Last News from Switzerland

At the beginning of the summer I thought all my excitement about going abroad would make time go by really slowly but looking at the calendar I can't believe it's already August and almost time to go to India.
Since my last blog post I've been doing pretty much the same thing I was doing before which is biking a lot. August 1st is Swiss National Holiday and luckily this year it fell on a thursday so my parents and Dimitri got Friday off to enjoy a long weekend. We planned another biking trip to the most eastern part of Switzerland and enjoyed some nice passes there.
The high temperatures over those few days made biking even more difficult and we soon realized that our planned itineraries would be much too difficult and we had to readjust a little bit. Luckily in Switzerland there is a train station in pretty much every town so we could always fall back on taking the train in case we got tired.

Mom, Dad and Dimitri at the Furka 

The most impressive road we took was the one over the Gottard Pass. The Gottard roads and the tunnel going under it are very busy as it is one of the main ways to connect southern and northern Europe and the first road built there is extremely old. Luckily they maintained that road despite building a new highway and it is a wonderful route for bikers. Most of it is being restored to cobblestone which was the original pavement but because this road used to be driven on by carriages pulled by horses, the slope is never very steep and there are many switchbacks making it perfect for biking. This is one of the few passes where rather than having sore legs at the top you have sore arms and hands from all the shaking from the cobblestones!  We biked for 4 days before all returning to our various work places but it was nice to have a little family vacation before the end of summer.  

The Gottard Cobblestones 

A few of the many switchbacks 

A 5 horsepower antique carriage on the Gottard Road 

At the top with sore arms

At the top of the Grosse Scheidegg with the Eiger North Face in the background 

I'm now leaving beautiful Switzerland to go to the Black Forest to visit my grandparents and uncles for a few days before taking the plane to India on Saturday.


I hope everyone could enjoy the end of summer and happy returning to campus for those of you not going abroad! My next update will most likely be from some internet cafe in New Delhi or Jaipur!