As we trialled our new bed in a real house it rained heavily and all night. Switzerland’s weather has followed this pattern ever since we’ve been here, never raining after 9-10am. Previously we had been looking for dinner places with no luck. A passer-by apologetically informed us there was no food here so with forlorn faces we went home.
But we were lucky, our mythological b&b manager turned up and gave us a version of tomorrow’s breakfast for dinner. She stayed with us and we talked a little. We found out that the mountain staring at us through our window was called Mythen Grossen, while it’s little sister alongside was called Mythen Keinen. Grossen’s claim to legend status was that it had a restaurant on top of what was really just a massive rock/mountain, where many climb for lunch (close to 1900 metres!).
We left Simone to prepare for her next guests and install copious red geranium pots in the window boxes. As I predicted, we had a perfect day with fine cloud cover. We felt tired just looking at that hill, but knew it would eventually be downhill, and for a long way. Stopping every 100 metres to debrief, we climbed for 2 hours through forests and when it was more open we adulated the glorious views. The lawn-like grass once again buffered everything. Above them we saw the now not so distant snowy Alps – half a metre of snow fell this week. At different angles they provided various vistas while Grossen and Keinen came closer at every sighting.
At last we could see the last upward metres and stopped for a drawn out viewing of two stunning lakes. As we had coffee on a massive hotel deck in the shadows of Grossen and Keinen, we knew the hard walk would have its rewards. Coming and going from our deck were six bike riders whose bikes didn’t often touch the ground, eight day walkers, and one older pilgrim.
Down the hill we could have probably done cart wheels but we would have induced the envy of many half our age. We did however perform all the forward tango steps, and I saved the backward ones for when Corrie was coming uphill. The mountains joined us all the way down to Schwyz, a stunning town with the most historic and magnificent buildings (one fully decorated with beautiful artworks), surrounding a magical square.
We ate a craved co-op store salad lunch in a concrete park watching African adopted kids playing in their colourful UNICEF shirts, their proud Swiss parents watching on. Another family with young children all speaking Arabic were also having co-op lunches and playing in the park.
It was Corrie’s home stretch run now so I took every opportunity (putting her bag on, looking at maps and cats teasing mice in the fields, looking at beetles), to keep walking. It was a stretch down a valley with banks so steep even the goats paused. Finally down into the very popular canal town of Brunnen.
We had booked ahead because it was suggested as a good idea, however, we have a 6-bed room all to ourselves in a spotless Kloster Haus with a view of G and K still in sight. The head nun was very friendly, maybe too much so, as her hand shake gave me more pain than my back, knee and foot pad. Very efficient though, with all the questions imagined written both in English and German. We dined in town, so it’s clothes washing time and we have a drying room – life doesn’t get much better than that.