw walnuts growing.  Tell me they don't look like what I think they look like.

The town is loomed over by this castle on the hill.

When we found the town (our ability to get lost and walk the wrong way didn't get left behind in Hong Kong, that's for sure), what we found was quaint and medieval.

And very clearly tourist-oriented.

But with a sense of whimsy, or perhaps just a sincere love of dogs.

We visited a chocolate shop and got a dairy-free block of dark chocolate with almonds.  We (okay, I) ate half the block sitting near that dog statue.

Andy touched the Rhine, or rather, the place where the Rhine meets Lake Constance/ Lake Konstanz/ the Bodensee (with so many languages, things tend to have several names in Switzerland).

We hopped back on the train, got off in Kreutzlingen, and then took a quick, minute long train ride across the border into the German city of Konstanz.  Konstanz's strategy, during WWII, was to ignore black outs and leave the lights on, in the hopes that the Allies would think they were Switzerland.  It worked, and they were never bombed.

It felt like a nice city, but the places we had been earlier in the day were so Bavarian in nature that it didn't feel like a different country. Until we saw a busker playing accordion.  Then it felt pretty German.
Compared to the highly reserved nature of the Swiss, something about an accordion just strikes me as bawdy and fun-loving.

We looked at the lake.

Looked at this rotating statue, living at the end of a pier, with loads of cleavage and a bit of va-jim-jam hanging out.

And then, after only about 6 hours of doing stuff, we went home, tired and happy (and with happy feet), glad to have embraced a slower pace of travel.

Windows to the soul

One of my favourite things about Switzerland was all of the adorable window decor, so here is a post dedicated to the shutters and oriels and frescos that we saw.

In the town of Appenzell...

 

In the castle known as Schloss Laufen, in Rheinfell...

In the really charming town of Schaffhausen...

Yeah, that's a skeleton wearing a pirate hat inside this oriel.

In Stein am Rhein, where Andy wondered how people go about their everyday business when their town feels like such a fairy tale...

My favourite house in all of St Gallen,  based on our very brief tour of the place, and primarily due to the Bright Red Shutters!

I've honestly never given a second thought to shutters before visiting Switzerland, but now they are on every imagining of a dream home that pops into my head.