Peter's Blog

Beautiful Town of Schwäbisch Hall

By the modern art museum overlooking the old town

At night on the river

From Comburg Fortress

Infront of the Evangilical Church (as apose to the Catholic one)

Sunset on the river in Scwäbisch Hall

Scaling the walls of Rothenburg, 'this place wasn't so safe afterall!'

A display showing the tools of torture. The one on the left is for slowly crushing femurs.

Understandably, this made Sabine very sad. It was actually kind of depressing after a while in the torture museum.

Caught!

On the way to the torture museum.

Warding off Ganghis Khan

Some medieval town in the countryside

On Saturday I took a one hour train ride north to the town of Schwäbisch Hall where I have a friend that I met at the University of Waterloo. We travelled around the countryside. Considering 82 million people live in Germany, an area about the size of Montana, or a third of Ontario, there is a lot of nature. Unlike most of Canada, there is nowhere (that I have seen) you can go in Germany where there is not some visible human impact on the landscape (i.e. a bridge, terracing, orchards, trees planted in rows), but there is lots of natural spaces to enjoy. We also visited the medieval town of Rothenburg, which was really well restored and/or maintained over the years. We visited the museum of crime, also known as the museum of torture. After this I decided that if I live 800 years ago I would have taken my chances outside of the "safe" city walls rather than deal with the ridiculous and severe punishments of life on the inside...yeesh I heard Singapore or the middle east was bad!

Raclette, kind of like Cheese fondue with potatoes

Zoe and Peter

Zoe and Manuel

Lausanne with Cathedral and Swiss and French Alps accross Lac Leman

Magali et Mounsieur et Madam Henry

Dolly with the Jura Mountain Range in background

Rainbow in the Jura

Medieval Church and Castle in Sion

Lost something?

Long way down!

Grimentz

Magali and Peter and the Val d'anniviers

Church in Grimentz

I was in the Swiss Alps for a week. I visited a few friends and stayed with them all for free, which was cool for the budget. I was hiking up to 2600 m above sea level two days in a row. The first day of hiking I was aiming to make it to a high mountain cabin overlooking a glacier near a 3000 m peak called Besso. The climb was fine at the beginning one hour walking along a glacial river, but after that it got considerably more steep and difficult to follow the trail. I got a picture of a Big horn mountain sheep that didn't really mind me being close by. The other sheep in the area were much more cautious always staring at me over a cliff from far away. It was nice to have the company as it was obvious that no one was going to follow my trail that day. By 1:30 pm after 5 hours of ploughing through snow up the side of the mountain I called it a day. I was still about an hour or more away from the Cabin and I was concerned that if it snowed overnight (which it did) and if there was low visibility (which there was) the next day, I wouldn't be able to follow the trail back. So I walked back to the village, reaching it around 5 pm. I got some amazing pictures though from those mountains, I was in the same group of peaks that the Materhorn (4400 m) is found in. These peaks are really high. The Rockies don't have anything like it. I went from 400 m above sea level in the Valley (crazy swiss girl driving me along the switchbacks) to 1600 m in the village to 2600 m, but the peaks still towered above me to 4000 m. It was remarkable! That night I slept in a room above a bar (the cheapest thing I could find) in Sierre, a town in the valley.

The next day I got smart and took a funicular and then a gondola to the equivalent height as the day before, but this time on the Northern flank of the valley. This side of the valley had almost no snow (except glaciers) because it faced the south. I had a much more pleasant time there walking around the ridges and stinking high cliffs in the area of the peak. The gondola (or arial tram) took me to the middle of an outstanding ski area. It looked so incredible! At one point I measured the height of one of the cliffs by throwing a rock over and listening for its impact below (or a shout from an angry hiker...either would suffice). It took 7 seconds for impact...which translates to about 240 metres (for those physics minded people out there I threw the rock straight out horizontally and my calculations assumed instantaneous sound travel and no terminal velocity). Anyway, 240 m may not sound too high, but the path was cut right along the top of it, for kids and families to walk along, those Swiss kids have no fear of heights! Not like me.
I spent time in Lausanne, Bienne and Zürich as well. Staying with Magali's parents Madam et Mounsieur Henry who are beet farmers. I got to taste a beet. I stayed with Manuel's parents the Racle's, his mom is a teacher and dad a superindendent of schools for the province (it took a long time to get the right word for this), and Nicole and her parents in Zürich, who treated me to a great Cheese fondue at a very swiss resteraunt.