Swanning about in Switzerland - numero 2

Straight laced Swiss - no way!

Well, I used to perhaps think of the Swiss as being quite serious and strait-laced (maybe that was just a poor reflection on myself!), but the short stay in Zermatt showed an entertaining side to a village event, and one I wish was seen more often in the UK - a chance for the kids to have a bit of anarchy against authority!

A wonderful parade of all the rich variety of local folk tradition, old local costumes, music, and so on, was followed by what looked to be the old local fire brigade with its hand pumped water hoze.

Stranger still was the fact that every so often, the fire crew would aim their water nozzle at a house balcony and then let rip with a spray of hand pumped water, and if that didn't entertain them enough, they'd spray the watching crowd!

But after a little while, all became apparent - the local tradition was for children to stock up on water pistols, sprays, water balloons, etc., and then try to ambush the 'fire brigade' as they followed the parade around the village. T

he aim of the fire crew therefore was to try to anticapate where the kids would ambush them and then counter-attack!!
And of course, just occasionally, the spray would accidentally end up spraying the watching crowds or people on their balconys overlooking the parade.
The kids had a whale of a time, loved it if they managed to hit the fire crew, and loved it even more if they ended up soaking wet! And the crowd just soaked it all up (well apart from when your expensive new camera got an unexpected splashing of water!!)
All in all, an excellent way to round up a serious local parade and for the children to have a wonderful time too!

Ooh yes, and the water container also made an excellent cold store for the bottles of beer!

Swanning about in Switzerland - numero 1

Just back from holidays in Switzerland - travelling by trains, trams, cog railways, funiculars, buses, coaches, cablecars, bike, sledge, and of course by foot!!

Isn't it great that you can take a cable car or cog railway up a mountain and then walk back down - now that's what I call hard work!! The views were fabulous, and it also maybe saved me from the occasional heart attack. The thin air at the top of some of the mountains made some sightseeing a slow meander!

The Matterhorn and the Eiger were seen in glorious light against a clear blue sky, although it was cloudy and sometimes wet in between the good days - however, we probably had the best weather of the Swiss August, and it was back to rain for our departure from Geneva (just to get us ready for good olde England?).
One side affect of having a bright day amongst many dull days is that trips by cable car or cog railway up the main tourist attractions (Klein Matterhorn, Jungfraujoch, etc.) can be jam packed - to see a train looking liked ruch hour on the London underground was a sight that made a late afternoon trip up Jungfraujoch all the more worthwhile - most of the tourists were off back to their coaches and hotels by the time we made our trip, yet the scenery was still outstandingly beautiful and far better for photography! So, moral of the story, travel very early or towards the end of the day (allowing a couple of hours to look around) if you can.

No really weird sights to report, apart from the Swiss craze for building tunnels - they're everywhere from mountain footpaths via underground airforce hangers to high speed rail links under the Alps! And on a few of the rail routes, they use tunnels in the mountains to curve in a sort of 3D figure of 8 shape to climb up over mountain passes - quite spectacular!

It's also good to report that there are still a few big glaciers to see - and to find on one walk a sign that said that the nearby small marble quarry disappeared for one hundred years because the glacier 'grew' back to cover the quarry! It's hard though to miss the signs of a big retreat on most of the glaciers though.

One side affect of glacier retreat near Grindelwald was a huge rock fall - see http://snowheads.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?t=16696 for a few photos & http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=477hxSDb2yY for a short vieo clip of the dust cloud afterwards - we walked up the left side of the valley (as seen in the video clip) to a mountain hut / cafe ten days later and there's still a large mass of rock that has so far only partly slipped down several metres down (you can see the slip zone and the debris field in the photo below) - experts say that 400,000 cubic metres of stone (about 20 per cent of the endangered 650ft. high rock mass) had come crashing down.

There's now even talk of worries about tsunamis in some of the Swiss mountain lakes if a massive rockfall was to occur - this could create a wave that would then flood down a valley! In the meantime, think, observe and be safe.

Also earlier in the holiday near Zermatt, we saw where a massive 30million cubic metre rockfall (see photo) from a cliff (in 1991) blocked the valley - rather spectacular and just a little frightening when wou start looking up at all the massive mountains and cliffs surrounding you!!

Now every crack that I see on the side of a mountain starts to make me slightly nervous - one photo opportunity looking down into a narrow mountain gorge was rapidly abandoned when I saw a 30cm. wide and very long deep crack on the uphill side of a rock ledge that I was standing on - hasty retreat called for!