Swiss Family Willis

Today we walked to a metro stop at 5am. When we arrived at our stop we hopped off and got some breakfast from a delicious cafe full of Greek yoghurt and baked goods.

We weren’t sure the ferry was going to leave because the last few days it didn’t leave because of stormy weather.

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• Coffee shops, bakeries, pharmacies, shoe stores.
• Cats and dogs.
• An incessant stream of traffic, 24/7. No gridlock, just heavy traffic flow.
• Friendly and super-helpful locals.
• Graffiti; much of it political as far as I can tell, and probably for good reason.
• Lots of lovely ‘old’ buildings (‘old’ is a relative term, here in Athens), many neglected.
• Quite a bit of really new retail, with tasteful, clever, fresh, brand aesthetic. It feels like there’s a youthfulness growing up amongst ancient roots.
• Wind. I think the last few days have been unusually windy. And wind over a dry ground means…
• Dust. The archaeological sites – particularly on the exposed Acropolis – were swirling with dust whipped up by the wind. Many an eye was smarted, and many a hat was chased.

To go into a bit more detail on subjects that take my fancy:

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Wow, where to start? Perhaps I’ll let the photos do the talking for now.

Athens is crazy cool. So much history – buildings that date back to before Christ! Like 2500 years ago! Amazing to be able to stand on the Areopagus, where the apostle Paul stood and had a wee korero with the Greeks about their ‘unknown God’

And the food! That might have to be another post. It’s so so good, healthy and cheap.

Ok some photos…

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We love the Saas region. They call themselves the ‘free republic of holidays’ a bit Swiss cheesy but I like it anyway. When you stay here in any accommodation you get access to the gondolas and buses for free. As many times as you like. So it’s awesome for families.

They boast views of 18 mountains that are over 4000m high, and have the worlds highest glacier run. And the ski slopes are 3600m above sea level so you can ski all year round. It was a bit strange seeing skiers walking through the gorgeous, car-free village in 20 degree weather, kitted out with all their gear.

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On our way to the Saas-Valley, we went through some impressive mountain ranges, including driving through the famous (infamous?) Gotthard Tunnel. Our GPS didn’t have much to say because we were pretty much following one road. We then came to a stop at a toll. We paid the fee (which thought was a bit strange as we already had the license to take toll roads in Switzerland) and passed on through.

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Today we went on a bus to Saas Fee, a mountain region in Switzerland. Then we went up a gondola and walked down a path. There we spotted some marmots. We slowly crept up to them and gave them peanuts. We fed two marmots and they were really friendly. One of them was hiding in it’s hole and when it finished it’s peanut, I would feed it another peanut by holding my hand out and it would slowly come out the hole, grab the peanut and go back in. Both of my brothers gave the marmot a kiss.

Marmots live high up in the mountains in Switzerland and they look like giant guinea pigs but way fluffier.

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We’re spending a few days in the Saas valley.

It’s great when your work is the internet, as the whole world is your office. Sometimes the view out your window is a brick wall.

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Sundays are quite special here. Shops are shut, like all the shops! And it seems most of Switzerland is out and about with family and friends, exploring, hiking, cycling, swimming, eating together… It’s a pretty cool atmosphere.

We combined two of my favorite things: hiking and Swiss mountains and took to Mt Rigi, an easy half-hour drive from our home in Altwis. There we took a gondola halfway up the mountain and did a 4 hour loop hike up to the top and back down. Part of the walk was called ‘the way of the cross’ so we thought it fitting (being Sunday and all) to take along some communion bread and wine (syrup!) and celebrate Jesus.

The views of the Vierwaldstättersee and surrounding mountains are stunning.

A well deserved ice-cream after in the beautiful village of Weggis.

There will be more posts of mountains and hikes ?

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Last Friday, we spent the day at Thermalbad Brigerbad. The pools are pretty awesome, there’s a 182-metre waterslide, we had some great weather, and it was an enjoyable time.

We drove to Brig via the Gotthard Tunnel and the Nufenen Pass. It’s steep, windy, alpine country. The Nufenen pass is the highest mountain pass with a paved road in Switzerland. It has amazing views; you can see the impressive Gries gravity dam (holding back the Griessee), some large wind turbines, and lots of rocks.

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On Friday, the 14th of September, we went to a swimming pool all the way out on the other side of Switzerland to a place called Brig.

It is set in a valley surrounded by mountains. It has the longest Alpine thermal waterslide in the world, at a shocking 182 metres long and it goes down the side of a mountain. Another cool feature at these pools is the turbulent pool, which had jets to push you along the loop. Every second half hour they ran the slide, and every other half hour they strengthened the turbulent pool. So we could alternate between the slide and the turbulent pool, with a 10-minute gap between them. That’s 20 minutes of the slide, 10 minutes of something else, 20 minutes of the turbulent pool, then 10 minutes of something else again, and it keeps repeating.

One downside to the pool was that it took 3 hours to get there. But on the way back, we saw some incredible sights. Mountain passes with crazy bends and huge dams on lakes.

Overall, the pool excursion was pretty cool, and it would be great to do it again sometime.