Monday, October 16- We had now reached the point of the trip where we had been scheduled to fly to Tel Aviv Israel. Instead we packed up our luggage and loaded onto the bus one last time, after breakfast.
It wouldn't be breakfast without cheese!
We drove back to Zurich, Switzerland. I took this photo along the way to show their gas prices. That is for a liter. We worked out that their price is around $8/gal US. 😲
Roundabouts like this are so common in Europe
We dropped off several couples at the airport, where they were catching the bullet train to Paris. I was a wee bit jealous. It hadn't even occurred to us to do something like that and we hadn't caught wind they were going until the day before or we might have asked to tag along. In hindsight, I think it was God orchestrating our plans because I know we had a WAY better time taking a deeper dive into the Alps than winging it in Paris.
Next we went to a hotel near the airport. It was a bit of a production sorting out all the luggage. The Paris people's luggage was put in storage at the hotel so they could travel very lite. Next the 5 of us couples who were staying in Switzerland longer ditched part of our luggage into storage. (Remember we had packed for 18 days so we pared our luggage down to what we needed for 3 days and stored the rest.) It was so nice of the hotel to do that for us! Then the half of our group that was flying home the next morning gathered up their luggage to check into the hotel.
The rest of our time abroad is off script, but we are so, so glad we got to experience it!
It felt a little odd to leave half our group to fend for themselves, but we had "miles to go before we sleep". I haven't heard any stories so I believe they managed to find their way around on their own and get back home safely.
Before we drove very far -we were still in the canton of Zurich- we spotted what is comparable to our Hutterite communities; Swiss Faith Mission. We stopped to visit briefly, learning about their community and lifestyle. But we were hungry, so we moved on.
We noticed a lot of farms in the region had these portable water tanks for their cows...
We went in the basement to eat at the café, Kloster Café,. Richard & I had the soup of the day, and a piece of chocolate cake, which reminded me more of a gluten free brownie.
Lunch Menu
At that point we were only 10 minutes away from Hirzel, birthplace of Johanna Spyri, author of the world-famous book "Heidi". We drove by the museum, which is housed in the building that used to be the schoolhouse Johanna attended. It was high on my bucket list to visit this museum [being closely related to an author myself, I have an uncommon fascination with author museums] but it was not open that day. Sadly, I never did get an opportunity to go back.
view of it from the south...
We started noticing hills with a single tree on top. We were curious about the significance. When our local guide doesn't know, try Google. LOL It reminded me of the "Tale of 3 Trees" -the tree that simply wanted to stand on the hillside and point to God. But apparently in Switzerland, a tree is planted on top of a hill when a son is born.
Lake Lucerne is where we all seemed to be snapping photos, check it out on the screen, nope, delete immediately. What we saw on the screen just didn't match what we saw out the window. You just can't capture the beauty. Richard & I were on the wrong side of the van to boot. So this is a very poor photo of that area.
In the 13th century, the locals had built a shaky wooden bridge across the gorge, but it was a challenge to maintain. In 1595, the wooden bridge was replaced by a narrow stone bridge, essentially a pack mule trail. A new bridge was built in 1820, taking 10 years to construct. When the second bridge was no longer able to handle the volume of traffic it received, a concrete 2-lane bridge was built in 1958 to accommodate heavier traffic. The second devil's bridge still exists today but is not used.
We drove over 2 mountain passes. It was not for the faint of heart! Swiss roads are narrow- single lane at times- and a lot of the time there were no guard rails. There may or may not have been some ladies on board leaning toward the mountain side, refusing to look out windows at times, while our local guide drove confidently and not particularly slow. In all fairness, this wasn't his first rodeo pass, but still... eeek!!! If you look at the left of the photo below, you will see a covered tunnel, whose purpose it is to protect motorists from falling rocks (and avalanches, I presume). Not particularly calming information... 
When we got down into the valley we looked back to where we had been- that building way up there is the hotel, and to the left of it is the visitor's center. Notice the avalanche tunnels below it. Wow!
Because it was hard to capture perspective in photos, this is Google Maps of the Furka Pass -very switch-back-y! It is considered to be one of the “most iconic, exhilarating and exciting drives” through the Swiss Alps. No kidding! Oh, and it's Switzerland's 4th highest mountain pass, too.
I think there was a unanimous agreement that if any one of the American men would have been driving he would have been looking around at the gorgeous scenery (example below), saying "look at that!" while his wife would have been fussing encouraging him to keep his eyes on the road while she does the looking for him. 😂 We ladies would've had a lot more to say if our husband had been driving; we were keeping the gasps reigned in because Ernst was behind the wheel!
If you know me at all, you probably know I am prone to carsickness. I claimed a front seat in the van, and even so I felt a little "iffy" on this particular drive. Just when I thought we survived the worst, Ernst announced we were at the top of the first pass, heading down and still had another one to go! 😨🙊
Notice the blurry objects in the foreground- those are widely spaced concrete posts, the only form of protection from going over the edge...
But oh how majestic the view was from above! Pictures don't do justice. Sorry, just had to say it again.
Stopping close to the top for a WC break was most welcome. This is Rhone Gletscher (Glacier) at 7600 ft.
There are hiking trails up to the glacier but we didn't take the time.
Hey, there is real edelweiss growing outside the visitor's center! 😎
Hotel Belvédère was built in one of the hairpin turns of the pass in 1882. It’s panoramic location attracted a pampered clientele who stayed sometimes for several weeks at a stretch during the summers. Starting from the 1960s though, the number of guests at the hotel began to decrease sharply. Cars had become too powerful and fast, so what was previously a two- or three-day trip through the pass became a one-day round trip. Guests who previously stayed overnight now took a quick trip to the Rhone Glacier, had lunch or just a cup of tea at the hotel, and left. The number of hotel guests sank rapidly and Hotel Belvédère was never the same. The iconic hotel closed for good in 2016.
I was not aware of it at the time but Furka Pass became famous after the James Bond movie Goldfinger was filmed here in 1964. The car chasing scene on this serpentine road involved an Aston Martin and a Ford Mustang. I'm not a Bond fan by any stretch of the imagination, but I might have to watch it just to see this road we were on. LOL
Excuse my reflection in the window, I miss the big bus windows for taking pictures!
We went over the Grimsel Pass next. This calendar-worthy shot was at Obergoms.
We pulled over so some of the men could have a quick snowball battle.
Richard got plastered 😄
This was fresh snow from that morning. In October.
Just can't get enough of these views! 😍😍
We came upon a 'cow jam' - some cows were being herded from a mountain pasture to a farm. So fun to watch!
I was really glad to be finished driving on curvy roads till we arrived in Hasliberg, our destination.
We also stopped briefly where a dam was being built on the mountain.
We stayed at Bellevue Gastehaus. The Bellevue is part of a Christian mission organization and they have a hotel in order to bring people in and evangelize, so it was a unique guest house experience. We have a lot of common ground in faith practices, especially in modesty, which made us feel at home there.
We were running late for their family style dinner, so we ate before we checked in our rooms.
We opted to not attend their daily service from 7:30-8 because it was in German, which some of us didn't understand. But they had the wifi blocked during their service, interestingly enough. We also did not have wifi in our rooms because they want this place to be a spiritual retreat, away from the distractions of everyday life. Love this picture of our group making plans for the next 2 days.
-keep checking, still more to come-
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