WATERFALLS AND BOTANICAL GARDEN

                       Fun and Unexpected Sites

Hiking in Davos, Switzerland we walked down a 1500-foot desent, which often passed by the melodious sound of a running waterfall. We stopped to eat our box lunch by a rather large waterfall. After lunch while we relaxed and enjoyed the ambiance I lent my old Girl Scout knife to one of the fellows as he was whittling a walking stick. It didn’t take him long to break the main blade. He felt bad and so did I, as I’d had that knife over fifty years. But what can one do when accidents sometimes happen?

            Another day we rode the bus to Davos Platz and picked up funicular tickets for a ride to Schatzap where we were to visit and hike around the alpine botanical gardens. At the top we disembarked at the Hotel Berghotel Schatzap. Davos was originally known as a health center and spa for people with lung problems. A huge sanatorium was built in 1899. By 1950 the city decided to change its focus and image to a ski and summer resort. The sanatorium, located at the base of the botanical gardens, was converted to a hotel at that time.

            The hike around the gardens was hilly and at times rather steep. Paths were very narrow necessitating single file walking. It is an unusual garden with small pockets of flowers in numerous areas. Needless to say the area is very rocky so to me it is really a rock garden, although big. I was stunned to see some of our desert plants growing at that altitude and in a harsh and cold climate.                    In answer to my friend’s question I said, “Well, that is gaillardia or Indian blanket and it grows all over our prairies. And that is purple coneflower or Echinacea. This is amazing.”

            By the time we were ready for the funicular ride back down to street level it was clouding up over the mountains. Davos hosts a music festival every weekend in July so we walked over to the Post Hotel to see what was going on.

            We decided to sit on the hotel balcony so if it did rain we’d at least be under cover and dry. The whole lower courtyard was filled with tables for sitting and eating. Several food vendors were located around the perimeter. A live band was playing at the far end of the yard. We had a great spot for both seeing all the activity and also for listening to the music. We listened to some good jazz for quite awhile before wandering down into the courtyard to check out the vendors.

            I bought a cobbler ala mode. Since it involved two different vendors I had a hard time making the ice cream man understand that I did not want a cone but the ice cream on top of the cobbler. Eventually I got my point across. We returned with our treats to our seats on the balcony just before it started to rain!

            Hotel waiters came up onto the balcony and removed the huge umbrellas taking them down into the courtyard to cover the tables. They also handed out umbrellas to people standing around in the rain. We’d made a wise choice to sit comfortably under the roof overhang. We stayed dry and had fun watching all the commotion.

            The rain was really just a heavy shower which lasted about a half hour. When the rain stopped we decided to take advantage of the break in the weather and walk back to the hotel.

DAVOS and INTERLAKEN

                                          A Couple of Swiss Cities

Davos, Switzerland is the sister city to Aspen, Colorado. At 5117-feet  it is Switzerland’s highest town and mountain resort. In winter skiers overrun the town of 11,500 people. The 70 hotels have 8000 beds so people rent out another 12,000 beds in their homes. During the summer of my visit the town was a quiet peaceful one. There are 90 farms in the Davos area and the focus has changed from beef to milk. A good part of the four million liters of milk a year is made into cheese. Most of our hiking here was through lovely quiet forested areas.

Switzerland offered many different foods which I generally found very good. In Davos we were served kirschwasser---a brandy distilled from cherries. Such kirsch is common in much of Europe and it is made from many different fruits. I always find it a bit potent for my taste.

It was most of a day’s ride from Davos to Interlaken via the Glacier Express. We all had taken a book to read on the trip, but the scenery was so spectacular that we all scuttled that idea. Along the route we passed through the eight-mile long Furka Tunnel, the longest narrow railroad tunnel n the world.  The Rhone valley was stunningly beautiful.

The climb up to the Overalp Pass was slow affording us good views of the wildflowers growing in the fields. The scenery was breathtaking.  The snail’s pace up a couple of the mountains made  us wonder if we might roll backwards. The train tracks literally overhung the mountains in several places. It was a stunning eye-catching day!

In Brig we had a layover between trains so many of us headed into town for a look/see. We walked the cobbled streets and alleys admiring the many towers and church steeples. The country is full of them and all seem to be different. Maybe I’ll return one day to do nothing but photograph steeples and towers.

Interlaken has a train station at each end of the city, but only a little over a mile apart. Trains for different destinations leave from each station. Interlaken is located in the southern part of Bern Canton between 12-mile long Lake Thun and 9-mile Lake Brienz. The first steam ships sailed the lakes in 1839. Many small villages are located around the perimeter of both lakes. At 848-feet deep, Lake Brienz is the country deepest lake and four fishermen make their living from the lake. It takes a two-year apprenticeship to become a fisherman. Most of the fish from the lake is perch.

The city of 15,000 is a popular winter ski area. As in Davos, private beds add to the 4000 beds to total 70,000 hotel nights a year. The city’s 5-star hotel, The Victoria, was built in 1869. The hotel Interlaken built in 1400 is the oldest hotel in town. The hotel boasts a stay by Lord Byron in 1816 and Mendelssohn in 1832.  The old wooden monastery was replaced with a stone on in the 1300s.

The city has Japanese, English, and Alpine gardens. The Japanese garden is largest and is a symbol of friendship between the two countries. Horse-drawn buggies roam the streets from Easter to October.

Switzerland is one of my favorite countries and I hope to return yet again one day.