Charlie's Page

I've finally found a place to live. It's a studio five stories up. It does have a sloping ceiling but it is fairly roomy anyway. It's much longer than it is wide and because the ceiling slopes down one of the long sides there is plenty of storage space for storing stuff that does not take up usable space. It only has one window but it is in the middle in an open area so that I can paint or have/move a desk there. It's not a perfect place but given what I have seen at the expensive prices of Paris, I can live there.

I will be moving there in bits and pieces as I will just get things from storage from my friends' places as I visit them. It's such a relief to finally have a place to live to call my own.

I forgot to mention about the Klee Center two entries ago. It is a large art museum devoted to the artist Paul Klee.

http://www.paulkleezentrum.ch/ww/en/pub/web_root.cfm

He left over 4000 pieces of artwork after he died - out of the approximately 10,000 that he did in his lifetime. His heirs donated his legacy which is now in the museum. I absolutely loved it.

Before I get to our bike tour, here is an interesting on-line discussion about bottled water.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/discussion/2007/08/22/DI2007082201886.html?hpid=discussions

On Monday, Christoph and I left from Bern heading east. On Saturday's ride, I pushed too hard on a couple of steep hills so in the morning I could feel an irritation in my knee. Having us planned this trip since the winter, I was not going to spoil Christoph's only long vacation time, so I bought some aspirin and we started easy. To make a long story short, each morning I felt minor aches inside my knees but kept taking aspirin and by the last two days I never felt any pain in my knee.

First day was very cloudy and we passed through the town of Willisau.



We stopped in Wolhusen to eat a bit but then it started to rain so we took the train which stopped in Lucern. It was pouring rain so we did a short walk to the Kappel Bridge where I took some nice photos.










We got back on another train and then continued riding from Küssnacht in the rain to our hostel near Gersau.



The next morning was cloudy and cool as we continued around Lake Lucern.







This is a picture of the town of Flüelen where I made an adjustment on my bike before we started up towards the St. Gotthard Pass behind Flüelen.



We went some of the way up the pass and then we took the train to Airolo where we stopped for day in the middle of the afternoon. It was just as well as it started raining.

The next day, we left in the rain and went up the St. Gotthard pass - passing through the clouds.



Over the pass, the rain let up as we went down into the Furka Valley to Hospental where we spent the night.





We took a ride down past Andermatt -



- to look at the Schöllenen Falls. (There were some other pictures of the actual falls and the bridges over the canyon but I didn't think that they were good enough or captured the scenery well enough.)



The next day, we started up the Furka Pass. (Notice the cyclist behind us on the road just above the next town up from where we stayed, Realp.)



Then it was up to the top of the Furka Pass at 2436 meters (7992 feet) - the highest I've ever ridden by bicycle. This day we did over 1600 meters (1 mile/5280 feet) of climbing.







And then down the other side - looking at the pass we were going to climb. (I hope I ain't boring you too much.)



This is looking up at the road that we just came down. At this point, we were not at the bottom yet.



Looking back up at the Rhone Glacier (where the Rhone River begins.) The big white spot on the rocks is where the lower Rhone Glacier used to go down to but now it's all permanently melted.



Looking down at Gletsch where we were going to eat lunch in the large hotel's restaurant.



Looking up at Grimel Pass. Up, up and away!





This is the lake on the other side of the pass. It is very close to the beginning of the Aare River which flows through Bern.



We stayed on the shore of Lake Brienz that night.



The next day we took a detour up the Lauterbrunnen Valley and its many waterfalls. This was in my opinion the best valley we saw all trip. Quite a few tourists here though.











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This sign was confusing to me for a moment or two.



On the way to Christoph's brother's farm, we passed over the Rhone River valley much further down stream from the source.



Looking back at the Rhone Valley during the climb to the farm.



The next day, we worked on the farm raking up and drying hay as there had not been much sunshine this year. Since one can't collect the hay when it is wet, there has been very little opportunity for him to do it this summer so he needed help. I would have liked to have taken some pictures of us working but didn't want to bring the camera into the fields.



The next day, I rode back to Bern by myself as Christoph had to go home the night before to be in Bern.

Here I stopped at the end of an incredibly beautiful valley in the town of Kandersteg after going through a tunnel by train since there is no road over the pass.





And from there it was back to Bern. Here is a nice Swiss house. (Note the engraved wood writing on the house.)







One thing that I just love is to get up in the morning and just start riding in one direction going to a new place. I have enjoyed traveling through Switzerland immensely. Despite a few aches and the rain, I had an absolutely wonderful time and I thank Christoph for making it possible.

Tomorrow morning, it's back to Paris to start looking for a place to live - again.