After Doug posted some photos of our recent bike rides and hikes on Strava (an app where you post bike rides, hikes, runs, etc), someone left a comment asking if we were secretly working for the Swiss Tourism board.
It definitely feels like we are living in a glossy SBB (the Swiss train) brochure this year. The remarkably efficient train system can take us, along with our bikes, to any Swiss destination that we want, crossing canton and language lines. We seem to go to more and more beautiful places every time.
Several weeks back we stayed in Munster in the Vallée de Conches, cycling the epic Neufenen, Gotthard and Furka mountain passes (two climbs for me, three for Doug). The Gotthard pass connects the Italian speaking canton of Ticino to the German-speaking Valais canton, and was a major trade route dating back to the middle ages. The distinguishing feature of the road is that it is mostly made of cobblestone, and has at least 20 switchbacks. It’s definitely a bucket list kind of ride.
We came back to Lausanne, rested a day, and then were lucky to be able to help with the vendange (wine harvest) at Alain Chollet’s vineyard in Lavaux. His sustainably farmed vineyard is on the steep vineyards of Lavaux, where grapes are grown on the terraced vineyards constructed by monks dating back to the middle ages.
Alain invites less than 100 volunteers to come and participate in the harvest, and we were lucky enough to be picked out of the 600 or so people who applied. Our team of about 15 people were like the United Nations of vineyard workers - originating from all over the world but now living in Switzerland - volunteers from Germany, Hungary, France, Italy, Japan, and the U.S. The languages went back and forth, but no one seemed to notice. We worked in the morning, came in for a fantastic lunch prepared by Alain’s wife Corrine and daughters, and then went back out for some afternoon picking. We were rewarded with a bottle of wine for each hour worked - a nice bonus for a day’s work in a stunning setting!
My long gap in posting on this blog was precipitated by the sudden drop in temperatures accompanied by two weeks of rain just after the vendange. Between the grey skies, the constant rain, and the new fires in California, I just couldn’t bring myself to post. We’re getting used to the cold weather here, and now just bundle up and embrace the cold and rain. If only we could export some of this rain back to California!
