We know now from our hosts that there is no official Swiss language though roughly, it is German to the east, French to the west, Italian to the south, and drawing a line from north to south through Bern it is a certain dialect different from the others. Not much use to us though as we need to speak English or Spanish – the latter not high on the Swiss priority list. Like most Swiss we have met, our hosts had a great sense of humour, were very friendly, astute and interested.
The light streamed into our room, showing off the Alps and the pretty town below. Simple food awaited us as we ate with our hosts – Kurt had a work day at home and we talked about cold holidays, retirement ages – Swiss are the same as Australia, cheeses and wine.
A perfect walking day up another regular Swiss perpendicular hill and into our first Swiss old forest, small birds rejoicing in the warmth, church bells and cow bells reminding us of the country we are in. The landform is a little less hilly, flattening out now as we approach a large lake. A few runners and bikes ensured we walked on the left and behind each other on the more narrow paths. But no pilgrims again, maybe we are too fast for them!
We had to decide whether we go on to a ‘town too far’or look for something in a town that does not advertise reasonable accommodation costs. I hailed down two older women who couldn’t understand us, so they called out across the road to a more elderly woman who could speak it a little. She pointed up a hill (of course) to a place we could not see, so she took us closer and gave a less vague description.
We soon came across this large farm – the farmer knew less English than we knew Swiss, so he rang his daughter in law who knew it well enough. We had two options for lodgings – a straw bed in a trailer or a real bed in a shed – we took the shed. We have to walk down to a small shed for our shower, a larger shed for our breakfast and maybe back down the hill for dinner. But there unusually is wifi on this very enterprising farm – it has a small shop, a flower shop, party rooms and dance nights. We’re tired so we’ll look for food to eat in our large shed, wash in the smaller shed then off to bed in the smallest but cosier shed.
