Brendan has his overnight field trip this Wednesday, so we figured we should break in the hiking shoes this weekend. On Saturday, we took a short 30 minute hike. Here, the gang is at the entrance to the forest, directly across from our house. This part of the passageway has a lot of loose rocks. Combined with the downhill slope, it isn't the best footing. Fortunately, the main walking trails are compacted and provide excellent stability for walking or running. (Just in case we have any runners visit.)A few meters into the forest, we have this meadow. We're hoping that we can build some sled runs into it during the winter since our yard is flat.
A great thing about hiking in Switzerland, is that all the trails are really well marked. This sign says that it would be a 50 minute walk to Kusnaucht. It also says that it is either 15 or 20 minutes to Zumikon, which is our town. It's a 10 minute walk for us to get to the town center from our house, but we go a direct route that isn't in the trails -- it's a combination of streets and pedestrian passageways.
The kids loved running into these horses. There doesn't seem to be a farm house in sight, but there is a great barn with 3 horses living inside. You can tell someone regularly cares for the horses, because there are pots with beautiful flowers surrounding the barn.
It was at this point that we turned around the first day. We didn't want anyone to get blisters in their new shoes! On the way home, we stopped to consider these piles of wood. We had thoughts of bringing our wagon into the woods with us and loading up on firewood. (John thought a chainsaw might be in order as well.) I did some online research, and it doesn't look like you can legally haul firewood out of the forest for personal use. Whoever owns the forest, sells the wood.
On Sunday, we decided to walk to Kusnaucht, which is about an hour away and mostly downhill. Kusnaucht borders Lake Zurich. There is a local bus that runs between Kusnaucht and the center of Zumikon, so we wouldn't have to walk uphill the entire way home. You can see that this path is much more compacted and easier for hiking, walking, or running.
We love that there are even stairs carved into the trails so that you have sure footing when you get to steeper hills. And, if there are sharp drops, then they add handrails!
There are streams/rivers running along some of the trails. C.J. pointed out that if we were on the show "Man vs. Wild", we'd know how to find Lake Zurich by following the flow of the rivers. Smart kid!
Just before the end of the trail... proof that I went on the hike too!
Right after this quick photo stop, we entered the town of Kusnaucht -- exactly 50 minutes after we looked at the guidepost that said "Kusnaucht, 50 min." Actually, now that I'm typing it, I doubt the sign had the abbreviation for minutes, but we knew that it was minutes!In Kusnaucht, we stopped for a drink at a small cafe. We ran into Brendan's friend Nicola. Then, we ran into another family from ICS. Turns out he works with John; although, John hadn't met him. I had previously met the wife, who showed up at the end of our conversation. She is from the States and he is from the UK. Abbie recognized that the daughter attended ICS. We knew they were new to the school when the daughter turned to the dad and said, " What is ICS? Is that my school?"
From there, we wandered down to the train station and checked out the bus schedule. Hmmm. Looks like we still have a bit of learning to do about Sunday operations in Switzerland. The local bus from Kusnaucht to Zumikon doesn't run on Sundays! It was time for a new game plan. Fortunately, the trains do run on Sundays, so we took the train into Zurich and went to a Mexican restaurant for dinner in Old Town. The food was quite good, but it didn't satisfy any cravings for Mexican food. Well, John did point out the tortillas and the guacamole were both fresh and tasty. The fajitas lacked any Mexican flavor, but they were delicious with lots of green onions and mushrooms. The service was horrendously slow. 30 minutes elapsed between the time the kids were served and John and I were served. The server did put together a special platter for the kids with quesadillas, mozzarella sticks, and chicken wings which were basically just fried chicken wings -- they didn't have any sauce like you'd get at home (but that was a plus for the kids!).
On the way home, we made a HUGE discovery (at least in C.J.'s mind). Globus offers mint chocolate chip ice cream! C.J. said it was even better than the ice cream at home. The Swiss love ice cream, and there is a cart/stand on every corner, but until yesterday, I hadn't found any mint chocolate chip. I'd even checked every grocery store I'd entered. C.J. had branched out a bit and tried Swiss Chocolate ice cream which he said was like a frozen, really good hot chocolate, but he missed his first love. (He only tried the Swiss Chocolate after the rest of us kept getting ice cream and he was left with nothing because he refused to get any flavor other than Mint Chip. He is slowly learning that sometimes it is good to try something new!)
John and I had actually visited Kusnaucht by car on Saturday. His bike suffered some damage during the move -- the light broke off and the gears aren't shifting. In addition, the chain snapped on our last ride. We found a great bike shop. The owner didn't speak any English but we are reasonably confident that John is getting a new chain, light, kickstand, bell, and the gears fixed. I'm sure some of you are laughing about the addition of a bell to his bike -- the owner assured us that we needed one, as it is the law in Switzlerland and John would get a ticket without one. And, we did have someone use their bell to signal us to move to the side of the trail while hiking yesterday.
The big question now is just how efficient are the Swiss? Will these trails be plowed for us in the winter?
3 comments:
Loved your latest blogs. Great pictures.
That's cool that Brendan has hiking shoes. Too bad he didn't have them when we were in Yosemite. Smart to break them in.
The forest looks awesome. Have you found any trees that look particularly cool to climb?
The meadow will be awesome for sledding and/or a toboggan run. You could even build a jump.
Neat stumbling onto horses. Next time you should bring them a treat.
I like the bench to stop and rest on.
Great trails!
What fun running into people you know.
We had Mex last night for dinner. It was very tasty. We even had dessert - a fried apple pie rolled in cinnamon and sugar with a side of cinnamon ice cream.
Happy for CJ that he found one of his favorite foods.
Sorry John's bike suffered some damaged. I think having a bell on a bike is a great idea. Seems to me East Bay Parks requires them too. I agree that they come in handy when on trails or when passing people on streets, etc. Not quite sure how you learned about it being the law if the store owner didn't speak any English.
I may have had the hiking shoes for Yosemite as I bought them at home, but it probably wouldn't have been good to have him wear them for that hiking experience. They did mention Yosemite during our hike. They said there were about a million stairs on their hike with you!
As for the bike owner. After we pointed to and demonstrated the things that need to be fixed, the shop owner walked over to a bike with a bell and rang it a few times. We shook our heads no that we didn't want a bell. He said a few words and then mimed a police officer writing out a ticket. We said "Ah-ha! It must be the law." Then, we shook our head yes to indicate that we would like to have one.
We're not sure if we can bring the horses treats or not. There are signs posted by them. I need to take a picture of the sign so that I can translate it. (Our normal procedure for signs we run into that we feel a need to know what they say.) We also took photos throughout our first visit to IKEA of different pieces of furniture with close ups of the price tags and descriptions so that we could remember what we considered.
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