Wednesday, November 7, 2012, at 8:43 PM
I was reading one of Sherlock Holmes' tales and was raveling with him a ways, using Google world. In Meiringen I left his trail for a while and made a side trip up the Susten Pass. You might remember that sometime back in 1972 Toivo and Elve came visiting us at our home in St. Gallen. I borrowed the company's VW bus and we traveled that very road which I had traveled with my parents so many times before, while I was still a school boy. In those earlier days we would make a Sunday trip from Zurich, where our home was at that time. Sometimes we would drive from our apartment in Witikon down into the center of Zurich, where Migros, the large merchandising chain in Switzerland, much like our Walmart today, but smaller and without the connection to China, maintained a specialty store. They always had fresh grilled chicken available. The chicken were small, compared with what we are used to now, and we would buy three of them, load them into our trunk and head off to the mountains. At the very spot where this photo was taken there is a turnout on the road side and we'd park our car and walk for a stretch away from the road, carrying our pick nick basket and settle on the pasture with this view in front of us. The glacier you see did, at that time, reach way down into the valley and miss the little lake down there by a couple of hundred feet. I'm sure, if we were to roam through the shoe boxes with all the old pictures, we'd find one or several to match. We were very much aware at that time that we were at the downside of the most recent ice age and that glaciers were melting away under our eyes.
Anyway, knowing the spot, it is here where we stopped on our sight-seeing tour with Toivo and Elve, and you and Pia and Peeter were playing on the mountainside while we set up our lunch. Just for old times sake.
Isa
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9:13 PM
Speaking of melting glaciers: this is the current view one gets of the glacier of the Rhone, the birth place of the river that fills the lake of Geneva, exits the lake at Geneva and heads down into the Mediterranean Sea near Marseilles.
You might have heard me tell the tale before: this is where my high school class took a weekend trip one year and we staked the glacier near its tip with pegs on the ice and pegs along the edges and then came back a year later and verified that a) ice flows down the mountain and b) our permanent glaciers are loosing ground to the steadily rising temperatures. The term 'global warming' and Al Gore were not known then. We simply spoke of the large rhythm in our climate and that we were on the downside of the most recent ice age. The glacier at that time reached all the way down to where the green ground cover starts and in width it came within a hundred feet or less of the hair needle curves of the Grimsel Pass, which you can clearly see in the picture.
This was another favorite destination of ours 'way back then'. There is a public park a little further down in the valley near Gletsch where one time Pips and I set up our little portable BBQ and proceeded to prepare lunch while Mims took a nap in the sun. We had chosen our spot so the steady wind from the east blew over us across the park. We had a leg of lamb on the spit and while I was turning the crank in a steady fashion, Pips kept our wine glasses full and he and I had a long, long conversation about anything and all things and off and on we took amused notice of the envious glimpses we received from other campers who had come with nothing but cold sandwiches and water bottles and had to contend with the scents coming from our grill carried to the by the breeze.
Ha-ha. En guete, and cheers!
Isa
********************************************************************************
10:10 PM
In my last missive about the glacier of the Rhone I typed and error: the road I was referring to as being so close to the glacier is the one on the right of the picture, but that is the Furka Pass. The Grimsel is way over to the left in the picture.
You can see the Hotel Furka in one of the turns. That used to be a famous hotspot in alpine tourism. At my time, it was very much in the decline, and I don't think that it has regained any of its former luster.
The Furka leads over to Andermatt, at the foot of the Gotthardt Pass which is considered the heart of the Alps. At one time, the only road from north to south came through the very rough valley from Altdorf in the north and up to Andermatt and over the mountain chain into Italy in the south. On the way up from the north one had to cross the river - the Reuss - several times and the most famous and feared crossing was over the Teufelsbrücke, a wonder of Engineering of such character that legend wants it the builder had made a pact with the devil. Before the bridge was built, the horse drawn Postal Carriage stopped where the bridge is today. The travelers had to get our and cross the gorge over a rope bridge to reach another carriage on the other side. The luggage was carried across and the trip continued up the narrow road towardsAndermat.
Today there is the longest railroad tunnel in the world penetrating into the mountain just a little ways above Altdorf and coming back into daylight, way down in the Canton of Tessin on the southern side of the Alps.
Further on up the Gotthardt pass there is a monument to Hannibal, who crossed the Alps there coming from the south and met his end as a result of the losses his army suffered during that crossing.
And down in Altdorf of course is where the Wilhelm Tell legend takes its beginning: there in the town square is where the Hapsburg tyrant Gessler set up his hat and demanded that every passer show reverence to the hat! Wilhelm Tell came by with his son and, being a citizen with a strong and straight back refused to bow to this thing up there on the pole. He was seized and the shot of the apple followed and the stormy trip on the lake and the eventual end of Gessler up a ways near Küsnacht by the Rigi.
And speaking of the Rigi - did you hear the story Mark Twain told? He was on a tour of Switzerland and he and his companions climbed the Rigi to get an eyeful of the famous view from its peak. On the way up the were overtaken by fog and, knowing of the danger of traveling in the mountains when you can't see your hand in front of your eyes, they sought shelter under what looked and felt like a rock wall. Hungry and cold, hey had to wait through the night, hoping to continue their climb next morning after the fog had lifted, and reach the hotel where they had made reservations. After shivering through the night, they felt more than they saw the light of the morning sun penetrate the fog when all of a sudden they heard a noise as of tin cans rattling. One of the travelers crawled along the rock wall to investigate the source of the noise and found the hotel's kitchen boy carrying the trash out to the bins. They had spent the night sitting on the naked ground, leaning against the basement wall of the very hotel which they had wanted to reach.
If you travel from Küsnacht over towards Zug you come by the lake of Ägeri. On the upper end of the lake is the battle field (Morgarten) where the Hapsburg army suffered one of its most decisive defeats from the Swiss rebels. On the lower end lies Unterägeri, where Lulu and I spent most of the war years, waiting for Mims and Pips to come and again make a family with us.
Memories will never end. With love, Isa
********************************************************************************
11:20 PM
So now, with Google earth, you can insert photos of all the above as you compile your memoirs. This makes for good reading. Blog time.... iivo
I was reading one of Sherlock Holmes' tales and was raveling with him a ways, using Google world. In Meiringen I left his trail for a while and made a side trip up the Susten Pass. You might remember that sometime back in 1972 Toivo and Elve came visiting us at our home in St. Gallen. I borrowed the company's VW bus and we traveled that very road which I had traveled with my parents so many times before, while I was still a school boy. In those earlier days we would make a Sunday trip from Zurich, where our home was at that time. Sometimes we would drive from our apartment in Witikon down into the center of Zurich, where Migros, the large merchandising chain in Switzerland, much like our Walmart today, but smaller and without the connection to China, maintained a specialty store. They always had fresh grilled chicken available. The chicken were small, compared with what we are used to now, and we would buy three of them, load them into our trunk and head off to the mountains. At the very spot where this photo was taken there is a turnout on the road side and we'd park our car and walk for a stretch away from the road, carrying our pick nick basket and settle on the pasture with this view in front of us. The glacier you see did, at that time, reach way down into the valley and miss the little lake down there by a couple of hundred feet. I'm sure, if we were to roam through the shoe boxes with all the old pictures, we'd find one or several to match. We were very much aware at that time that we were at the downside of the most recent ice age and that glaciers were melting away under our eyes.
Anyway, knowing the spot, it is here where we stopped on our sight-seeing tour with Toivo and Elve, and you and Pia and Peeter were playing on the mountainside while we set up our lunch. Just for old times sake.
Isa
********************************************************************************
9:13 PM
Speaking of melting glaciers: this is the current view one gets of the glacier of the Rhone, the birth place of the river that fills the lake of Geneva, exits the lake at Geneva and heads down into the Mediterranean Sea near Marseilles.
You might have heard me tell the tale before: this is where my high school class took a weekend trip one year and we staked the glacier near its tip with pegs on the ice and pegs along the edges and then came back a year later and verified that a) ice flows down the mountain and b) our permanent glaciers are loosing ground to the steadily rising temperatures. The term 'global warming' and Al Gore were not known then. We simply spoke of the large rhythm in our climate and that we were on the downside of the most recent ice age. The glacier at that time reached all the way down to where the green ground cover starts and in width it came within a hundred feet or less of the hair needle curves of the Grimsel Pass, which you can clearly see in the picture.
This was another favorite destination of ours 'way back then'. There is a public park a little further down in the valley near Gletsch where one time Pips and I set up our little portable BBQ and proceeded to prepare lunch while Mims took a nap in the sun. We had chosen our spot so the steady wind from the east blew over us across the park. We had a leg of lamb on the spit and while I was turning the crank in a steady fashion, Pips kept our wine glasses full and he and I had a long, long conversation about anything and all things and off and on we took amused notice of the envious glimpses we received from other campers who had come with nothing but cold sandwiches and water bottles and had to contend with the scents coming from our grill carried to the by the breeze.
Ha-ha. En guete, and cheers!
Isa
********************************************************************************
10:10 PM
In my last missive about the glacier of the Rhone I typed and error: the road I was referring to as being so close to the glacier is the one on the right of the picture, but that is the Furka Pass. The Grimsel is way over to the left in the picture.
You can see the Hotel Furka in one of the turns. That used to be a famous hotspot in alpine tourism. At my time, it was very much in the decline, and I don't think that it has regained any of its former luster.
The Furka leads over to Andermatt, at the foot of the Gotthardt Pass which is considered the heart of the Alps. At one time, the only road from north to south came through the very rough valley from Altdorf in the north and up to Andermatt and over the mountain chain into Italy in the south. On the way up from the north one had to cross the river - the Reuss - several times and the most famous and feared crossing was over the Teufelsbrücke, a wonder of Engineering of such character that legend wants it the builder had made a pact with the devil. Before the bridge was built, the horse drawn Postal Carriage stopped where the bridge is today. The travelers had to get our and cross the gorge over a rope bridge to reach another carriage on the other side. The luggage was carried across and the trip continued up the narrow road towardsAndermat.
Today there is the longest railroad tunnel in the world penetrating into the mountain just a little ways above Altdorf and coming back into daylight, way down in the Canton of Tessin on the southern side of the Alps.
Further on up the Gotthardt pass there is a monument to Hannibal, who crossed the Alps there coming from the south and met his end as a result of the losses his army suffered during that crossing.
And down in Altdorf of course is where the Wilhelm Tell legend takes its beginning: there in the town square is where the Hapsburg tyrant Gessler set up his hat and demanded that every passer show reverence to the hat! Wilhelm Tell came by with his son and, being a citizen with a strong and straight back refused to bow to this thing up there on the pole. He was seized and the shot of the apple followed and the stormy trip on the lake and the eventual end of Gessler up a ways near Küsnacht by the Rigi.
And speaking of the Rigi - did you hear the story Mark Twain told? He was on a tour of Switzerland and he and his companions climbed the Rigi to get an eyeful of the famous view from its peak. On the way up the were overtaken by fog and, knowing of the danger of traveling in the mountains when you can't see your hand in front of your eyes, they sought shelter under what looked and felt like a rock wall. Hungry and cold, hey had to wait through the night, hoping to continue their climb next morning after the fog had lifted, and reach the hotel where they had made reservations. After shivering through the night, they felt more than they saw the light of the morning sun penetrate the fog when all of a sudden they heard a noise as of tin cans rattling. One of the travelers crawled along the rock wall to investigate the source of the noise and found the hotel's kitchen boy carrying the trash out to the bins. They had spent the night sitting on the naked ground, leaning against the basement wall of the very hotel which they had wanted to reach.
If you travel from Küsnacht over towards Zug you come by the lake of Ägeri. On the upper end of the lake is the battle field (Morgarten) where the Hapsburg army suffered one of its most decisive defeats from the Swiss rebels. On the lower end lies Unterägeri, where Lulu and I spent most of the war years, waiting for Mims and Pips to come and again make a family with us.
Memories will never end. With love, Isa
********************************************************************************
11:20 PM
So now, with Google earth, you can insert photos of all the above as you compile your memoirs. This makes for good reading. Blog time.... iivo
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