The final big adventure the kids and I took alone came during our last week there, sadly, as I would have loved to have done similar things if time allowed. It took me that long though, to figure out how to do things outside of the city itself via public transportation. Our grand finale adventure was a hike on the ridge of Mt. Uetliberg, one of Zurich’s local mountains. This ended up being extra cool because after the fact, we realized that we were on top of the same mountain that we could see from our balcony at home.
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| Climbed that lighted X-mas tree looking thing, which is much larger than it appears :) |
This was such a special day – and I don’t just mean, ‘oh it’s so special spending time with my kids’ kind of special…..my take on this day brings out the eccentric in me, so when I say ‘special’ I mean bursting with serendipity. It was the kind of day where my audience, the children, developed a case of positive turrets and were shouting out things like ‘I feel like I’m in a fairy tale!’, ‘I’ve dreamed of this my whole life!’, ‘My wish has come true!’, and the best thing a parent can hear ‘I will ALWAYS remember this day for my whole life!’
Now, I feel bad that Alex had to miss this, but the fact is that if he were there, it wouldn’t have been able to be quite what it was. He’s our safe place, and frankly, part of the magic of this day is that we had only ourselves to rely on. If he were there, our adrenaline would not have been nearly as high.
There is something about the vulnerability you feel being the sole, albeit slightly confused, adult out alone with a gaggle of young kids in foreign place. Now I tend to be a little adventurous and do a lot of things with my kids, especially since we homeschool – and honestly, I really don’t worry about much happening when in our normal surroundings. If we were there for awhile, I might too be more familiar with the laws, how their emergency situations play out, how safe it really is. I hear a lot of funny sounding ambulances, but I don’t really know where they come from, or if we needed one who I’d call from my very basic cell phone. Honestly, 7 wks there and I still got confused making a local European phone call (as my practice was minimal). So, being out alone with the kids there was a feeling you can’t understand unless you experience it – a heightened sensation. The responsibility I feel for them was taken to a whole new level. That being said, I had to take that and balance it with getting the most out of our time here. It’d be far too easy to just sit at home all day doing book work.
I was looking to do something different with them and the night before our adventure I happened to stumble across a blog called moms and tots in Zurich. How I never came across this before in all my searches over the weeks I do not know, because this lovely woman had details on everything you could possibly do with your kids in that city. From there I discovered that you could actually go up into those hills/ mountains that so beautifully surround the town, and she broke it down for me as to exactly which one I’d want to go on and why. Who knew that the direct train to the top of this mountain trail was a 4 minute walk to an easily accessible station down the block! We only had a couple of days left in Zurich, some of which were predicted to be rainy or unclear (hence poor view-ability) so even though it was like 2am, I decided to plan the day trip to take place the next morning.
We were going to attempt what they call ‘The Planet Trail’, where every meter you walk represents one million kilometers from the sun to Pluto. The total hike time is predicted to be about 4K, and about 1.5 – 2 hours. ‘Perfect’, I thought, ‘we could do that with no problem!’ I also found out from comments on the blog, that there are many fire pits along the way, so a very Swiss thing to do is to bring some sausages and cook a meal along the way…..we could do that, I’m all into the authentic experiences and I happen to have some links in the fridge ready to go!
So, in the morning I packed all our supplies, including some matches and pieces of a cardboard box for kindle. I even brought a roll of toilet paper….to burn :)…… because my resources for fire building at our apartment were quite limited. At home, I grill, and I do our fires in the fireplace – but any other fire making situation we might be in is all Alex. We grabbed some other snacks, a bunch of water and headed out later than anticipated; big surprise. Arrived at the train – only to have to go back home because I realized I had forgotten my Swiss pass which I needed for a discounted ticket. This resulted in having to take a later train, but on that train I found an old newspaper which I added to our kindle …just in case. Needless to say we arrived at the final train station about an hour later than I had planned, but it was still early - we had PLENTY of time to savor the moments.
First off, the initial view was amazing and that was before we even started on the trail
I spent some time chatting with Alex on the phone about what I saw, trying to figure out if we were above his office. I snapped a zillion photos from the look-out point because it was the best view I had had thus far of the Swiss Alps (who knew what was to present itself in the hours and weeks ahead). In a park nearby, the kids amused themselves for a bit while I figured out exactly where the stroller accessible trail ramp was.
By now another hour had gone by more or less, and I was getting anxious to get going. It was then, that Abbie comes to me in a panic that she had been bitten by a mysterious insect which according to her, she had to rip off her neck. It hurt her not where I saw a little mark, but up her jaw instead. Fabulous. SOOOOO, we had to sit there for another 30 minutes before we set out into the wild, while I made sure that she did not have poison flowing through her little veins :\
I took photos of maps of the area just in case we get lost. I have food. I have water. I have my half-assed camping cooking supplies (including the newly scored newspaper), I have 5 empty bladders, I have a non-hiking friendly stroller (which we have lovingly dubbed ‘the battlewagon’ recently) Ah, finally on our way!!
First stop – the SUN!
Then, what seemed like barely a few minutes beyond where we started, we were at Mercury, Venus, then Earth…..wow, this walk is gonna be a cinch I thought! Not far beyond that we discovered a little detour from our path, which turned out to be the most amazing surprise. Apparently mom and tot woman didn’t describe this part in the detail it deserved. It was the peak of the mountain, the highest viewing point in Zurich, and boy was it breathtaking! We had a view of the crystal blue lake, the surrounding city, some of the lush countryside and last by not least the sprawling white peaks of the Swiss Alps.
Time for more photos…hundreds…thousands…can’t get enough photos yet none seem to capture the depth or grandness of it all.
Maybe video will capture the scene better? Oh look, that giant tower – we can climb it and take even MORE photos. See this angle here, I know it looks just like THIS one, but THAT one actually shows depth of blah1 vs blahblah2. BTW – it was while here on Eurotour that I have come to realize that either a) I have developed not a fear so much, but an anxiety of heights or b) I have never been at such perilous heights to trigger my anxious panic of heights. Climbing this tower was a terrifying joke for me.
As I clung to the rail for dear life, wobbly and unsure of each step, I kept yelling at the kids to hold on, stay close, etc etc. They trotted up and then down the metal framed structure without a care in the world.
Eventually we made our way back onto the path to start the bulk of our journey – now hours behind where I had planned to be, but still in enough time that we’d be able to finish what we started without having to turn back. Along the way we stopped to investigate cool insects and drank from spring water fountains trickling out of rocks with the freshest coldest water ever. We even came across a fire pit early on which provided us with some coal just in case, and a grate to cook our sausages on when we decided we were getting hungry. The grate was gritty and used of course, but that was OK – we were roughing it like survivor man today.
To name a few other things, we discovered some amazing tree roots, cows grazing in pastures below, flowers, a rare enchanted cozy cottage and even a remarkably ancient cemetery which was so old, that the stone markers were worn blank.
The path itself was not treacherous, a little pebbly, but overall stroller friendly.
It was however, quite hilly about half the time . I’m not sure why this surprised me given we were on a hilly mountain. Down the sides of the trail in some parts – were a little…..steep to say the least. I was on high alert making sure that no one got even remotely close to the edge. Alex walked some, then rode, walked some then rode….then rode and rode, and I continued to push him up hills which took time that most would not have to factor into when calculating the time it would take to complete this trail. However, the views along the trail were so beautiful, that all 5 of us stayed amazed at every turn. We stopped every couple of minutes to take yet more photos, in search of the perfect picture to portray just how beautiful everything was.
Turns out, that they were from Abbott Labs of Zurich, which happens to be based in Chicago! Such a small world – it was really fun to meet people associated with your own city when you are out in the middle of nowhere in another country : )
Time to start our fire and get those sausages cooked! Here’s where some of the magic of the day comes into play, because the fact of the matter is that even with my best intentions, I was not prepared to start a roaring fire under the conditions we were dealing with, which was that it had been raining almost non-stop for about 3 days before this. I knew there was a possibility that our cook-out could be a bust, but I wasn’t concerned when planning this trip because I thought we’d be done and able to grab some food somewhere else instead if the kids were hungry. Fact of the matter is though, it was now like 4:30, and they were really hungry – and we were only somewhere between Mars and Jupiter at this point, lol. Now, I don’t know how whoever else had a fire enough to create the embers we were left with because almost all the branches we could find were much too damp to set ablaze. I am NOT experienced in this roughing it stuff, I’m a gas starter kind of girl. So, we gathered some dry tall grasses, which helped but turns out that that newspaper I found was very much needed and the grate we collected came in handy as well, as we were not sitting around with our sausages on a stick over a roaring fire as we had envisioned.
So, we struggled, all the kids pitched in, and with a lot of patience, kindle, and a dozen matches we got enough of a fire going to roast our lunch enough to eat. I can’t even find words to describe the kind of high we were on from this day - and this is a perfect example of how if Alex was with us it couldn’t have been the same. It wasn’t about what we did, it was about facing the challenge. He’d of been much better at this and I’d of likely ended my duties at grass gathering. The amazement here was that I managed to do it on my own…with the help of course of the tools that were discovered on our path along the way. What luck we had!! The sausages were also labeled as the BEST they’ve ever eaten, though the reality was that they may have been only lukewarm in the middle : )
So, by the time we were heading out from the campsite it must have been close to 5:30, I figured we were about ½ wayish on the trail so when I talked to Alex, I told him not to worry that we’d finish in plenty of time before dark. Well, here’s where our tale gets a little twisted – it’s a LONG way from Mars to the outer orbit of Pluto, especially when you are dealing with 2 young tired kids and a stroller trying to get there. We walked and walked. The older girls were great in helping take turns in getting the stroller up the hills with me because I was getting a little worn out. This 4K was not anything like the 45 min walk I can zip though in my neighborhood at home, it was a little more like Warrior Dash! Adding fuel to our fire the 5 of us (well, actually 4 of us as little man didn’t really give a crap about the scenery after a few hours – go figure) kept stopping in amazement of the landscape.
The sun was beginning to lower, the full moon was starting to rise faintly above the alps and the photo and memory etching ops could not be passed up. It just seemed to get prettier and prettier as we went along. It was about here that we spotted a random cottage along the way which provoked oooos and aaaahhhs, and at one point we even saw a farmer drive his tractor down the path.
I thought about flagging him down to ask him how far it was until the end, but I continued to see random joggers or bikers, be it scarce, whiz past us coming from the direction we were headed, so I figured everything was going to fall into place – and we started doing a little exhausting running as well! Let me tell you, my girls are troopers and way stronger than I thought! You should have seen them running and pushing that stroller uphill for me once in a while.
After some huffing and puffing we were rewarded with a really fantastic view of the sun just above the horizon creating a mesmerizing orange glow – even little A was impressed with that one, and not long after that we saw the marker for the INNER orbit of Pluto (such a tease).
I investigated where the OUTER orbit of pluto was and started doing the math in my head. At that point, I was almost certain that we were not going to make it to the end point (which was a cable car down to a train station) before the sun disappeared. I remained calm though. It wasn’t ideal, but we were hardly *lost in space* (get it?) ;) . It was a national nature trail, there were still other people whizzing by on occasion, we had water, we had food, we had a working CELL PHONE. It could get scary in the dark, but we were not exactly about to become a documentary. So, I prepared the kids that we were most likely going to be walking in the dark, except for the light of the full moon.
It was what it was. I felt bad, because I totally should have managed our time better, but there were just too many amazing distractions around us. If it wasn’t me stopping for a photo, it was the kids pointing a view out to me. As the minutes went by and the light got dimmer and dimmer we saw a farmer in a truck go past us in the direction we were headed. I was pretty sure it was the same man I saw in the tractor earlier as there was no one else in motorized vehicles on the path. I thought about asking for his advice as he drove past, but he was gone too quickly. To our great fortune, he ended up backing up to talk to us and to make sure we were OK. He ended up offering us a ride to the end. Now, here’s one of those weird situations in life where you have to weigh your options. Normally, would I jump in the truck of a strange man with my kids...letting him put the girls in the open back of the truck and me inside with Alex – hell no! HELL NO! OMG – NEVER! We were in a foreign county to boot! However, I decided it was what we needed to do because just minutes before I snapped out of wonderland and started to wonder what kind of wildlife might be in those hills that only comes out after dark. I also started to wonder how well we’d be able to see the trail, which was absolutely pertinent as the unguarded edge had potentially deadly drops if not treated with respect. No doubt in my mind, this farmer was a guardian angel and his timing was impeccable.
The farmer was an older man, thinner, but could have been Santa Clause’s brother. He spoke amazingly good English for someone who lived out in the Swiss mountains his whole life farming all day as he explained to me. We chatted lightly for the 3-5 min ride we had, but I never got his name. I was telling him about why we were there, all the while panicking internally about the girls being outside on the bumpy truck bed. By the time we got to our destination…the outer limits of Pluto….otherwise known as the lighted path to the cable car station, it was dark out. He rescued us literally just in the nick of time. I gushed thanks to him, and wanted to take a picture of him and the kids, but I felt like a big dork as it was and I didn’t want to bother him any further. As he lifted the stroller out of the back of his truck though, I snapped a candid flash photo…..I wanted to be able to show him to Alex.
We had to walk about a ½ block to the station on a little interior trail from there, while I reflected out loud to the kids about how much that man was a guardian angel to us. Boy was it DARK even with a little light along the way! We waited for the cable car with a couple other people, so it’s not like we were the ONLY people out there which made me feel a little better. From here, we enjoyed a breathtaking view of the full moon shining over Lake Zurich, which twinkled as cities do from above in the dark.
It was amazingly beautiful, especially with the full moon and though I was annoyed at myself I started to feel like everything in the day played out exactly as it was meant to. Had I not forgotten my pass, had Abbie not gotten stung, had the wood not been wet hindering our fire, we would not have been treated to the glorious sun set, moon rise and we certainly would not have gotten the night view in front of us right then which was totally worth it given the outcome. Our late lunch would not have been cooked if it weren’t for the tools we found along the way (and have had cranky kids!) – and we would have been hiking in the dark if Farmer Anonymous hadn’t driven by and picked us up at the last possible moment. Everything had worked out – just perfectly actually, like clockwork perfect. I had amazed kids, an impressed me – oh, and at that point a husband who was a little surprised of the story given I didn’t call to inform him of the fact that we were still chugging along on the trail at dusk. He assumed since I didn’t call that all was well. I didn’t call, because I was out of breath and in a freakin’ hurry! LOL
Now here’s an interesting thing too…… some of you will roll their eyes at me and some will nod in curiosity but here is the photo I took of the farmer taking the stroller out of the truck.
Question is…..where’s the farmer? He was definitely in my view when I took the photo! Odd, it even looks to me that the stroller is still slightly elevated like it’s not quite on the ground yet – is he hidden by a glare, is just freakishly short and behind Abbie??? Rational explanation – I used a flash in this photo which I rarely do. Flashes slow down the shot a little, my shutter release timing was maybe off and I missed him. More fun explanation…. you tell me : )
More photos to come !