Beyond Here

These days there are california poppies blooming all around this place. They reminded me of these poppy fields growing in the wild that we came across outside Lausanne in Switzerland last year. We were having a hard time figuring our way out of the city in the car, when we came across these. Getting lost can be fun sometimes.

My latest favorite place in the world is Lauterbrunnen. It is a beautiful valley near Interlaken. For most Indians, Interlaken is synonymous with Yash Chopra movies and classic Swiss scenery. But about 20 miles from Interlaken, is this quaint little town and valley called Lauterbrunnen and this place formed the base of our Swiss travel in the Berner Oberland area. While Interlaken boasts of all the touristy stuff, if you want to live close to the mountains and numerous waterfalls (close to nature as my mom would say), Lauterbrunnen is where you need to be. A small town, that leads to a beautiful valley, with waterfalls falling on either side. When we went out for our first walk on the valley floor, I stood at one point and counted the total number of waterfalls visible - the count was 11. Streams trickle down from anywhere and everywhere. My husband remarked - "This is much like Yosemite, but multiplied by 10'. Days in this place just seemed to vanish - there was so much to do...

On a scenic drive from Luzern, we drove to the St. Gotthard pass. Here are some pictures from once we reached the pass. This is definitely a must-do drive if you have a car in the Luzern area and is an easy, day trip. It is dangerously scenic - we had to make sure that whosoever was driving was concentrating on the road and not on the mountains around.

I had first seen the swiss cowbells in one of Yash Chopra's movies - DDLJ. And the area that comes closest to the Switzerland as how I imagined it to be, the land of cowbells, was - Appenzell. There were sloping hills, churches with spike towers, cows with cowbells... When we drove towards Appenzell, it was raining. I was a little disappointed. But even with the clouds and rains, it was wonderful. And so disappointment gave way to smiles as we drove towards this place. I was looking forward to walking around in these hills. The clouds cleared up the following day. And so we woke up early eager to step out and do some walks into the country side. To say that Appenzell is beautiful would be an understatement. It was almost magical after the rains from the previous day. When we landed in Switzerland, one of the fellow travellers had quipped - "So are they landing our plane onto a farm or something". That is exactly how it felt - there were green sloping hills all around. ...

Had my first good access to internet today - in Venice right now. The Switzerland part of the trip just ended and it could not have been better. Till I get back to San Diego, here is something to feast your eyes on. Chapel Bridge in Luzern Lake Geneva at Montreux And here is a quick one of Venice too... Grand Canal at Venice