Lugano Easter Weekend

For Easter Torrey had 2 1/2 days of holiday and Claire had an entire week.  We decided to go biking in Lugano which has a reputation for having good biking. Plus it is a few hours south and a bit warmer than Zurich.  Thursday morning Claire wrote a final exam (7 week intensive course in Conservation Biology) then  off the the train station.  We arrived in Lugano about 5pm and rode our bikes to Guesthouse Castagnola where we were staying.  It was small suite in a very old house, but beautifully renovated with the right balance of modern and antique.  Our micro-kitchen was very "micro" with just a hotplate so we decided to go out for dinner.  Dinner was quite good but as usual in Switzerland very expensive, with the exception of cheap wine.  I guess in the Italian part of Switzerland you can't have expensive wine.

Expresso to start the day.

Ready for a day of biking.

 Friday, we went on a long mountain bike ride on a big peninsula that just out into Lake Lugano.  It was supposed to be a 3 hour bike ride, but it took us quite a bit longer than that.  Lugano is quite hilly so we began with a steep climb up to a small village.  Then onto a rocky single track for a while.  This was a bit more than I (Claire) expected for mountain biking but after overcoming my initial fears I managed to do quite well.  I'm sure it would have been easy for Matthew.  That was the most technical part the the ride. The remainder was various types of paths, mostly through chestnut forest and a little bit of road, with more up than down.  We passed numerous churches, a few little villages, and farms.

Passing through Lugano on our way to the trails.

The first leg of our bike.

A set of stairs our our bike ride along the side of an old church.

A brief stop in downtown to take in some of the Easter festivities. 

Easter is all about bunnies and eggs.

After a long but good day of biking we made a pretty good meal on our hotplate thanks to Patak's (curry in a jar) and headed out to a Good Friday concert.  It was excellent, especially because it was free.  Bach's Mass in D minor and Bach's Easter Oratorio.  None of the pictures turned out very well but these two at least give you an idea of what it was like.

It rained all Friday night, so although it wasn't raining on Saturday morning, it would have been pretty wet for biking. So we saw some of the local sites instead. We took a funicular up Monte San Salvatore (the pointy mountain you can see in the first picture).

View of Lugano from top of the church on top of Monte San Salvatore.

Looking towards Italy.

They had pictures of many of the funiculars in Switzerland complete with a brief history.  This one looks like fun.

We took an afternoon boat cruise to the Customs Museum, put together I suspect to educate the average person about what they shouldn't bring into Switzerland.  It was still quite interesting, and we got to watch a great storm while we waited for the boat. 

Sunday, we planned on biking on taking our bikes up another funicular and bike at the top.  However, the unmanned funicular clearly didn't take bikes, so we left them at the bottom. Turns out it is a two stage funicular and if we had rode up to the next station we could have put our bikes on.  It turned out OK as it was incredibly windy and cold at the top.  So we wandered around for a short while and came back down.  

Going up the unmanned funicular.

Waiting for the 2nd stage of the funicular to get going.

Another typical day in Switzerland.

We were running out of things to do so we rode our bikes out to a small lake, which was quite nice but we were ready to leave.  Turns out we got on the wrong train, our train was to leave at 1:12, apparently there is another that leaves at 1:10 also to Zurich.  We got on the one leaving at 1:10.  This normally isn't a problem with our GA cards, but our bike reservations were for the other train, and there are a limited of bike spaces on the train.  Fortunately, the train conductor was understanding and after Torrey hung our two bikes on one rack all was OK.  When Torrey asked why there are two trains leaving so close together the response was very Swiss.  Apparently the trains from Italy are always late, so the first train is for the Swiss (who are on time) and the second is for the late Italians.  

We arrived back in Zurich and apparently while it had poured with rain in Lugano it had snowed in Zurich. 

Our long weekend in Mallorca

Just over a week ago, we took a Friday and Monday off to get some sunshine with a trip to Mallorca (or Majorca), which is one of the Balearic islands off the south coast of Spain in the Mediterranean.

It's a really convenient trip from Zurich - Swissair has a direct flight on Friday afternoon which is just two hours in the air.  We left at 3pm, after doing our CrossFit Open 12.1 workout that morning.  We had some minor glitches with our transportation when we arrived in Palma, and ended up taking a taxi to where we were staying in Port de Soller, around the middle of the north coast of the island.

We were at "Agroturismo Muleta de Ca S'hereu", up on the hill above the bay, and it was one of the highlights of the trip.  The views were fantastic, the room was very nice with a high ceiling and windows on three walls.  The building is surrounded by olive groves, as well as almond trees and a wandering herd of sheep.  Here's a picture from our window the night we arrived.  You can see most of the town below us.

The next morning we enjoyed a hearty breakfast and then hiked south to the small town of Deia, along the coast.  The weather was perfect for hiking.  It reminded us a lot of previous February trips to northern California.  The trails were old and sometimes rough, paved with stone and going along stone walls through olive groves, past orange orchards, and with great views of the ocean in places.

After lunch in Deia, we hiked back along a slightly different route to return to Soller, the larger, inland town associated with Port de Soller.  (Have a look at Google Maps or Google Earth).  We explored a little, and then explored a lot more as we got lost searching for a supermarket.  After almost two hours of wandering the maze-like streets and asking for directions three times, we eventually found it, and bought ourselves some dinner & picnic lunch for the next day.  It ended up being a very long day of walking.

Claire was happy for a chance to practice her Spanish, except when she started speaking German or French mixed in!  However, it was obvious to her that her Spanish is still much better than her German. Soller and Port de Soller are connected by an antique tram system, which was bumpy but fun to ride, and apparently quite an attraction, as it was full of people.

The second day was just as beautiful as the first.  We woke up to this view of the town:

After breakfast, we went down the hill into Port de Soller to explore, and also hiked a little up on the hill north of town which you can see in the picture above.  We had a picnic lunch by the old tower above town (just a dot on the horizon in the picture above), explored the marina, enjoyed a cold drink on the beach, and then dinner at one of the many restaurants.

The next morning (our last day) was very leisurely.  After breakfast we caught a bus to Palma, the main city, and wandered through the old part of town there, mainly trying to do some shopping.  We brought home some excellent oranges, lots of almonds, some olives, olive oil, and some other goodies. 

Maybe we will go back another time and explore Palma a little more, but we didn't have enough time that day.  The flight left around 5pm and we were back in chilly grey Zurich in time for our usual early bedtime.

There are more pictures (the best 30 out of over 200) of the weekend here on Google Plus.

A week in New York

Hi everyone... It's been a long time since we did a blog post!

I spent a week in New York a few weeks ago, mostly for work.  I landed on Friday afternoon after an 8-hour direct flight from Zurich.  I hate flying.

After landing at JFK, I made my way (slowly) through US immigration, the AirTrain, and then the New York subway system straight into the Google office for food, a US power adapter for my laptop, and a data connection.  After getting all that sorted out I went for a walk on The High Line, a really cool elevated park through the city which was built on top of an abandoned elevated train line.  After that I was exhausted (felt like 3 AM) and I got to bed.  My hotel room was exactly as long as the bed, and the floor space was exactly the width of the door and length of the bed.

Jetlag woke me up before dawn, so I headed back to the office.  A few hours later, my co-worker Arno was awake and we headed out to explore the city.  I managed to see a lot in one day...

• Walked through Central Park
• Visited the New York City Museum
• Walked through Harlem
• Lunch from a deli
• Visited the Cloisters Museum
• Out for dinner, caught up with another co-worker Bas who had just arrived
• After dinner, got a tattoo... it's from Tolkien, and means "Day shall come again".  I'll have to post a longer explanation some other time.

The next day (Sunday was also busy. I started with a workout at Crossfit New York (the Black Box), signing up for a one-week membership.  I managed to work out there 5 days out of the 8 I there - it was an interesting place, a bit different than other Crossfit gyms with more of an emphasis on heavy weightlifting, and a real New York attitude from at least one of the trainers, a tiny, slightly scary woman who chewed people out if she thought they weren't pushing hard enough :-)

After a shower and breakfast at the Google office, I went shopping.  New York may be expensive by American standards, but it's really cheap compared to Zurich!   Bed, Bath, and Beyond as well as Trader Joes were highlights.  I had also pre-ordered a ton of stuff from Amazon, including a suitcase to put it all in, so I came home with a lot more than the little carry-on I had taken with me.

That afternoon I caught up with my co-workers again, and we headed out again, this time visiting the New York Public Library and Grand Central Station.  After all that, we went out to a jazz club and got dinner while listening to an amazing jazz show.

Monday through Friday was mostly work, not so interesting to write about.  But here's a bunch more of the better pictures I took.  I recommend you click through to see them on Google Plus...  they look a lot better there.

Broadway

Snowshoeing in Einsiedeln

On Sunday we went to Einsiedeln, which is a popular ski area close to Zurich (45 minutes by train). It was a perfect day for snow-shoeing, cold and sunny. I found a route plotted by someone using their phone. It is difficult to find good trail maps online, I think because everyone just "knows" these things and they are very well signed. But you need to know where to start and which direction to head, this is where a map would be useful.  The route was about 15km and took us about 8 hours, including quite a few breaks.

Benedictine Monastery. 

Possibly gold plated (or a very good gold paint), statue of Mary.

Start of the hike, you can see the Monastery behind me.

It was very cold at the start of the hike, especially as we were in the shade, at least -10 C I'd guess. We made good use of the ballaclavas and gloves Mom gave us for Christmas.

We took a break at this spot, overlooking Sihlsee. (A See is a lake, in German... so Lake Sihl)

Sihlsee and a little village.

Time to put on the snowshoes.

 For the first few hours of our hike we carried our snowshoes. The trail was partly on small roads or had been shovelled or plowed (yes really) for "winter"  hiking.  Also, it hadn't snowed in a few days so the trails were well used by walkers which makes difficult walking with snowshoes. We thought the hike was quite nice up to this point, beautiful scenery of hills and villages. But it just kept getting better.

A mountain hut where you can have a hot bowl of soup, glass of wine or beer, and maybe if you are lucky some Wurst und Brot  (sausage and bread).  We brought our own lunch with us, so we headed up the hill to the barn you can see in the distance.

A warm spot for lunch.

Up the hill from our lunch spot.

A cross with a seat at the bottom is common on hilltops in Switzerland.  

 This was the first of a number of hills, but we didn't know it as we were just following a route and I didn't really pay much attention to the elevation information.

The Mythen Peaks, along the way someone told us there is a hut on  top of "Grosser Mythen"  and the thing to do is stay at another hut in the saddle, and hike to the peak for sunrise.  We have added the Mythens to our list.

Our highest peak, the second of three.

School in Alpthal beside the bus stop.

  We hiked out at Alpthal and caught a bus back to Einsiedeln. The bus was packed with skiiers, snowboarders, and snowshoers, we were shoulder to shoulder. But you gotta love the Swiss transportation system. So nice to take a bus and train home rather than have to drive.  It was a fabulous day. We were tired but happy at the end of the day. This is one of great things about Switzerland. This weekend we are taking cross-country skate ski lessons. I was told by several people that even if you are an expert at classic it is much less frustrating to take a skate lesson than just do it on your own.  I'm looking forward to it, but looks like the weather won't be as nice as last weekend.