Paris, is there any finer city on earth? I’ve seen a lot of cities and none can top its perfect amalgamation of architectural beauty, street life, cafe culture and bikeability. Like NYC it’s a city of the sidewalk, a place where “people watching” is a popular pastime. It’s the city that created the conditions for the Flâneur to flourish. So it’s a kind of mecca for me.
Though I walked plenty, the real story was the Vélib' bike system. The bikes could be found on almost every corner and new “bike lanes” have sprung up on seemingly every street. What’s most surprising is that when a car encounters a bike, they give the bike space. It's a total 180 from when we were in town pre-pandemic.
I discovered the hike to Meglisalp thanks to a recommendation from a man working at the Arc’teryx store in Zurich. It took about two hours by train and gondola, but when you arrived at the start of the hike, the views were stunning. They didn’t quit for five more hours across 15 Kilometers. All around you were jagged granite cliffs thrusting out of verdant green alpine pastures. Cows lazily ate grass and the dull clanking of their collective bells rang through the valley.
At one point I could hear the distant sound of the alpenhorn, that instrument of swiss legend. This is too much I thought, this can’t be real. I stopped a father and his daughter walking the opposite way. “Is this real? Is someone really playing that horn thing” I asked in disbelief. They chuckled and pointed to a spot on the other side of the valley where a man sat at a long wooden alpenhorn. “It’s part of the agreement between the government and the farmers”
This is what’s amazing about Switzerland. From anywhere, you can jump on a train and be comfortably transported to the top of a mountain. The trails might be simple looking, but they always run into a hut where you can grab a beer and maybe a schnitzel before reapplying sunscreen and hiking on.
The Wave