In Which We Make a Short Springtime Jaunt

Okay, I am aware that this is one sweet gig:  lovely apartment in cozy little Baar, with a view of green hills and (if it clears) distant snow-capped Alps; a short auto drive from great skiing in winter and the rest of the year hiking amidst stunning views; and a location in the middle of Europe, a matter of hours from about any place one would want to visit.  Perhaps it’s karma, offsetting having spent my first 18 years in Wyoming, which though wonderful in itself is a loooong way from anywhere else.

So, last week, when The Spouse had to attend a business conference, I felt it my wifely duty to accompany him – to Paris.  Couldn’t have him spending his evenings alone, could I? 

Bearing tickets purchased from Baar’s SBB office (in a transaction conducted totally in German, I’m proud to say) I boarded the train at the station across from my apartment building and arrived in the heart of Paris about five and a half hours and three changes later.  In a romantic twist, TS flew in after a trip back to the US and we met at our hotel on the Boulevard Montparnasse.

I realize that for some a trip to The City of Light is one of those once-in-a-lifetime events.  While wandering Parisian streets I observed many couples for whom this seemed to be the case – walking arm-in-arm along the Seine or in the bustling heart of the Left Bank.  But living a few hours away changes one’s experience.  First of all, even though Switzerland isn’t officially part of the European Union, going to a “foreign country” is not a big deal.  In fact, when one travels via Basel, one simply passes through an unattended door to connect to trains heading toward westward.  If you hoped to pick up a French stamp for your passport, no luck.

Moreover, TS and I have been to Paris quite a few times, beginning with graduate school days.  Over the years, we have checked off the big-ticket things that tourists are supposed to do – Eiffel Tower, Invalides, Louvre, Versailles, Notre-Dame, Sainte-Chapelle, boat ride on the Seine.  The great pleasure of revisiting a place like Paris is that you don’t feel compelled to pack every possible experience into a short time span.  You can return to particularly beloved places or explore a few of the less famous sites.  Or you can get a bit of a taste of how residents experience the city by savoring the daily ebb and flow of life on the streets and in the parks and cafés.

And of course, you can eat.  After six months of the incredibly high cost of eating out in Switzerland, we had expected to enjoy paying less in Paris – only to find that prices there are higher still.  Nonetheless, we started at a classic restaurant on the Boulevard Montparnasse specializing in fish – something that has been hard to find in winter in Switzerland.  The food was fantastic, but just as enjoyable was watching the large corps of waiters exercising their craft with the skill and energy of a ballet troupe.

On the afternoon after our arrival we strolled through the surrounding neighborhood and paid our first visit to the famous Cimetiére du Montparnasse.  It contains the final resting places of many well-known figures from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, including the poet Charles Baudelaire, playwright Samuel Beckett and philosophers Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir.  Although many tombs were decorated with flowers, the Sartre/de Beauvoir monument was the first I’d ever seen bedecked with kiss-shaped lipstick.

 

During our four days we were doubly blessed with sunny, warm weather that made it all the more appealing to spend as much time outdoors as possible.  On my first day on my own I walked to the Luxembourg Gardens, just a few minutes from our hotel, to find a pleasant place to sit and read a book in which I was quite engaged – The Woodcutter by Reginald Hill, one of my favorite writers.  (I had made a special trip to the English bookstore in Zürich to get it; look for it when it comes out in the US later this year.)  I soon realized that during the week the Gardens serve as outdoor sports grounds for the city’s school children; the long alleés are perfect for footraces.  But there is plenty of space, and everyone seems to find a spot to sit alone or in twos and threes.

Graffiti at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts

After taking in the sun, I set out to walk from the Gardens to the Musée d’Orsay along the Rue Bonaparte, passing favorite sights such as St-Sulpice and St-Germain-des-Pré churches and window-shopping in clothing and antique stores and galleries along the way.  

I wanted to revisit the Musée d’Orsay because it is one of my favorite museums.  It spans the period between 1848 and 1914, most appropriately within what was originally a train station, the Gare d’Orsay, built at the beginning of the nineteenth century by the Orléans railroad as its Paris terminus.   The interior retains the magnificent scale of a grand train station – without the noise and smoke – although ongoing major renovations have made things pretty topsy-turvy.

Afterward I walked along the Seine, enjoying the view of trees just beginning to unfurl their leaves in the sun.  I was amused by the bookstalls with their offerings of old books, prints and postcards, and wondered what would replace second-hand books in a coming age of e-print.  In fact, during our visit TS and I were struck by the large number of bookstores – the French seem to be relatively slow in moving into the digital age.

Place Dauphine

Another afternoon I took a bus to the Seine and strolled along the Isle de la Cité to the Place Dauphine near its far end, one of my favorite squares.  As I arrived, a group of lawyers was assembling on the steps of the Palais de Justice, the court building that borders the wide end of the triangular park, for what seemed to be a formal photograph.  A group of schoolchildren – it must have been field trip week, for everywhere I went there were troops of children – also observed the lawyers.  They ran to the balustrade overlooking the Palais and serenaded them with a shrill rendition of La Marseillaise.  I have no idea why.

 On our last full day, The Spouse was free after noon.  We took a bus to the Bastille, bought baguettes at a boucherie and ate lunch in the Place des Voges.  We agreed that, though we find the absolute symmetry of the Renaissance era square a bit dull, the more human scale is restful after the vast reaches of the grand spaces in the rest of the city.  Always historians, we enjoyed several hours poring through the voluminous collection of nick-nacks from the city’s history at the Musée Carnavalet.  My favorite exhibit is the complete Fouquet Jewelry Boutique designed in 1900 by the Czech artist Alphonse Moucha, leader of the Art Nouveau movement.  Afterward we strolled through the Marais district and had dinner at an excellent little Corsican restaurant.

Your Author and HS at Versailles in 2003

One of the great pleasures of the visit was bumping into ghost memories of previous stages of my life.  Seeing Notre-Dame brought to mind my first time in Paris, arriving at daybreak after an all-night train ride from Marseille (no TGV then).  At the Luxembourg Gardens, I could see TS and me and four-year-old Handsome Son riding the carousel.  I saw the three of us, all older now, visiting in 2003 while the city was abuzz with protest over America’s invasion of Iraq – though everyone was unfailingly polite to us.  I saw myself with my mother and sisters three years ago in the Place des Vosge – the leaves were out on the trees then but it was much colder.  Each visit lays down vivid splashes of color to an ongoing work of art that is my Paris.

Jardin des Plantes

In Which We Experience Our First Fasnacht

I first encountered the word Fastnacht when Shrove Tuesday came around while I was working in Lancaster, Pennsylvania.  In that strongly German-American community it refers to rich, potato-shaped donuts traditionally eaten on the day before Lent – much more satisfying than the usual pancakes.  When we came to Switzerland we discovered that here the word, Fasnacht in Swiss German, refers to a six-day period leading up to Lent, for German-speaking people throughout Europe the equivalent of Mardi Gras.  We have also learned that in Switzerland there are as many different forms of celebration as there are separate communities.

Lent began rather late this year, which allowed for a long buildup to Fasnacht.  As the time neared we learned that Baar has its own customs.  Here it is known as Räbefasnacht, after a little fable concocted by some local citizens about 50 years ago, involving the räbe or red beet, a staple food in the lean days of late winter in bygone days.  The symbolic center of the festivities is the Räbegäuggel, an impish trouble maker.

One Saturday evening some weeks before the beginning of Fasnacht, The Spouse and I were relaxing in our apartment at the end of a long day of skiing, when we heard the raucous notes of a brass band in the street below us.  We rushed down to find a small procession wending its way through the center of town, to the bizarrely inappropriate tune “Sweet Caroline.”  

Hotz with räbe

We followed it to the Gemeindesalle or town meeting place, which was decked out for some kind of festivities.  It turned out to be the installation, or “Inthronisation” of the Räbevator, or head of the coming celebrations.  This year it happened to be Baar’s mayor Andreas Hotz, whom we had met at the welcome meeting for newcomers back in the fall.

We decided not to join the festivities, but did purchase a charming badge that several young women were selling.  Later we learned that these “Plakettes” are sold each year to raise funds to support the public celebration.

Soon other signs of the coming celebrations appeared: banners in the streets and various versions of the Räbegäuggel looked out from shop windows and apartment balconies.  One day I noticed a store that seemed to have a number for sale and proudly bore home one of our own.  Public signs announced a dizzying series of Bälles, or gala parties, for the weeks and days leading up to Ashenmittag, or Ash Wednesday, the beginning of Lent.  At about 5:00 on the Thursday morning, we were wakened by loud music and drums in the street immediately below us.  It turned out that this was “Morgenstreich,” the official beginning of the partying and parades. 

At that point, however, Handsome Son arrived for his first visit to Switzerland.  We spent the weekend skiing at Davos and missed most of the action in Baar.  When we returned on Monday the streets were littered with brightly colored confetti.  So as not to miss the action entirely, we decided to take the train to Luzern for the last night of Fasnacht.  Luzern, the largest Catholic city in Switzerland, is widely known for its Fasnacht parades, which are held every day from Thursday through Shrove Tuesday.

Like so many other things about Switzerland, there are so many local variations when it comes to Fasnacht celebrations that it is hard to make generalizations.  Catholic cantons like Zug and Luzern seem to be the most enthusiastic and elaborate in their observance of the customs.  For a lively description of Fasnacht in another Catholic town, read the recent blog by my colleague Trailing Wife.  Interestingly, Protestant cities Basel and Zürich also celebrate Fasnacht, but after Ash Wednesday rather than before.  Word is that this began in defiance of the Pope’s strict rules about observing Lent.  Hence, Basel’s famous Morganstreich parade starts at 4:00 am on the first Monday after Lent.  I understand that it is impressive: it begins with the city in total darkness, even its street lights having been extinguished; suddenly lights come on in illuminated parade floats and thousands of shrill piccolos begin to play.  From what I have heard, Basel’s observance is tightly organized; only marchers in the parade wear costumes.

In Luzern, on the other hand, everyone seems to get into the act.  As soon as we left the train we began to see people in costume – men, women, and children, often in matching sets.  It was late afternoon, in a break between a children’s parade and the beginning of the “Monstercorso,” the big final parade that would run through the evening and into the early morning hours.  We wandered into the old city, fascinated by the marching band groups in grotesque costumes and full-head masks. 

In past years, costumes have often commented on the politics of the day, and one band featured Uncle Sam masks that hardly seemed flattering.

 But this year’s unofficial theme seemed to be related to Fantasy: there were lots of trolls, Goths and zombies.  (Come to think of it, though there were quite a few folks in religious garb, perhaps a comment on recent scandals in the Catholic Church.)

The Spouse and Handsome Son

We grazed on offerings at the many stalls hawking beer, glüwein (hot mulled wine) and wurst.  (An interesting twist was the 2 franc deposit required with styrofoam cups to ensure that they be returned rather than thrown into the trash.)  The mood was jovial if bizarre.  One moment seemed to epitomize the paradox of Swiss celebration:  A figure in costume threw a large handful of confetti over our heads – perhaps because we weren’t wearing costumes.  (I understand that in Basel and in other towns that sell plakettes, if you aren't wearing one you will be inundated with confetti.)  But, seeing that some of the confetti had fallen into our drink cups, the figure added a gentle “Entschuldigung” (Excuse me.)   

I have a feeling that as the night wore on and more and more glüwein was consumed, the atmosphere probably became more disorderly.  But while we were there celebrations seemed relatively quiet, if surrealistically colorful.  Although the Monstercorso was fascinating, the bone-chilling cold of the evening eventually drove us back to the train.  Next year, The Spouse and I agreed, we would return in full costume – and in long underwear.

Further Adventures in Swiss Skiing

The opportunity to ski Switzerland was a big reason for our eagerness to move here.  Not surprisingly, so far this year every possible weekend – and in several cases extended weekends – have involved at least one day of skiing.  This, despite the fact that snow conditions have universally been recognized as poor.  Unlike the Swiss, who have the mountains always with them, we are only here for a short and must make the best of whatever conditions present themselves.  (Besides, skiing in the eastern US has given us lots of experience with poor conditions!)

In the past few months we have visited six different areas: Andermatt, Hoch Ybrig, Davos, Flumserberg, Engleberg and the Jungfrau region.  Andermatt, only an hour away and offering a wide variety of different slopes, is fast becoming our “home” area. 

An "Easy" Slope at Andermatt

Although the areas have some similarities – mainly related to the steep glacial valley formations that I have noted before – there are many differences in the layout of pistes, as each area is determined by its special geological features.  The mountain’s shape affects availability of slopes with a moderate pitch and a desirable width.  For me, this has translated into a continuing quest to find skiable intermediate slopes.  So far, Davos, one of the largest areas, is able to offer a wider range of wide, intermediate “cruising” slopes.  Each time we visit a new area, we have to do a careful reconnaissance to identify likely possibilities.  Some days, such as our first in the Jungfrau region recently, we hit pay dirt.

At top of Männlichen

As you may recall from our visit to the Lauterbrunnen Valley last fall, the Jungfrau region encompasses several mountain ranges and valleys, over which loom three awesome peaks, the Eiger, the Monch and the Jungfrau.  The Männlichen ski area is located on a ridge below Eiger and between Wengen and the valley town of Grindelwald.   To reach the area we took a cograil train from Lauterbrunnen to Wengen and changed to an aerial tram.  On the Grindelwald side of the ridge is a nice collection of beginner and intermediate trails that kept me happily occupied for the better part of the first day, while TS explored more widely.  

Skiing in the Shadow of The Eiger

Later in the day we took a series of trails and lifts to Kleine Scheidegg, directly below Eiger, where the famous Lauberhorn downhill run begins.  The Lauberhorn is one of the first and still the longest downhill run featured in World Cup ski competition, held in mid-January each year.  It runs all the way down the western side of the mountain to Wengen. 

   

Along the trail to Wengen

More ambitious expert skiers can follow the actual race track, while the less ambitious (like me) can take a lovely lower trail that runs all the way into the town of Wengen.

Heading up to the top of Gemstock at Andermatt

Aside from physical differences in the areas we have visited, we have also noted that each seems to have a particular culture, related to the origins of its skiers.  Andermatt is principally favored by the local Swiss, who know the mountain intimately and can be seen first thing in the morning heading for the best powder caches on the higher reaches.  When we ski there we hear mainly Swiss German spoken, with a smattering of Italian from folks from the other side of the Gotthard Pass, where the Italian-speaking part of Switzerland begins (plus, Milan is only two hours away).  Similarly, Flumserberg seems popular with folks from Zürich, including a larger number of beginners.

In keeping with its international reputation, Davos is the most diverse – but not, from what I have heard, as glamorous as folks at St. Moritz.  Some parts of Davos are popular with boarders, and there are a lot of less expensive hotels and hostels that cater to a young crowd.  

Wengen still has many large Victorian era hotels

On the other hand, the Jungfrau region is dominated by British skiers.  I haven’t heard so much English spoken in once place since we came to Switzerland.  This makes a lot of sense when you learn that the British practically created Swiss tourism in this region in the nineteenth century and began to discover the beauties of Swiss winters in the 1910s.  In 1922, a British promoter of ski racing named Arnold Lunn organized the world’s first slalom race on a course at Mürren.

This year, though, there seems to be a higher proportion of Swiss skiers at all the areas we have visited, largely because the Swiss Franc is so strong in relation to the Euro, British Pound and US Dollar that it makes it too expensive for everyone else.  Two things we have noted about Swiss skiers: one, they are really good – who wouldn’t be, if they started skiing at age 4 to 6?  And, two, they dress really well.  None of those uniform black ski pants for them, thank you very much; they wear beautifully designed outfits where the jackets are coordinated with the pants – and the skis!  Doris, a colleague at The Spouse’s company, is from Graubünden, the Canton in which Davos is located.  She acknowledged that when she bought big new powder skis this year she had to get an entirely new outfit to match them.  (I also owe to Doris the knowledge that the correct pronunciation of Davos is Da-vos, with emphasis on the second syllable rather than the first.  So if you want to sound really cool when discussing the latest issues raised at the World Economic Forum, be sure to say Davos.)