Switzerland was in my wishlist to visit since a couple of years ago. Some friends moved there and had invited me, and a Toastmasters Conference provided the perfect excuse to spend a few days visiting this beautiful, small and extremely expensive country. 10 days had to do it, starting in Zurich visiting Elena and Hendrick, and ending in Winterthur with the Toastmasters conference.
When I organized the days in between, I selected several cities to visit and only one mountain spot. After having seen them, I regret I had not put more mountain destinations in the agenda. Switzerland is really well organised for the travellers, and even solo travellers as me. Trains are expensive, but somehow affordable with some planning ahead, and you can get anywhere (even to the actual mountains) thanks to their dense network, which works like a Swiss clock.
When in Rome, do as the Romans do… and so we did as the Swiss do: we went hiking to a mountain. In this case, we started with Mount Pilatus in Luzern: which was my first experience with the Swiss Alps, where mountains welcomes thousands of visitors, especially from Asia, who want to get as high as possible, with the least effort… And they can do it: it is just a matter of money. Most mountains have a cablecar which takes you to the summit or to any intermediate stop, for a ridiculous amount of money. In the information office, you receive a map with all the possible routes, which are clearly marked on ground too.
We took the cablecar to an intermediate station and walked up to the next one. The main goal was not climbing to the summit, but getting to see the Lake Lucerne. We succeeded, and enjoyed lunch in a remote part of the track with amazing views. When we reached the upper station, we also had some fun riding the longest sommerroddelbahn (a dry toboggan, where you ride a wheeled cart) in Switzerland, before the rain took the scene and we had to go back by cablecar.
The day after, it was time to visit Zurich, although the day was not very pleasant (cloudy, cold and even rainy), and that did influence my perception of the city: just another German-like one, except for the huge lake (Zurichsee), which provides the city with an extra dose of charm. Our walk included Banhofstrasse, with all the extremely-expensive shops were lined up; walk up to Lindenhof to enjoy an interesting view of the city, and the mandatory visit to the main churches in the Fraumünster, Grössmünster and St.Peterskirche, which has the biggest clock in Europe (where else!?).
In the evening, we climbed Uetliberg, which is one of the mountains surrounding Zurich, with a good view over the city. Actually, we took a train to the summit, and we walked down back, climbing one mountain per weekend is already a lot.
After Zurich, I headed to Lausanne, a beautiful city by the Geneva lake. It has a nice city centre with plenty of slopes. It was a grey day and I devoted the morning to the Olympic museum, which I do recommend to everybody. During the afternoon, walking around the city, suddenly the sun found some space among the clouds, and locals started to enjoy every minute of sunshine as they could, like that girl who spontaneously sat on the grass with her coffee-to-go for a few minutes before resuming her way back to work or school.
Then, I took a train towards Interlaken, and this was probably the most beautiful train route from all the ones I saw. The tracks were on the upper part of a hill that started in the lake and that was full of vineyards, the sun was setting, and the local commuters had that face of tiredness and relax of those who finish a long working day.
Interlaken was the highlight of the week there: a small town between two lakes, and really close to the some of the highest mountains in Switzerland, and with all kind of activities to do (hiking, climbing, skiing, paragliding, …).
There are hundreds of hiking routes, so I decided to follow an advice I got in Zurich, and went for the Valley of the 52 Waterfalls: 6 km in a valley with the cliffs, typically formed by a glacier, and with waterfalls everywhere.
At the end of the valley, I took a cablecar to Schilthorn, a peak at almost 3000 metres where I could enjoy the breathtaking of three mountains over 4000 metres (Tiger, Münch and Jungfrau) emerging from a sea of clouds. This place happened to be under construction when a James Bond movie asked them to record part of it there, and the movie investment was the last boost it needed.
On my way back, I took a different path, stopped in Mürren and walked back on the upper part of the cliffs through the trees, in a route of 7 km with a significant slope down.
Before arriving to Winterthur, there was time for a stop in Lucerne, this time with a more city tourism approach. Lucerne is considered one of the most beautiful cities in Switzerland, and I do agree on this evaluation: difficult to compete with a medieval town in such a wonderful location, amid high mountains, and at the lakeside… Lucerne is an easy spot to visit, as the size is not very big, but its city centre, the Musseg Wall and the Chapel Bridge do deserve some time to wander and enjoy.
The last stop was Winterthur, which hosted the Toastmasters conference. Winterthur is a city north of Zurich, whose main highlights are some art and photo museums (which i could not visit as the only free day was Monday) and the revitalised Sulzer factory which is now home of offices and plenty of different businesses.
Although I had saved Monday to visit the city, we ended up in a small tour to two interesting spots near the German border: the Rheinfall, Europe’s largest plain waterfalls, and Stein am Rhein, a cozy and well-preserved medieval town near the Lake Constance, which made it a perfect climax for this interesting trip to a new country.
When taxi is not even an option to get to your accommodation from the airport, you already know you are in a very special place. This is the case for Venice, a city occupying completely over 100 islands, where cars have no access, and transportation looks to the water: private boats, vaporettos (the Venice equivalente to buses), water taxis, or romantic gondolas.
As the agenda for the weekend looks quite busy with little time for sightseeing, I decide to get up early and explore the city for a couple of hours before breakfast, and a couple of early bird colleagues join me. This happens to be a great decision, as this city of 60,000 inhabitants hosts an average of 100,000 daily visitors, which remove part of its charm, and none of them are there before breakfast. The city is almost ours.
In the early morning, Venice is an empty city. The narrow streets are only populated by some young people who come back from crazy party nights out, runners seizing the few hours without intense heat, some people unloading boats with goods for the bars and restaurants, and photographers looking for the best light for their postcard pictures. They are not the only photographers you see, as the still calm Piazza San Marco hosts a number of brides and grooms photo sessions, especially Asian ones.
When we arrive to the Gran Canal, an image strikes us: a huge cruise is being towed by two tugboats through the canal. Later we will see several posters announcing a referendum for limiting the access of those huge boats to Venice canale. Our local colleague explains us that Venice is considering limiting also the number of tourists a day, by asking for an access fee.
If you are planning to go to Venice, take just one advice: avoid the tourists, even if you are one of them… it is worth it.
During the traditional summer BBQ organised by my friend Javi, we agreed that the time for a new visit to Toulouse had arrived. This time it would include a new ingredient that the previous ones did not have: flying with him as a pilot. I like Toulouse, I like its food, several friends are also there, and flying for the first time in a small aircraft added an extra dose of adrenaline to the cocktail.
The adventure started a few days before my arrival to Toulouse. Javier sent me an e-mail with some options, with a message: “You will need to choose what to fly over, if the meteo allows it”. Inside, several options with pros and cons. We finally decided to go for a route he already made several times: flying to Auch, where we would have lunch, and then flying back. The main drivers for selecting this was obviously that taking a plane to go for lunch is quite a cool statement, plus it included the possibility to fly over Toulouse-Blagnac airport, and at least two take-offs and landings. It is important to remind here that Toulouse is home of the Headquarters of Airbus, as well, as the Final Assembly Line (FAL) of several of their models…
First thing we had to do (although that was done already for the previous time) was the Flight Plan. (Note this post uses the plural as a literary resource… the truth is that most of the “we” should be Javi, i.e. the pilot). That is, tracing the route you want to follow on the chart, plus writing the different tracks in a sheet of paper for the pilot’s convenience.
Once we arrived to the aerodrome, there were a number of checklists to be completed by all pilots to ensure everything is as it should be before the next step. There is a checklist before jumping into the plane, one before starting the motor, another one before entering into the runway… These checklists were followed by Javi to the word, and it is done today in every single flight too. Safety first is more than a nice thing to say when talking about machines that fly.
After refuelling, and the several checklist had been completed, we finally took off from Lasbordes Aerodrome (1) in F-GTPK, DR44. I must admit the first couple of minutes were not easy for me. I believe the adrenaline was not flowing enough to cope with the feelings with the first turn… But these took just a three minutes, then we started navigating which was fun (and I started the GPS tracker!). We requested permission to the controllers to cross the airport… which they denied, as there was commercial traffic at that moment, so we took a detour around Toulouse to be able to arrive to Such. This was a challenging part as we had to find a new checkpoint following the controllers indications and alter the original route.
Navigation up there is quite an interesting topic. These aircrafts do not have a visual GPS software to help the pilot, but quite sophisticated, but analog instruments plus a key tool: your eyes… That is why the pilot is entitled to fly “visual”. Navigation is all about having a chart in paper, and recognising the different elements (a town, a road, a mountain, a river, …) on the ground… once you find one of them, you trace a line to your destination, decide the heading and use some analog devices to follow the desired track. This is a challenging task. It is not easy to confirm that certain small town is indeed the one you are looking for, and it takes some time flying over an area to recognise them at first sight those points.
You can imagine how useful controllers are in these situations. They can help you find your way if you do not manage to do it yourself, and they provide traffic information in your route to make it a more pleasant journey. In the end, you are moving at 200 km/h and flying for a few minutes in the wrong direction can lead to a messy situation. Controllers are in charge of different zones, and when you cross from one to another, you shall change your radio to the new station, say hi, and they normally give you a code to tune your transponder. Now they can “see” you in the radar…
Once we managed to find the new route, it did not take us long to arrive to Auch aerodrome (A). This aerodrome has no control tower, so you have to do everything by yourself… like identifying which is the most appropriate pathway to use by checking the predominant wind direction or announcing by radio our intentions. Landing was softer than I expected (although adrenaline was also there landing with us), we parked the plane, and had lunch at Jean-Philippe’s restaurant with views to the aerodrome and our plane.
After lunch, it was time to continue our route through the Gers region to sight some castles. In this case, we had a particular goal to find Lupiac (D), also known as D’Artagnan’s town, as it hosts the two castles where the real D’Artagnan was born (Castelmore) and lived (La Plagne). We succeeded thanks to Javi’s previous work in Google Maps, and in the field (he had been in Lupiac before), and started our route back to Toulouse, with the only surprise of a couple of gliding aircrafts flying at the same altitude than us. When we arrived to Toulouse-Blagned, we were denied crossing it again, this time due to some photo shooting taking place, so we surrounded it, and landed in Lasbordes again… safely.
La salida náutica de mediados de mayo empieza a ser un ritual y esta vez, repitiendo base (Alicante), salimos hacia el “desconocido” Sur de la Isla de Tabarca. El plan era llegar al Mar Menor del tirón el primer día y volver tranquilamente en dos. Esto es muy útil para los tripulantes no iniciados: si sobreviven al primer día, aguantan todo.
La predicción reforzó nuestra idea inicial: el fuerte viento de poniente empujaría al Malta Blue hacia el Sur rápidamente. Así que cogimos todos los rizos que pudimos, repartimos Biodramina, y emprendimos el camino del Sur lo más separados de la costa que podíamos para minimizar las rachas de viento que se cuelan por los valles.
El fuerte viento por la tarde se convirtió en muy fuerte, con rachas de 25-30 nudos, y unas cuantas horas con el barco muy escorado. Así, llegamos a los diques del Canal del Estacio, donde esperamos la hora en la que se abriría el puente levadizo que esperábamos nos condujera al Mar Menor, donde disfrutaríamos de un fondeo tranquilo…o no.
En cuanto llegamos al Mar Menor, cambiamos de idea. La combinación fuerte viento y el bajo fondo del Mar Menor había convertido nuestro soñado fondeo relajado en una suerte de río bravo que nos hizo conocer el mayor puerto deportivo de España: el Tomás Maestre (A).
Al día siguiente, navegamos un poco por la mañana por el Mar Menor, nos dimos un baño en mitad del mismo, y enfilamos de nuevo el Canal del Estacio en dirección al Mar Mayor. Este nuevo cruce fue bastante espectacular: nos colocamos en la “pole” de una flota de 15 o 20 barcos que lentamente cruzamos hacia el Mediterráneo… Ir avanzando por el canal esperando que el puente se abra antes de que tú llegues es ligeramente emocionante.
Ya en el Mar Mayor, con una meteorología mucho más apacible, pero que todavía nos permitía la navegación a vela, nos dirigimos a Cabo Roig (B). Aquí pasamos un agradable fondeo a mediodía, para acabar navegando por la tarde a la Marina de las Dunas de Guardamar (C), en la desembocadura del río Segura. Si estás leyendo esto: ojo con el canal de entrada y su baja sonda…
El último día, vuelta al puerto de Alicante, con la parada de rigor en Tabarca (D) para comernos un buen arroz en Gloria. Con todo los imprescindibles completos, vuelta al puerto de Alicante a tiempo de repostar, y coger el tren de vuelta a Madrid… antes de la siguiente salida.
Photos by Sara.
In one of my visits to Strasbourg, we visited the Ligne Maginot. This is a line of hidden fortifications, that France built after the World War I in order to protect the country from a potential attack from Germany, especially in what referred to Lorraine and Alsace, two regions that have changed nationality several times in the history.
This defines line was made up of 45 main forts, and 97 smaller ones, and pursued several specific goals: serve as early alarm, hide the mobilisation of the French army, and protect the country in case of an attack through that border.
The mentioned forts consisted of underground bunkers, where the soldiers lived, waiting for an attack. Its construction employed a 25% of the whole country budget, between 1930 and 1935, and was made of the highest quality, with plenty of electrical appliances.
We visited one of these forts, and could imagine the life there. 580 men, called themselves, crew, as life in those forts was more similar to a submarine than a “regular” fort. This fort had 6 towers on the surface to attack (with guns) and to surveil, and more than 500 meters of underground tunnels. Other forts had several km of tunnels, though.
In the end, this line did not prevent the invasion of France, as Germany took the “long way” through the Netherlands and Belgium, and France could not check the effectiveness of such a large investment.
