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Position: 46°34’12.7″N 8°25’02.9″E
Here are a few highlights of our trip out of Germany, through Austria, and into Switzerland and France prior to our arrival in Chamonix. If you have never taken this journey by road, you are in for a treat. Just be sure to pay your toll fees before driving on the Austrian and Swiss highways.
Austria
Carol had ordered her driver towards two cities: Salzburg and Innsbruck. She then demanded we take as many hikes between them as time and distance would allow.
Salzburg, the home of Mozart and long an Archbishopric of the Holy Roman Empire oozes power. The centre is dominated by the cathedral and the bishop’s (appropriated) residence. The entire 18th century conceit was to project God’s-given authority and humble the unworthy. The cathedral suffered badly from bombings in the Second World War, but has been meticulously restored to its former glory.
Thick with tourists, each famous site is demarcated by a heterogenous crowd of snap-happy smartphone operators. Want to know where Mozart was born? It’s that mob over there. Want to know where to find the funicular to the Hohensalzburg Fortress? It’s that crowd over there.
Back to Germany
There’s a little dongle of Germany along the road to Innsbruck famous mostly for containing Berchtesgaden and the spectacular scenery of its eponymous alps. It is, perhaps, most notorious for the Nazi’s holiday home, known in English as the Eagle’s Nest. We finished lunch and realised we didn’t have enough time to warrant the 60-euro investment for getting up there. Instead, we walked through the pretty town and pinned our visit to the Kehlsteinhaus for later.
Back to Austria
A little road-weary after our series of one-night stands, we booked two days in Oberau, one of the villages in the Wildschönau, in the Kitzbühel Alps. I have skied these hills in my youth. Thanks to global warming winter skiing is sparse, but summer hiking abundant. Heading out the front door of our hotel, we walked straight up 1,000 metres to a little restaurant, plonked ourselves down and enjoyed eggs and bacon and a wiener with mustard. A couple of local hefeweizens steeled us for the steep climb down.
Earlier in our walk we had chatted with an elderly woman in a grey smock and blue linen headacarf gathering what looked like johannisbeeren, black currants. She called the little berries kaiserbeernen. It was a little early in the season, she said. Besides, all the good berries would be higher up the hill, but at her age she needed help getting up and down. We smiled and wished her well as we headed off.
Innsbruck
Prosaically, Innsbruck translates as ‘Bridge over the River Inn’. Another tourist wormhole, the old town is a photographic cliché. Carved wooden decorations and trompe l’oeil loom over cobblestone streets and hot chocolate shops. All blocked by a seething mass of polyester-clad travellers. A bit of retail therapy and we were off for the high Tyrolean alps and Switzerland.
Switzerland
Our blitz-tour of Switzerland was partially intentional. We intend to spend more time there on our return trip to Sweden. The scenery is stunning. While the mountains are not much higher than the Rockies, they are precipitous and start several thousand feet lower. The chaos created by the African plate smashing into the Eurasian plate formed a jumble of rock fists, divots, saddles and sheer faces, at once rounded and sharply jagged. Green pastures feed cows in the summer months high above your sight line. In winter they come back down to make muck for the fields and stay warm in little barns.
The discovery of a lighthouse near the source of the Rhine River was an amusing distraction. A replica of a Dutch lighthouse, this is a rare maritime beacon neither near a body of water or a shipping lane. Certainly, Aleta’s draft would prevent an upriver excursion to visit it. A few minutes later we drove our Volvo onto a train and rattled through a 15-kilometre-long single-track tunnel under the Furka Pass. The Furka Pass was last seen in Goldfinger and can still be climbed by those patient enough with an Aston-Martin DB5.
France
Our last stop was in a lovely rural Airbnb just outside Geneva. The apartment was hewn from a large, three-story farmhouse in the foothills of the Haute Savoie. Our hosts were equestrians with three horses and two Kangal dogs. That made us homesick for our Turkish would-be adoptees. Twenty minutes of petting and a rabbit-sized ball of fur later, we realized the best place for these gentle giants was in a paddock with a doghouse. There is a limit to how many fibres of joy is practical.
Looking out our kitchen window, we saw an enticing climb. Confirming the route with our hiking app led us a couple of miles to the trailhead. In the heat of the day, we climbed 800 metres to a rough monastery and chapel surrounded by trees. Through the sward the ridge fell away with views of Lac Lausanne and Geneva to the north. To the south were the jagged peaks of the French Alps. At our feet was a cataract and waterfall with an occasional herd of cattle munching on wildflowers. Insects buzzed around us.
Later, shopping in a nearby town, we rediscovered France’s passion for cheese. Fully four aisles of the hypermarché were dedicated to the stuff. The soft Haute Savoie raw milk cheeses were given pride of place. C’est la vie!
