Mid-June 2024 Roundup: Switzerland

Rebecca

June 14

I don't know if I can sum up our time in Switzerland briefly. When we went, I just didn't know what to expect. We put ourselves in the hands of beloved family members, who we hadn't seen in a long time. They blew us away with their generous hospitality, and Switzerland blew us away with beauty. Here are a few of our favourite memories.

Olten

Our cousins (I'm just going to call them that because it's shorter than "Jared's cousin and her husband and four kids) live in Olten, and we spent four days just hanging out with them.

A bridge originally built in the 1295, rebuilt after fire and attack several times over the years, most recently in 1803.

Poppies at the Lindt factory, where a malfunction in August 2020 famously made it snow chocolate in town

So many flavours of truffles we hadn't tried! Picked several to sample later.

Goats at the nearby "wildpark" - a public park that included animal exhibits. There was also a rare bird exhibit right across the street from their house. Who funds this sort of thing?

Thun

About an hour from Meiringen (see below), live my godmother / Jared's aunt and uncle. We visited them for dinner one afternoon and evening, and spent a little time down at Thuninsee (that's Thun lake). There was a large playground there, and the swans were very bold.

Us and another cousin at dinner with our aunt and uncle

We got hilariously lost on the way home. Lesson learned: if you're going to navigate by GPS + downloaded maps and not use data, and there's any chance of a road closure, get on wifi before you leave and navigate first! We got some close up experience of country roads around Thun lake in a gentle rain, anyway.

Meiringen

After four nights with cousins, we hit the road. They recently purchased a chalet in the Swiss Alps, partly to rent out as an Airbnb and partly to host friends and family when they visit from far away. Olten was beautiful, and felt like a continental European version of a beautiful old suburb. But driving to Meiringen, we realized that we were headed toward the land that Switzerland is really known for.

This is the Liebs Chalet, which we recommend highly as a friendly, accessible place to stay. It's very family friendly, kid friendly, and the bottom apartment is suitable for pets. I so enjoyed all the chalet architecture, with the fire-treated wood, carved details, and comfortable gardens.

The first morning there, the sun woke me up early and I got to experience Alpenglow.

That very evening, the rain ended at sunset and gave us a rainbow.

My favourite activity in Meiringen was the hikes we managed to do. It's extra cool that built right into the hills are hikes that are friendly for kids and interesting. I plan to do a whole post on those hikes; I took a truly shocking amount of pictures and video. On rainy days, we did some stuff in town.

Did you know that merengues are named after the town of Meiringen? We had to stop for some, and other pastries. The bakeries, my friends!

What Meiringen is perhaps most famous for is that it's at the foot of the Reichenbach Falls, made famous as the location of Sherlock Holmes's supposed death in the story "The Final Problem." I'll tell you later about our hike to see these famous falls.

There has been so much tourism to Meiringen just for Sherlock Holmes that he was made an honorary citizen of the town. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle visited the area often, and wrote the famous story while staying in one of the local hotels, where you can still stay today. It's difficult to overstate how beloved this character is, and this town has become an epicenter of the most intense literary nerdiness you can imagine.

On the same day that we hiked the falls, we visited the little museum in town.

In the basement of this former church, members of the Sherlock Holmes Society in London recreated the sitting room of 221B Baker Street. As described by the audio tour, the creators combed the texts to glean every detail they could, resolved inconsistencies as needed, and acquired pieces accurate to the period.

I am not a deep Holmes nerd, but I did read all the stories about eight years ago, and there is something innately joyful to me about seeing grown men and women get so excited about something. These stories are a common meditation that goes back over a hundred years, beloved with so much intensity that they seem to have attempted to manifest him in reality. One feels as if their secret plan was to make this space so accurate that the man himself couldn't help but step into the room from an alternate dimension. I hope Benedict Cumberbatch has visited.

A newer addition to the Meiringen scene is WollReich. This is a sheep farm that raises native Swiss sheep and is doing some really innovative work to add value to their wool and promote Swiss wool. I didn't take many pictures here because I took a lot of video, and I hope to go into more detail on the Wool Circle in a few weeks.

We fell down pretty hard in their shop, and aside from the obvious move of buying some wool, we bought these wool trainers for Dooner. She was lacking in hiking shoes, and these have been just the ticket. They're a bit dirtier than this already!

There's a pretty impressive wool shop right in the middle of town, Egg Laden. They sell a lot of Lang products, as well as some macrame materials and fabric. I got out of town having only bought two skeins of sock yarn.

We've covered chocolate, merengues, cheese (there was so much cheese you guys), and what else do you associate with the Swiss? Watches, apparently. Jared suggested we get each other Swiss watches for our anniversary (sixteen years, two weeks from today). I haven't had a watch in I don't know how long. I'm more pleased than I could have imagined to have a really pretty one.

What I Made

I spent much of our time in Switzerland re-knitting the yoke of my Wervel sweater. It's finally really right, not only in size, but the tension of the fair isle is much better.

I'm now off to the races on the body. Of course, in the meantime, I started a purse sock, and the next clue of the Goff Mystery KAL came out, so I now have three plain knitting projects on the go. Typical!

I spun one rolag every single day. The fiber on the spindles now is the 50/50 blend of brown Rambouillet and Qiviut. I used my Mawdsley Fiber Arts spindle:

And when that one filled, I switched to my Allen Berry pinecone spindle.

As of this morning in Scotland, these singles are now finished. I think I'll save the plying for Tour de Fleece, because I need the motivation - plying on a drop spindle is not my favourite!

Family

Reconnecting with Tina, and getting to know Josh better, was really special. The number of memories that came up! Our kids got along like a house on fire (almost literally, I'm pretty sure), and getting to know their kids was a particular joy.

Jared and Tina's moms are two of identical triplets, meaning logically that they are genetically more like half-siblings than cousins. As my girls have grown up, I have thought multiple times that Stringbean resembles a blonde version of Tina.

And with that great big smile, Dooner often reminds me of one of Tina's little sisters, Stephie, who we also got to see.

For our family, we felt very cared for. We had our ups and downs as always, but overall it felt like we were able to pace ourselves well, not dragging ourselves and our kids into unrealistic adventures that turned into no fun at all.