Wonder and Wander

Italy was one of those places I had wanted to go back to, but Switzerland was a place I had never been. A few years ago, we were visiting my grandmother in her retirement home. She lives in a very nice community of elderly military officers and their spouses–as a result it’s a well traveled collection of friends. We were at dinner, and I asked a couple of Granny’s friends where they would travel if they could go back to one place in the world. At least two of them named Switzerland as the place that most wanted to go back to. Considering the wealth of unique places they had been, I was a little surprised, and definitely intrigued.

It ended up being a more complicated (and pricey) trip than we expected. We left early from Florence and took a train to Milan–a massive, hectic station. There we found out that our train was delayed 10 minutes. Then 20. Then 45. Then it went off the departures board entirely. At this point my punctual soon was about to lose his ever loving mind. He just could NOT understand why a train could ever have a good reason to be late. It was worse than that, however… Our train was cancelled.We ended up taking three slow regional trains to make up for the one fast one we had planned. The trains were old an pretty dirty, but at least we were going north. We began to glimpse Lake Como from the train, wide, and peaceful. Then evergreen forests, and then mountains and marble quarries. In between we were shuffling our gear on and off trains, through small stations, trying to figure out which track to get on based on the hastily-scribbled itinerary the Milan station had given us.Suddenly, we were in view of giant blue-gray and blindingly white mountain peaks. We boarded a smooth double-decker Swiss train that left–glory!–with cool punctuality. We were in a different country, and we knew it immediately.

In total, we took 7 different trains to reach Wengen. It was gray and rainy, so we couldn’t really see the surrounding mountains, but we were frankly just glad to be off the rails. Wengen is a car-free village, so we trudged up the hill (and up and up) to our chalet. The sheep in the pasture on the hill tinkled a welcome with their bells. Even in the drizzle, the green stillness was balm to the soul. After our long day of uncertainty and convoluted transportation, it was a complete blessing from God that Vance wasn’t toast.

Switzerland is a pretty expensive place… We had heard that going in, but we were more right than we knew. A lot of the tours and sights were beyond our budget as a family of 5. That was fine–we were there for the nature, hiking, and scenery, and that was mostly free. But it did make us especially dependent on the weather–and the forecast was full of clouds and rain for the week.

We woke up to the stillness of an Alpine spring in the countryside. It really was magical to live in a place without cars. The village was small enough that we felt completely free to let the kids wander down to the village green or climb the mountain slope behind us to work on their fort. After so many weeks in the city, it was heaven to let them run and have so much independence.

The town had a great little man of the hiking trails around, but my favorite method was to just pick a direction and start exploring. We found a little path where Mendhelsson loved to go to paint and contemplate– he often came from Berlin to enjoy the country and compose. We spent hours exploring pine-drenched forests thick with quiet, searching for forts and perfect walking sticks, gasping at the ice cold of the creeks and waterfalls, simply sitting to stare at the impregnable mountains receding into distance. It was pure refreshment.

The kids quickly decided that they needed Swiss army knives… It was one of the few things that was more affordable there than elsewhere. They had a blast carving walking sticks for anyone and everyone.

My Florida kids have been longing for snow for ages. They were hoping to see snow in the mountains, but I couldn’t make any promises. One of our days was mercifully cloudless and bright, so we took the gondola car up to the top of Männlichen, the mountain right behind our house. Snow! No self respecting kid can resist a hill of pure white sparkling in the sun. We had a snowball fight right then and there, tromping all over the hill, soaking our jeans to the knees. I’ve lived in Minnesota, as well as the Northeast (as a kid), but this was a different type of winter wonderland altogether. 360 degrees of jaw-dropping views. It’s a morning I will remember forever–I hope the kids can, too.

After all the delights of Italian food, I wondered if the kids would be disappointed in Swiss food. I needn’t have worried. Hello–chocolate! Cheese! Butter! Rye bread! Berries! Yogurt! I was thrilled to find a raclette grill in our Airbnb kitchen (you really never know what you are going to find in these kitchens), and the kids thought that simple DIY dinner was the coolest. It’s easy to see why–grilling meat and veggies over your own tabletop grill, then draping everything with bubbly, browning cheese is a winning trick. They liked fondue, too, but raclette was the favorite.

We had gone up the mountain–on another day we trekked down to the lower valley of Lauterbrunnen. Tolkien famously visited the valley in 1911, and it became the inspiration for Rivendell. It was a long walk down–we met Vance at the train station, stopped at a cafe for lunch, then took a bus down the valley to Trummelbach, one of the valley’s 72 falls. We took a lift inside the mountain to get the best views. The falls were a cacophany of rushing sound, terrifying and exhilirating in their pure power.

Afterwards, we found a meadow full of wildflowers by the creek, and just let the kids play. Eve had lost her precious knife a few days before, and Isaac spearheaded a plan for the rest of us to go in together and get her a new one. Her surprise and delighted gratefulness just melted my heart.

Do afternoons like that really exist, with golden sunlight and clear water rushing over river rocks, children gathering wildflowers and playing together in kindness? Memory plays this trick of erasing little abrasions and sadnesses from moments like those. I know it wasn’t quite as idyllic as my remembrance, but it was a taste of Eden nonetheless.

We know now why Switzerland was on Granny’s “favorite places” list. It’s on ours, too. Next time, Vance and I are going to paraglide down into that serene valley, and I can’t wait.