Switzerland and Lake Geneva

This is our only post about our trip through Switzerland and along the Lake Geneva.

Arriving in Basel was pretty amazing, the temperature increased a lot and the city welcomed us openheartedly with its multicultural and open minded attitude. It’s a nice and clean city not much littering along the streets, also it felt very relaxed and we couldn’t see much of the everyday stress you normally do. But the best part about Basel was our host, a really open minded and creative guy. We owe a great deal to him and we really found us a new friend.

We took the train to Meiringen to start our hike on the Via Alpina Trail 1, it was harder than we expected and the climb up our first alpine mountain took us a whole day. It was not only a tough climb but also since we had rested for a week we felt like it became harder than it should’ve been. During this first day we also had our first “breakdown”.

People who talk about their long distance hiking and finding themselves often talk about the point where they just couldn’t keep going, it was too tough or they just didn’t want to anymore. This was our first such point and there will probably be more of them. We walk nearly every day; we sleep almost always in our tent on hard ground, our muscles are sore and we are often tired mentally. Dehydration and not eating when you should is also quite common when hiking like we are, the amount of food we have to eat is far greater than before we started, in other words; it’s very hard to keep up a good diet and not get tired. These things have a lot to do with why we had a breakdown but also most importantly are that we are getting to know new sides of each other and ourselves that we are not used to.

We figured it out though and it gave us more strength to carry on. We learned, evolved and kept going. This didn’t kill the whole experience of the Alps though, the mountains and all of its white summits and vast glaciers. It was more than we could ever hope for. Waterfalls everywhere made the whole thing even more magical. The mountains provided clean water springs and in the extreme heat we had these days made us appreciate these springs a lot.

Good thing is that Vattie drinks from these springs and sometimes we also dip her in them so she keeps her cool on the trails. The heat could sometimes be more intense and when it gets too hot Vattie stops and wants to go no further. But as soon as we got up on higher ground she could play around and cool herself down in the snow.

The days we had in the higher mountains were amazing and the nights sometimes terrifying, most of the nights we had was rainy and windy, but worst of all was the thunderstorms. However foggy it got the mountains just kept getting more beautiful along the way so we never complained about the weather.

After 40km along the trail we had to take a detour since the mountain we were supposed to climb were closed and the trail around too because of too much snow. We chose to take the Via Alpina Trail 37 from Spiez to Gstaad, a 56km trail through a valley and up two alpine mountains where we also had the possibility to climb the mountaintops, we had some amazing views from up there.

Along this trail we got to a mountain lake above 1500 meters above sea level. It was only 7 degrees Celsius in the air but we couldn’t miss the chance of strip naked and jump in. It was so cold that you could barely feel your skin, at the same moment we got our clothes back on our skin started to burn and it felt so good. It was way more refreshing than what it sounds like but also an amazing feeling and experience.

When we arrived in Gstaad Cecilia and Vattie was tired and the next mountain we were supposed to climb was said to be really tough so instead of pushing through to climb “just another mountain”, we decided to enjoy a little more flat leveled hiking. We took the train to Montreux to walk the south side of Lake Geneva. Montreux is a beautiful city, in combination with the lake, mountains and the tropical heat we felt like we had taken the train to somewhere tropical, like really on vacation.

On the south side of the lake we also crossed the French border and it was pretty noticeable, especially in the sense of culture, prices and littering! While we felt like the heat slowed our pace down and we couldn’t push too much we still had more littering to clean up, so it didn’t quite feel like a vacation for us. Even though one could think we did, we didn’t even climb a mountain!

It was clear that Switzerland spends more effort and money on handling the trash. We also received more praise for our project as soon as we entered France. The praise we got from those in Switzerland was often tourists themselves. Another thing with the south side of the lake that was not to our liking; No hiking trail! No matter how much we asked tourist information or bookshops that sold maps, everyone said that it was possible to walk the whole south side of the lake even though there was no map of any trail there. We decided to try anyways.

We ended up walking 90% of the way by a big road with a lot of traffic, no wonder since people live in France and work in Switzerland and this is the only connection between the two countries on the south side. We complained a bit but the reward of being able to swim everyday in the beautiful waters of Lake Geneva was worth it.

Vattie had to swim in the waters everyday to keep cool, the heat would have been too much otherwise since we are not used to it yet. She has always been a little skeptic about water, how it swallows people and makes sticks float. We decided to get her used to it and teach her to swim or at least like it. It took less than 5 minutes to get her there, first her swimming style was a little bit panicked and very clumsy but after a week or more by the lake she is now a swimming expert, she even picks up stones from the bottom of the sea. A new hobby which she loves more than we ever thought she would.

We thought of doing a “Wildlife of Switzerland” post from this as well but since we haven’t had the same luck and time here as we did in Germany we have far from the same material to do that kind of post from Switzerland. Seeing a wild Ibex was a dream and will stay a dream for now, but the pitch black alien looking salamander we expected to see in Schwarzwald we got to see here instead. Get a look at this guy!

Instead we dedicated our second project to other people, specifically other hikers in Switzerland. It’s amazing to see how different people can be from one another but still all these different people come back to what they like the most, nature. So we’re going to make a photo gallery of just the other hikers we’ve met along the way and you’ll be able to find the gallery on our webpage somewhere during the next week.

As we mentioned the Swiss mountains are quite clean from littering but still we found 180 liters of trash among the mountains. That’s 180 liters of trash where almost no people exist on a daily basis, we have picked it and we have also disposed of it in a responsible manner. You’re welcome Switzerland. However on the French side of Lake Geneva we have picked up 660 liters of trash, most of it quite close to roads or by the water. In total this month that’s 950 liters of trash, and in total since we started 4000 liters of trash now gone from the nature.

You can now expect weekly updates from us again and we as always look forward to much more adventure.

Au revoir, Á bientôt!