Adventures in Zurich: August 2014

Our little family has been quite busy since our last blog post. Sofia, like always, is growing and constantly surprising us with how much she observes and learns. Gina is working hard on her PhD and will soon travel to southern France to present some of her preliminary data at an international soil conference. I am busy working in the shop, supporting the students in our lab, and trying to find a community interested in using pee as fertilizer. It's proving more difficult that I had anticipated- apparently not everyone is as enthusiastic about the idea as I am...

In addition to our work we have continued to travel around Switzerland. The first trip we took after I last posted was to a little town just outside of Basel, where the ruins of a Roman auditorium, temple, and aqua duct can still be explored. Augusta Raurica, settled around 44 B.C., served as a center of trade for the Roman imperial project north of the Alps for several hundred years and today is a great place to go have an ice cream and learn a little something about the great Mediterranean empire. Although it has been renovated on several occasions, the auditorium is nevertheless still impressive; the scale and craftsmanship that went into it's construction is impressive to behold even today. After our trip to Basel we hosted Kate and her mom Denise. Despite the poor weather we still managed to catch a ride on the ferry out to Rapperswil.

After Kate and her Mom left things were quiet for a while, but for the last two weeks my family has been in town and we have been traveling all over Switzerland. The first week they visited we traveled through the Alps via the Glacier Express. Billed as the slowest express train in the world, it runs from St. Moritz to Zermatt, an eight hour trip through some of the most beautiful alpine geography I have ever seen. Meandering through deep valleys, up soaring granite ridges, past ancient lookout towers and over rushing blue rivers, the train slowly takes you across almost the whole length of Switzerland while you eat and drink in the lap of Swiss luxury. Like everything here the costs are outrageous but as a one time experience it was worth it. As we began our ascent up towards Zermatt, at the end of a perfect day, we were reminded that the mountains are and will always be mountains- even in Switzerland. After pausing for what we thought was a routine stop in a little village we were told a landslide had covered the tracks leading to Zermatt and that we would have to finish the trip in buses. So, in a pouring rain we disembarked and finished our trip on the glacier express in a bus.

The Matterhorn is impressive. A craggy, jagged tooth piercing the sky above Zermatt it has to be one of the most iconic and easily identified peaks in the entire world. We only got to see it for about five minutes during our trip due to chronic cloud cover but for those few minutes... whew.... what a sight. The city itself reminded both Gina and I of Aguas Caliente, the tourist trap sitting under Macchu Picchu. Both are a collection of narrow, cobblestone streets lined with stores hawking ridiculously priced outdoor apparel and horrible food. Despite the imperfect weather and the tourist vibe, Zermatt is unquestionably beautiful. The morning after we arrived we hiked our way to a little village up the mountain. Our path meandered through vibrant fields of wildflowers, over and along a steep, narrow river, and through traditional Swiss mountain villages. It was a wonderful hike.

From Zermatt we headed north to Interlaken, a city situated between two lakes. After dropping off our belongings at our hotel we rented some bikes and went for an afternoon ride to one of the lakes. Again, Switzerland is a gorgeous country with pastoral landscapes that are picture perfect. Our next stop was the history museum in Berne, which we eventually found despite my navigational blunders- due to heavy cloud cover and pouring rain. After deciding that I had no idea where we were going I made the clever choice to ask a local and was politely told that we were heading in the exact wrong direction. So we spun about 180 degrees and headed back the way we had come, this time being led by our gracious host. Upon arrival we trooped into a really incredible museum. The Bern history museum is worth a visit. Although I didn't actually get to read any of the captions due to Sofia's demands to be constantly moving, I am told that they were informative and entertaining.

Next up is a trip to Italy. We will meet Gina's Dad and brother at some town on some coast. I'm told the seafood is excellent.