Friday, December 04, 2009

Amden




My parents visited for two weeks at the end of November. We drove up to Amden, which is in the foothills of the Alps. Instead of just walking around town, we decided to ask the tourist center for a nice, family-friendly hike. He suggested that we take the bus for a short ride up into the hills, where we could then take a nice 3.5 - 4 hour hike, finishing at the top of a chair lift, which we could ride down. We wondered about the dog on the chairlift, but he assured us it would be no problem. Boy, were we glad that we rode the bus. It was a long way up, but we knew, once we got to the top, it would be nice and flat; after all, the tourist center had told us that the hike had little elevation change. Wrong! This is, afterall, Switzerland. What the tour center meant to say was that the elevation was roughly the same at the starting point and ending point -- what happened in between was typically Swiss -- trails went up, and trails went down. What were we thinking? When will we learn? We started the hike by continuing to climb to the top of the hills. We were rewarded with some amazing views, and lunch at a farmer's barn. They served great bratwurst, sodas, beer, and even some Paprika (bbq) chips. John and I thought the lunch was very reasonable. My parents thought it was a bit pricey. Welcome to Switzerland!


After lunch, we realized that we had taken a wrong turn from our original loop, so we headed back to catch the path. All the while, a certain two males (John and C.J.) kept telling us that they'd "told us so", but who were we to trust? The guys with the map or the rest of the hikers who all seemed to be heading uphill to the lunch barn? Our new trail was no longer the nice, groomed trail that we had taken off course. We literally walked through people's farms. We knew we were on a trail, though, as there were regular painted rocks with yellow diamonds, indicating the walking trail. Even the farmers had markings on their houses and barns. We continued to walk downhill, until we realized that we were nowhere near the chairlift. Ok, this time we knew we were off course, but there was no way that we could take the original loop and get off the trail before dark. Remember that great bus ride at the start? Well, we ended up climbing downhill the whole way.
Lucky really enjoyed being off leash and walking with us the entire way. She especially enjoyed the field that had just been sprayed with fertilizer. You know, the kind produced by the farmer's very own cows. Unfortunately, the boys didn't enjoy the smell of Lucky sitting between them on the ride home. Lucky got to finish off her day of excitement with a bath. Fortunately, it is very easy to bathe Lucky in this house -- a very handy feature since this was not the first emergency bath Lucky has received and most certainly won't be the last.
Obviously, family-friendly means something different in the U.S. than it does in Switzerland. But, we all agreed it was a wonderful place to hike and a highlight of my parent's trip.

Here's the slideshow of our adventure.

2 comments:

Craig said...

Amden looks like a very pretty area. I need to look at a map to see where it is. Sounds like a great hike and lunch. The price sounded about right to me, but I did hear some grumbling about it. Our parents must not have gotten out enough to know it was a deal by Swiss standards. I can't imagine crossing the fertilized field. Maybe you need a handheld GPS device. ;-)

I looked at a map. We were looking toward that area when we walked the boardwalk bridge in Rapperswil.

Marci said...

Don't think the GPS would have helped. We knew exactly where we were going. We just had to get there! Dad did mention that he wished he had brought it so that we would have known how far we hiked. Crossing the fertilized fields was fine. I wouldn't want to roll around like a certain 4 footed creature, but otherwise is was just a light spray and wasn't like you were walking through steaming piles.

If you heard grumblings about lunch, I can only imagine the comments you got about dinner -- which, by the way, we also thought was quite reasonable. Glad we didn't take them to our other choices!