Tag Archives: SwissRail

14: Swiss Sunshine & A Hike Through the Jura Mountains

BIEL Alstadt: The sun is out in Switzerland again after a very cool and wet spring.

The sun is out in Switzerland again, so we rode the funicular up the Jura Mountain slopes and hiked down. The Juras are mere bumps in the landscape compared to the Alps, but it is still exciting to get lost in them, which we did a few times owing to the pecularities of Swiss signage. Apparently, all roads lead to Biel, but the question on our minds was: Which one will get us there sooner and with less chances of ankle-breaks?

If you go: The funicular (rail-car that rides up the slopes) runs every 20 minutes. It has two compartments for bikes (appears able to hoist about 10-15 per ride). Priced at 5.40 CHF (Swiss Francs) per person. Half-price SwissRail cards for residents apply (2.70). Go from Biel to Magglingen to access the mountain bike trails. For more info, click here. 

The trail  is very steep for the first 50 m, and has a few hairpin turns that create ideal blind spots for careening cyclists to flatten hikers. Fortunately, the trail levels and straightens a little after that, making it safe-sharing for hikers and bikers. It took us about 90 minutes to walk from Magglingen back down to Biel. Keep your ears open for cyclists, even on the scarier parts of the trail. We were heading down a narrow concrete stepped embankment when we heard the thwack sound of bike tires bumping down the pavement behind us  – yes, a mountain biker in the most unlikely of places. How like the Swiss. They are a sturdy bunch.

Okay, most roads lead to Biel/Bienne.

For mountain biking types who want to know here the trail-head is: Exit the funicular and go  left. Adjacent to the funicular station (on your left again) is a driveway that drops down to a parking lot. Go down the driveway (about 15-20 metres, maybe less) and you will see yellow signs (again, on  your left) marking the trail before the parking lot.

If  you go past a gated road you have gone too far. Turn back to the funicular station.

Take extreme care. The first portion of the trail is very steep with a deep hairpin turn, although we did see a cyclist whip down it without injury, so maybe I overestimate the trail’s treachery. The rest of the trail does not look so frightening.

Statsurday

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This part of the trail was not so bad, but it is still steeper than it looks. We saw a salamander and a deer while on our walk. I went to whip out my camera to photo the deer, then remembered we see deer almost everyday back at home in Canada. Later, I had regrets. It was the first Swiss deer we’ve seen.

The view looking back from our table at a Joral’s waterfront restaurant. That white dot you see near the top of the mountain is the start-spot for our hike.

The perils of public transport

Train-traveler packs one, two, three bottles/cans in full view for the trip.

Drunks were everywhere this weekend.

At the Bern train station,  a dread-locked man bark loudly in the face of passengers stepping onto a train.

The passengers stoically looked the other way while he pressed in, determined to make his presence known, if not felt.

Drunks upset the delicate social balance where we all agree that when we venture out, we not bark at others, and if we cannot stop ourselves from barking, then at least we should stay far enough away so that our victims are not soaked in our saliva spray.

Is it too much to ask? Apparently so.

This guy must be going on an overnight trip.

Staggerers,  shouters, boorish keg-carriers –  I judge you all.

A red-faced young man carried on what could have been the longest yodel ever as he stood on the train platform. A few minutes later, he smacked himself down in the quadrant of seats behind ours on the train, still yelling. He could have been singing, or bragging, or screaming ‘Help me, I am about to fall into an alcohol-induced coma.’

Given the unpredictability of drunks, especially that their moods  switch swiftly from party to sour to let-me-punch-someone-in-the-face, we quietly moved to another car.

At Fribourg's covered bridge. Isn't it charming? We could barely notice it, thanks to booze-soaked wanderer.

Last week, on the train to France, a tattooed scramble-haired man in an agitated state sat across the aisle from us,  hissing into his cell phone. Was it a drug deal gone bad? Was he going to take it out on us?  It did focus our minds, but not on the French countryside.

This weekend, as we got off  the train at Fribourg, we were happy to leave the drunken yowler behind, but after we made the walk down Fribourg’s plunging cobblestone streets and through its rustic wood-beamed covered bridge, we heard a familiar sound.

The skinny yowler staggered into view. How was it that he was still standing?

Eroded limestone hangs over the river at Fribourg. See the fisherman in the lower right corner. He is having a good day, because he has not met our drunk.

We had just taken out our map to plot our course, but the yowler, not the map, was going to decide where we would go.

He turned away up a narrow side road, his arms flailing, his head cocked oddly, while he continued in that strange thin bellow.

We took the road that he did not, and it was an enchanting road, but it lost some of its allure as we kept an ear open for the yowler.

For the first time since arriving here, I missed my car.

Fribourg's 40-metre long covered bridge, called the "Bern Bridge," dates back to the 17th century and is made of stone, wood and dirt. Yes, dirt, which is also the reference that I make to drunks.

Does Dave work?

Today’s topic: Does Dave work?

For decades, I have asked him the same question every weekday: “What did you do today, Honey?”

Undone again by the Swiss rail system.

The answer always sounded something like, “We couldn’t get 1100 01010011 111011010000 to 0001 01011 and 000111 was really nasty 000011 010101.”

Dang it. He was speaking in binary. Things didn’t get better as new computer languages evolved: Cobol, SQL, CSP, DRDA – they were all French to me.

The truth is, I have never fully understood Dave’s work.  He traveled a lot, dressed in dark  three-piece suits and carried a black leather briefcase. He could have been a hit man for all anyone knew.

Fearful, I sent one of our boys off to university, ostensibly to study computer science, but really, he was there to acquire enough knowledge to investigate his father’s occupation.

Then he graduated. He started wearing designer jeans, taupe popped-collar jerseys, and carrying an expensive backpack – the latest uniform of computer tekkies.

“What did you do today at work, Mark?”

“%: post.php?post=1543&action=edit&message=10,” he replied. “Boy, I am tired! I’m going to unwind with some rlz=1C1SKPL_enCA410CA410&aq=f&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8&q=nintendo.”

Dang. They got to him.

Turning aside from the huge investment of time (raising child) and money (partial payment of university tuition, room and board) I had invested in my now-double-crossing spy, I recognized I would have to investigate Dave’s work myself.

Dave “workplace” is a 25-minute train-ride away, so after obtaining detailed directions from Dave (my first mistake),  I set out determined to uncover the truth. I arrived at the station just as a sleek train pulled in. It was on the first platform, as per Dave’s instructions, and it was marked for Chaud de Fond, just as Dave said it would be, although that is not the name of the town where he “works.”

I was suspicious, but he assured me the town is too small to merit a sign on the train, but it is on the same route as the Chaud de Fondue train.

I had nestled in for a pleasant ride when a young man took the seat across from me.  I asked him if this train stopped in Corgemont. It turned out he is one of the few under-25-year-old Swiss who cannot speak English, either that, or he is a Frenchman. His response did not include the words  “c’est bien,”  “oui” or “d’accor.”

After getting lost on the train to Murten/Morat (click here for a refresher), I promised myself I would never again leap up from my seat to race up and down a train frantically pushing random buttons in an attempt to stop the train. It turns out I was wrong about that.

What a cute train station. What a pity it's not the one I wanted.

A young man of Arabic descent pursued me … this is the great thing about Arab boys, they really do love their mothers and by extension are disposed to helping hysterical women in the over-40-years-old age group, which would be me.  As I clawed at the auto-locked door, he assured me that the train would stop in the town before my destination, where I could get off and wait for the next train.

It’s hard to regain one’s composure after such a public display. The rest of the passengers gave me sympathetic smiles as I returned to my seat where my not-so-helpful French companion eyed me warily, weighing the odds that I might burst into another psychotic episode.

The Arab boy helped me off the train at Sonceboz-Sombeval and explained the next train would arrive in 40 minutes.

“Just stay right here, here on this platform and it will come. Do not go to any other platform or get on any train other than the one arriving here at 4:10 p.m. ,” he said, looking at me with the earnest anxiety of a man about to leave his grandmother to fend for herself at a giant international airport and not in a three-track Swiss village train station. “Remember, the train will be going that way,” he added, pointing in the direction of the train we had just left, as if I did not already know that.

Lost among livestock in a Swiss village.

He left, looking behind him several times as though I were a dog that did not often obey the command “stay.”

Which I didn’t. I popped out the cell phone and called Dave (the rogue) and informed him of my misadventure.

“It’s only a 30-minute walk away. Take the road that runs along the train track,” Dave said. Forgetting his track record – no pun intended – I decided to walk.  I meandered past a cowyard, some horses and goats and found a pothole-pocked yellow gravel road next to the tracks.

Funny thing is, Swiss roads don’t have potholes. The Swiss are picky about these things.

The road is long, with no real winding turns, but it turned out not to be a road at all. Dang.

I went along, hoping to not run into any territorial farm dogs, until I saw a large barn-like building in the distance. Weird that a barn would look as though it is at the end of a road, but the Swiss like to arrange things compactly, so maybe it was just right next to the road.

As I drew near, I saw that I was wrong about that. I was not on a road at all, but a long driveway. There was no road beyond it. There was no road on the other side of the tracks either.

I checked my watch. The next train was due in about 13 minutes and I had been sauntering for about 25 (including the time I stood on the train platform debating whether to walk).

I booked it, making it on to the next train just as I had got off the last one, hair frizzed, sweat pouring down my face, laboured breathing, leading my new fellow passengers to give me a wide berth.

I arrived in Corgemont to see snug barnyards, dairy cows, chickens and geese – hardly the setting for the international giant firm that allegedly employed Dave.

Dave appeared on the platform, apologetic for the train mix-up, and admitted he had left out some information from his directions on the grounds that it might confuse me. I will get him for that, but first, I wanted to see his place-of-work.

Dave and his boss model what an ordinary work day looks like for Dave, but let me point out - they are posing, raising the question: Does he really work? Or are the people I met all hired actors? A hit man could afford that.

Dave led me past more livestock and gently aged Swiss village buildings  to a modern facility where he introduced me to people who looked like they knew him, and then to a friendly Swiss-German who claimed to be Dave’s boss, along with a Croatian coworker. There were computers, timing devices, a massive shipping department. It seemed Dave’s story checked out.

“You really do work,” I said.

“Does he?” muttered the Croatian. “Have you seen him actually do anything since you got here?”

It’s a good question, but I am not chancing another solo train ride to find out.