Locarno

"Sorry about the weather," said the agent who printed up the itinerary for our train trip to Locarno.  It was raining when we left the Base, but we hoped for warmer temperatures in the balmy, subtropical corner of Italian-speaking Switzerland.  The rain made it hard to take pictures from the train, but we persisted; the journey took about four hours each way.  At the halfway point, we were to change trains in Domodossola, a small town that is actually in Italy. 

"There's absolutely nothing at this station,"

said the same train agent.  He was right.All we had time for was to board the next train, but I overheard a group of people who had longer to wait. "Let's have hot chocolate," the woman said. "Italian hot chocolate!" 


The new train was a panoramic train with extra high windows; it wended its way slowly through the mountain passes leaving plenty of time to admire the changing foliage. The rain slowed down, and vineyards, rivers, and mountain scenery reminded us of beautiful British Columbia. 

Sometimes we could see the highway below us

At the little stazione along the way, I would quickly snap a picture while the conductor had the door open to peer out, check for passengers, and blow his whistle; all in the space of about ten seconds.

This was the first station back on the Swiss side:

At Locarno, we looked around for the funicolare to take us up 355 metres to Orselina; our destination was a church called Madonna del Sasso.  In 1480, the Virgin had appeared to a monk on retreat on the mountain. The rain had tapered off, and we were hopeful it would stop completely.

Locarno is on Lake Maggiore, most of which extends down into Italy.  The tops of the mountains surrounding it were still covered by low-hanging clouds.

Several tiny chapels had groups of carved wooden figures; we liked this one of Jesus with his disciples at the Last Supper.

Here's a picture of the ornate baroque ceiling of the church itself.  My pictures of the interior of the church don't do it justice. The way down consisted of many steps; pilgrims of old followed this path on their way up the hill. At the bottom, we found a museum but didn't venture farther than these archways in the courtyard.

 

uPalm trees grew in this balmy climate, and from the train we even saw trees laden with oranges.  I wondered if they were the bitter, ornamental kind, because no one seemed to be picking them.  We wandered around the Piazza Grande, and had a thin crusted pizza, just to say we did.  I hadn't had pizza for at least four months, but it was disappointing.  We figured out the topping choices by deciphering both the Italian and German words on the menu.  No French on that side of the menu, let alone English!  When we finally neared Lausanne on our way home, what a relief to hear the French language being spoken again! It's amazing how our ears can now easily recognize announcements of the next station, or which track our connecting train leaves from.

On the way home, all too soon, the rain had completely stopped, and we snapped a few more vistas in the remaining daylight. This was a reservoir.

Some mountains on the way home, which weren't visible before, had snow on their peaks, but the biggest surprise was waiting at Chalet-a-Gobet.  Oh, now we feel right at home!  Terry is not impressed!

The leaves aren't off the trees yet!  We chose to get a ride in a van the next morning to the English-French church, rather than walking for 25 minutes in the blowing snow to the French church.  The day's high in Locarno was 15 degrees Celcius; now we're around  0 Celcius.  I wonder if it will last?

 

 

 

 

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Geneva

Forty years ago we were in Geneva for the first time, when we drove through France in our little Renault 12 station wagon.  Last weekend our Saturday outing led us to this beautiful city, and we realized we we were on an "anniversary visit".
The first visible landmark was a gigantic jet of water rising up out of the lake to the height of 140 metres.  We don't remember seeing this before.

Having bought a Geneva pass for the day, we headed for the first attraction on our agenda, the museum of the Reformation.  Terry especially appreciated having a hand held audio commentary; he actually said it was the best museum we'd seen in Europe because he could understand every little detail about each display.  We read all about the formation of the Protestant church started by Martin Luther, who said the Bible was the authority for life rather than the church.  The Swiss leader was John Calvin, to the left. In another wonderful part of the museum one could smell different scents of the Bible like various spices, and myrrh.

After eating lunch in the amazing sunshine, we looked inside the Protestant Cathedrale de Saint Pierre, whose  plain interior with its high gothic arches closely resembled the Lausanne cathedrale. Walking back to the lake, we decided to take a boat ride featuring beautiful mansions, famous villas, and the parks and gardens bordering the lake. We could even see Mont Blanc, but it was too hazy to get a good picture.

After an hour's cruise around the harbour, we were just in time to hop onto a little train for a tour of the "vieille ville", the old town. Finally, as we rode through a beautifully landscaped area, we spied a familiar landmark, one we'd also seen forty years ago, with the four famous reformers in relief -Calvin, Beza, Farel, and Knox .
We didn't have time to inspect it up close.

Cathedrale de Saint Pierre on the right


We wanted to go on one more "train" ride at 5:00 pm, but when the driver showed up he said "Route barree", and his sign language did not help the waiting people understand he wasn't doing the final ride of the day.  They kept pointing to the schedule, but to no avail. 
We manged to get back to the Base at the decent hour of 7:30 pm, happy with our day's outing.

Schynige Platte

The day after we toured the Chateau Chillon, we went on another trip to the Bernese Oberland, region of classic Swiss scenery.  First we used our Eurail pass to ride to Bern, closer to the interior of the country of Switzerland.  From Bern, another train east to Interlaken, whose name means "between the lakes" --the Thunersee and the Brienzersee.  From Interlaken, another short train ride to the village of Wilderswil, where our adventure really began.

Here we bought a ticket for a cog train to go up the mountain to a plateau called Schynige Platte. The train was almost ready to depart, and we didn't know where to sit; all the wooden slatted seats seemed occupied.  All of a sudden, the conductor opened up a little private compartment with 2 small seats, lots of room to stand up in, and windows that opened; we could even hang out the window if we wanted !  We each took a window; at first Terry took the "good" side with its views of the receding Interlaken and the big lakes. Then the good view switched to the other side.  We were going up very steeply at about 5mph.  Lots of opportunity to keep snapping pictures.  It was like being in British Columbia, but much more spectacular. 

This is really how steep some parts were--we could tell on the way back when another car closely followed behind us at the end of the day.

About 50 minutes later we were at the plateau, 1967 metres above sea level.  From there, signposts indicated trails in several directions.  We chose a short one, which was fairly steep, but which was supposed to take 50 minutes.

Blue gentian

The Alpengarten featuring local flora would've been much more exciting in the spring, but a few remnants remained.

At some point we could see the three snow clad mountains rising up in majestic splendour: Eiger, Monch, and Jungfrau; this latter over 4000 m. high.

It was a little brisk and cool up on the mountain, and the trail a little challenging. 

On the way home we took the train a different way.  It was supposed to be a panoramic ride through a mountain pass, down to Lake Geneva to Montreux, near Chillon.  It was dark, however, and we didn't see much of the pass. 

It took me a week to get over our two days of outings, but this one was worth it, too.

Unity in Diversity

One morning at Staff devotions we were discussing the diversity in the various cultures represented here at the Base . There are so many different ways of doing things, so many languages spoken here, and many levels of experience in all of our lives.
Here's a conversation some of we North Americans were having with an English lad:
Me:  We're having Korean pancakes for dinner tonight.  They have vegetables in them.
Jon:  What sort of vegetables?
Me:  Oh, carrots and zucchini.
Jon:  Zucchini?  What's that?
Me:  Oh yes, you English have a different word.
Jon:  Aubergine!
Me:  No, that's eggplant.
Jon:  Courgette!
Me:  Why do you call it "courgette"?  That's a French word.
Jon:  Why do you call it "zucchini"?  That's so random!
We do have interesting meals--Korean pancakes, Dok-to-ri-to, and Bulgogi, Korean barbecued meat; a Swiss-German version of macaroni and cheese, containing potatoes as well, Mexican gratin.(a taco salad without the meat) , another Swiss-German dish with ground hamburger meat. ( did you ever have a hamburger dish with cream and red wine added?), flour soup, a specialty from Berne, various types of spaghetti dishes, and so on.  It's always a surprise what we're having for lunch.  Some meals are happily anticipated by those who have lived here for a while, like Thai curry chicken.
Our leader commented, "We won't die if we don't have our favourite foods for a while."
Many of us, however, have supplemented the tedious breakfast of bread, jam, and peanut butter and cornflakes, with our favourite cereal or muesli, and fruit from the grocery store.
We have worship in one of the four languages-English, French, Swiss-German, or Korean.  Usually the songs are in English, but occasionally the words on the overhead screen appear in one of these languages. 
Terry and I have been attending an all French church, and he likes that he understands the French words on the screen.  Today's message was hard to understand, though.  The girl speaking spoke very quickly and didn't enunciate her words.  I got the gist, but that's all.  Last week it was better.  A man spoke, and he had a power-point as well. At the Base, it's easy to follow the translator.  She speaks clearly and at a normal speed. It's fun to follow the message in both languages, as I can see the differences in expression.
There are different ways of doing things, and different levels of experience.  There are always people coming and going .  New people can learn from people who have been here longer.  The people who have been here are gracious to explain things over and over to newcomers.  We can respect other people's ways, and learn from them. They don't call Terry and me the oldest here; we're the most "life experienced."
I Corinthians 12:27 says All of you (believers) together are one body, and each of you is part of it.

  Celebration of the Nations at the Lausanne Cathedral

Annecy, France

Annecy is another medieval town 40 kilometres south of Geneva, but in France.  Connections from Lausanne were smooth and quick, except for a half hour wait, and another change of trains in Aix-les-Bains.
Leaving the YWAM base at 8:48 am, we were in Annecy at 12:00 noon, just in time to find something to eat.  Our eyes caught a woman selling crepes at a hole-in-the-wall shop.  The counter only had two stools, so we took our crepes and salad and, for dessert, a "crepe marron," spread with sweet chestnut paste, outside. Balancing our paper plates on our laps we watched crowds of people milling about.
"Something's going on here", says Terry.  "There're so many people."
I turned to ask a little old lady who shared our bench.  To my surprise she answered in English.
"The cows are coming home from the meadows."
"Oh!"
  I couldn't believe we'd stumbled on another of these festivals.  The little Scottish lady thought she had missed the parade, so we asked directions to the "vieille ville" (old town).  We'd already strolled along the lakefront, where a curved bridge spanned the beginning of a canal that reached further inland. There were people, but it looked like a normal, sunny afternoon venue. We thought we would explore the Old Town in the same leisurely way.

We made our way in the direction indicated; all of a sudden the crowds were thick. At the entrance to a little street were demonstrations like an old fashioned threshing machine, sheep shearing, and basket making.

 

Passing by booths selling crafts made of wood, and homemade delicacies of the region, we realized people were beginning to stand in one spot.  Perhaps this was where the parade would pass by.  At first it looked like a parade route.  We could still see the defining cobblestones of the road at our feet. After waiting and waiting an hour, the crowds got thicker and thicker.  At first the crowd looked about 3 deep; by the end of the parade it was almost 10 people deep. 
"How could a parade pass by here," I thought, "Let alone huge cows?"
The following picture shows just how crowded it was.

The parade passes through the crowd

Can you see me in the picture?  Terry hated the crowds, so climbed up on a fence surrounding a cross cut saw demonstration, from where he had a fine vantage point.  I was glad to be close up for my shots, though.  Here are a few of the interesting people and animals that passed by my face. 

A genuine organ grinder

Brass band

a smiling Swiss face

A "Search and Rescue" St. Bernard

Blowing the alpenhorn

"Les oies!" cry the children delightedly

 Ringing huge bells


After the parade we were swept along with the crowds  along the picturesque canal.

Annecy is called the "Venice of Savoie" .  Although it's in the French Alps, it's dissected by small canals and streams running out of Lac Annecy.

I was glad to take part in the traditional Farmer's Festival, and see more colourful costumes and regional specialties.  Terry was just glad to get out of the crowds, but he went along with my choice, having given me free rein to plan our weekend outings.  What a blessing to have sunshine,   although the air is feeling a bit crisper.  Home about 13 hours later.

We missed the campfire at the Base.  I wanted to see how they put chocolate into their bread dough wrapped around a stick, cooked in the fire. Of course it's not called bannock.  Must be the Swiss version of S'mores!