Fresh off the mountain high of the Kofel in Oberammergau, Germany, Tom and Jim were eager for more Alps. So they slung on their still-overpacked backpacks and headed south into Switzerland. Another snowstorm muffled the noise of the train as each of them pictured scenes straight out of their grade-school geography books: snow-capped peaks, clear mountain lakes, cheese wheels as big as Conestoga wheels, and, of course, men in trachten—traditional Swiss clothing—sending deep, mellow echoes across the mountains through their long wooden alphorns.
The train pulled into Zurich’s Hauptbahnhof exactly
on time—this was Switzerland, after all, and precision in all things was
expected. Stepping outside, the boys
found themselves on Bahnhofstrasse—the Rodeo Drive of Switzerland. Stomping
around in their heavy boots, well-worn jeans, and unwieldy backpacks, the boys felt
more than a little out of place as they passed impeccably kept stores filled
with jewelry, furs, expensive chocolates, and watches. Everything felt
polished, efficient, and extremely prosperous—ultra wealth on full display. This
was not the type of terrain the boys wanted to explore, and they made plans to
leave the next morning.
Despite warnings from fellow backpackers that
valuables had a way of disappearing in the city’s youth hostel, Tom and Jim
booked two bunks. It turned out to be the largest hostel they had stayed in up
to that point. But “large” did not translate into “comfortable,” and with size
came many more “guests”—not all of whom concerned themselves with the rules. When the lights went out, two Brits got into
an argument about the right to smoke—prohibited in the hostel—and then into an
even more heated exchange about a recent Time Magazine cover depicting an ape in
a story about a recent discovery and evolution.
“The head is all out of proportion,” one of
them said. “You can’t reconstruct an entire monkey from a jawbone.”
“It’s an ape, not a monkey.”
“And you’re a wanker.”
Fortunately, this deeply philosophical
discussion did not come to blows. But Jim was tempted to leap from his bunk to
confront an Aussie who was eating noisily while talking loudly to someone not
responding and laughing uproariously at his frequent and thunderous flatulence.
The next morning, on one of the first trains
out, Tom and Jim agreed to steer clear of hostels in big cities. Smaller
hostels were less crowded, more comfortable, and tended to attract travelers
more attentive to the written and unwritten rules of the road.
In Lucerne, they found a city closer to what they
had imagined Switzerland would be. Set against the dramatic backdrop of Mt.
Pilatus and the Swiss Alps, Lucerne’s pristine lake and the river Reuss, while
alive with both commercial and pleasure craft, offered the hoped-for peace and
quiet after a long night of guarding their backpacks and listening to inane
arguments and scatological sound effects.
The
weather was unseasonably warm, so they spent much of the day walking the city’s
famed covered wooden bridges, including the famous Chapel Bridge, built in the
14th century, and its paintings from 16th century, depicting scenes from the bible, the city's history, its patron
saints, and its sponsoring families' coat of arms. (In 1993, a fire damaged
most of the 158 paintings. To date, only 30 of them have been restored.)
In his journal, Tom recorded that the town
had a natural harmony: gulls squabbling over bread on the lakeshore, people
moving at ease along the water and on the bridges, seemingly unaware of—or simply
taking for granted—the beauty that surrounded them.
And those mountains.
“Here in Lucerne,” he wrote, “it’s the first
time I felt the thrill of real mountains—a natural high, buzzing through me in
a way I’d never known before.”
Interlaken and Grindelwald
From Lucerne, the boys pushed deeper into the
Alps. They stopped briefly in Interlaken, where the weather, unlike Zurich, was
pleasantly cold and snowy. Jim was more taken with the town than Tom was. Though
a bit “touristy” (a four-letter word among “seasoned” backpackers), he enjoyed—for
maybe the first and last time in his life—window shopping along the town’s
clean, well-maintained streets. He wanted to linger by one of the lakes, but both
he and Tom were eager to get to yet another must-see town, according to fellow
backpackers
Grindelwald sat in a valley beneath the Eiger, the Mönch, and the Jungfrau mountain peaks. After checking in at the (smaller) hostel, they hiked together to get a better view of the Eiger. Then, they split up for the rest of the day to explore on their own, agreeing to meet at the hostel that evening.
At the end of the day, he found Jim by a
roaring fire outside the hostel, staring up at the sky, looking as relaxed as
he’d ever seen him.
“Never seen so many stars,” Jim mumbled when
Tom pulled a chair up. “Let’s splurge. How about a beer? Just one?”
As they drank more than one beer, Tom
told Jim about Barb. Jim had also met a girl, Eve, during his wanderings, but
their time together had been short. Eve was, in her words, “all cultured out
with cities” and much preferred the countryside. Jim sensed some promise there—until
her traveling companion showed up: a guy who didn’t speak English but needed no
words to convey that third wheels were most unwelcome.
Tom and Jim finished their beers and headed into the hostel for the night, They were reluctant to leave Grindelwald—and maybe a chance to meet some more women who enjoyed mountains and fire pits—but they needed to keep moving before their Eurail passes expired. Next stop: Venice!
***
That was the "Then." Now for the Now. Click on the video below for the boys' reflections on their time in Switzerland.
