The Swiss Alps

 When Matt was dreaming about a destination backpacking trip for his 40th birthday he had kept this hut and hike trip in Italy out of his Backpacker Magazine. (One of his favorite pieces of literature to read). As the time to make reservations and plans began to approach he changed his mind and dreamed of Switzerland. Both places where exciting to me and really sat on the shelf in my mind thinking we would not be able to go. Matt invited friends to make the journey with us and being as we, all have families and no idle money to devote to travel, no one could join us. Matt decided to work extra hours and make this dream of his come to life. It was a decision of the deck or travel. I always vote for travel, but did not pressure at all and he chose to travel for his birthday. With three months to plan I became the Murphy travel office and got things all lined up.

It was very difficult to plan a backpacking trip to Switzerland as A: I have never been to Switzerland, B: I have never done more than one night of Backpacking and C: I do not speak French or Swiss German. With my adventurous spirit and the excitement of international travel I plowed ahead. Most of my summer has been researching backpacking gear that I needed, mapping out and booking huts and travel and training for our hike. We knew our trip would be about 50 miles of hiking and also knowing I had recently given birth to a new little boy; weight loss and preparations were required. I also spent a great deal of time preparing those who would have my children with schedules and details and a newly written will. yikes! Preparation is key.

We had so many doors that God opened for us to take this trip by providing money through an extra job, at the last minute a travel agent helping us get some tickets and contacting the man who wrote and mapped out our trip in the alps all paved the way for our journey.

As with all journeys there are windfalls and hiccups. I will enjoy describing both.

I could probably write a book with the details and information that I would love to share. I approached the computer tonight with a mind gushing full of excitement and stories I wanted to share.

Switzerland is just amazingly beautiful. The best way to describe it is to imagine a storybook setting. Imagine Heidi. In fact we meet a couple that live in the town that the story Heidi came from. You will see some of the beauty in our photos but being surrounded by the alps is such a once in a lifetime experience.

Flew out of Louisville, KY on Sunday, September 7th at 2:45p
   We caught a ride to the airport with a good friend and left our children with continual "one last hugs". This was going to be a long trip. Only a 1hour lay over in Washington D.C. then over the ocean to Geneva and arriving at 8am. The flight was only 9 hours but we were also flying into the future as they are 6 hours ahead of us. So our time was actually 2am arrival. I pushed for us to continue our day if we were to acclimate to this new time.

Taking the train to the other side of Geneva Lake we made stops at Vevey and Castle Chillion in Montroux.

Lake Geneva was beautiful and very cold. I saw this guy swimming by and thought I wonder what the water feels like here. I think my toe turned to ice the instant I touched the water.

 I had so looked forward to having Matt all to myself this trip, I have to share him with four little ones now, not to mention his phone. No distractions here in Switzerland. Here is the happy couple.

Here is Matt's pack weighing in at 38 pounds and my smaller blue pack weighing in at 17 pounds for the pack and 2 pounds for my camera bag in the front.
(Just think I have lost 17 pounds in the inform class this summer! So you can visualize the weight I lost. Crazy) Since this was a backpacking trip there was no place to leave your bag. We carried these packs for 9 days everywhere we went.

 This was definitely the walkers path here by the lake. We were ment to find this little market that Vevey was known for, but they were closed on Monday. So we found a lunch spot and had pizza by the lake. Then trained over to the castle stop.

Charlie Chaplain and Audrey Hepburn both had homes along Lake Geneva. Here was  a little rose garden in Charlie's honor.

Matt is messing with his fancy hiker's watch he bought for the trip. This would map out our path and mark our way points and keep track of miles. Also a compass in case of our need for mapping issues.

 The flowers on the path to the Castle were gorgeous and well kept. Behind Matt's head is our hiking destination for the castle. Both of us were wearing down and getting tired of walking already. Not very much sleep was to be had on the plane and just plowing through our sleepiness to enjoy our new adventure.

 This castle was built in medieval times; whoever lived in the castle were the ruling principalities of that time. Even Lord Byron was there and wrote a famous poem about a prisoner there.

We decided to get ourselves on the train and get to our hotel for the night in St. Luc. Our starting place for the trail the next day. It was God again who gave us this nudge because we ended up catching the last bus our of Sierre to St. Luc that night. Again, I am not the professional travel agent and we didn't have bus schedules or train times laid out for us. I had not micro planned our trip in that kind of detail. but we were to know that later on our trip.

The bus ride up the mountain from Sierre to St. Luc was incredible! I could not believe the steep ascent that we were to make. I watched behind the drivers seat in a Swiss tarc bus as the town of Sierre in the valley became smaller and hidden while we climbed the switch back road up the side of the mountain to this storybook village. Matt had fallen asleep on the bus and I sat wide eyed at many points and closed eyes praying at others. The bus would swing wide toward the cliff to make its long body turn on the hairpin curve as I would gasp in disbelief. Guardrails were minimal to nonexistent and the road itself was not wide enough for more than the bus we were on. Many points other vehicles waited on wide random shoulders while the bus continued on. I couldn't imagine riding this route up and down the mountain everyday as workers and students around me do. I was telling Matt of the picturesque path and views he missed. The sun was setting and we were ready to sleep.

One more small connection to climb to our small village and then a short two block walk to our glowing hotel. We had gotten a bite waiting for the bus in Sierre, so a hot chocolate and coffee was on our mind before shut eye.

End of Day 1