The Cablecars of Switzerland

After four days in Venice, I took off for not just the next city on my list, but the next country!

Unlike Italy, which is all about the art, the museums, and the cities, Switzerland is all about the the outdoors, the hiking, and the breathtaking views around almost every corner.

Through my whole time in Switzerland, I didn’t spend more than an hour or so in anything that could be considered a “city” (like Lugano, Zurich, Bern, Geneva), so unlike my blog posts through Italy, which each focused on one city, we will have to try a different approach to blogging Switzerland. Because, after all, one adorable small town in the mountains is much like another.

But here’s one thing all Swiss towns (and cities!) have in common: the funicular. It is almost impossible to get anywhere worth going without making at least one part of your trip in a cablecar or gondola.

These can be as cheap as 2.50 round trip, or as expensive as 85.00. But whatever I paid, I pretty much never regretted going – the higher you go, the better the scenery gets, no?

I took my first one in Bergamo (which is technically in Italy, but… whatever), when Steven and I took a daytrip there from Milan:

We took it from the citta bassa to the citta alta (those higher buildings in the picture), and the view was pretty fabulous:

A few days later, in Lugano (an Italian-speaking town just over the Swiss border), I took a cable car up to the tiny church of San Salvatore.

Up, up we go…!

And the views from the top were fabulous:

On June 20, I took a cablecar-cum-gondola from Lake Thun to the top of the Niederhorn, about 1900m up (this amazing spot, where I spent my birthday, will have its own post later).

It was a dizzying ride. About halfway up you stop in the village of Beatenburg, where you have to transfer from your lovely, rail-bound cable car, to an unsupported, wind-buffeted gondola.

My beautiful backpack, he/she still needs a name! Any suggestions? Giacomo, Wolfgang, Grendel…?

It was amazing to watch the lake I’d just traversed by boat gradually shrink as I went higher and higher!

And the views from the top were some of my absolute favorite (evidenced by the fact that I couldn’t bring myself to leave, so I spent three un-planned-for nights in the hotel at the top!)

Across the lake in Grindelwald, I took another gondola up to something called “First” which is apparently another summit. I say apparently because the day was rainy and so fogged in that I couldn’t see anything beyond the walls of my little gondola (it was wonderful actually, like traveling through blank white space). And when I got to the top, I couldn’t see a thing (I had planned on hiking back down, but by then it was raining just a little too hard). So at the top I ate some hot soup and drank a hot toddy and went back down through the same white mist.

According to Google, this is the view I was missing… Bummer.

And finally, after staying in Grindelwald for a couple days (again, more details on this in another post), I took a several trains and a gondola up to a teeny-tiny, confusingly-similarly-named village called Gimmelwald, which is only accessible via gondola. From this little hamlet perched on the edge of a cliff, the cable car continues to the most spectacular summit yet, the Schilthorn (2900 meters, 9800 feet). Even though this was not the highest place I went in Switzerland, it’s view of those higher places was the best. Aka, when you’re on the Jungfrau (a famous mountain we’ll revisit later), you can’t actually see the Jungfrau.

(Actually that reminds me of a great anecdote about Harkness Tower in New Haven: Apparently Frank Lloyd Wright once said that if he could live one place in the world, it would be on the top of Harkness Tower, so he would never have to look at it, it is so ugly. Lulz.)

But anyway, the Schilthorn was absolutely magnificent:

I swear my camera actually took this picture. This is not just some postcard that I scanned in. The highest peak on the left is the Jungfrau. Please please please do click on the picture to make it bigger – it’s so pretty!

And that, my friends, concludes my cable-car tour of Switzerland. Actually, I think that made a nice overview of all the places I visited, some of which now I will blog about separately.

Auf wiedersehen!

The Real Gondoliers of Venice

The one thing probably EVERYONE knows about Venice is about the Gondoliers. Well I can tell you, they do in fact exist!

I didn’t take a gondola ride myself, because even the cheapest were 80 euros, but plenty of gullible romantic tourists opt for the typical Venetian experience, which means that lots of cheapskate single skeptical tourists get to stand on the canal bridges and watch the show!

They’re a special breed of guy – maybe it comes from wearing a costume all day, particularly one that involves tight pants and muscle-hugging shirts… And of course the adorable hats to complete the ensemble.

I swear this isn’t posed. They really were just standing like this…

The prices for gondola rides start at around 80 euro, and go about as high as you’re willing to pay. The basic ride for two would be one of these guys silently pushing you around the canals in a long black boat for a half hour. But gondola rides are like cars, where you can keep adding luxury features. Or like salads, where you can keep adding toppings (75 cents for veggies, 25 cents extra dressing, $1.00 for avocado or toasted almonds, $3.00 for a piece of grilled chicken or salmon… etc.) For instance, you’re gondolier can sing to you. Ka-ching. Or there can be another guy in the boat playing the accordion. Ka-ching. Or your gondola could have a sun-roof and red and gold velvet cushions upon which you and your lover husband recline and sip champagne while you feed each other fresh Adriatic oysters… Ka-ching, ka-ching, ka-ching.

(That song, by the way, is a Neapolitan tarantella. In case you ever need to bust out that trivium at a cocktail party.)

One of the more pimped-out gondolas

And the gondolieri aren’t bad singers, either. Venetians are generally good at music, I’ve found. Unfortunately, I don’t have a video of an actual singing gondolier (ran out of room on my memory card… darn), but here instead is a picture of some Venetian opera singers singing a duet from Don Giovanni:

They were singing “La ci darem la mano.” Super cute. For your own edification, watch this version with Bryn Terfel. It’s the closest Mozart ever gets to soft-core pornography. It should be pretty obvious, but… the duet is about him seducing her. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NqPcb1nKZYg

And yes, the chamber ensemble is decked-out in 18th century costume as well.

I will remember Venice fondly, for sure. Not the exhausting heat and the soul-sucking crowds, but the costumes and the music and the novelty of the canals, which really are as beautiful as everyone says!