Adventures beyond the front door
At the guesthouse, our landlady ushered us into a wooden room with a view out across the valley to the mountains on the other side. She lowered herself into a chair and carefully began entering our details into a laptop computer. A moment or two later and the printer started into life. ‘Your guest cards,’… Continue reading Cable cars, climate change and loving high places – Valluga, Lechtal Alps
When friends live in different countries it is not always easy to find time to spend together, so when we can capture the moment, we try to make the best of it. This time we met in Lucerne (Luzern) for a weekend by the lake. But while the town was welcoming and friendly, it was… Continue reading Queen of the Mountains – Rigi, Switzerland
As so often is the case when you approach somewhere new, we settled on a simple plan. From Lausanne station we would take the train that travelled east above the shore of Lake Geneva as far as our city pass would allow, and then we would walk home. It would be a walk that took… Continue reading On the terraces – Lavaux, Lake Geneva
The village of Ehrwald sits at the corner of a valley in Austria, just across the border from Germany. The valley is about a thousand metres above sea level, a damp moss of drained moorland divided into neat fields for growing the hay that will keep the cattle fed over the long, snowy winter. At… Continue reading Mountain of the Mind – Daniel, Tirol
It was our good friend Nicky who gave us the idea. ‘If you’re already taking the night train to Vienna,’ she said, ‘then might I suggest you book tickets to Graz? The price will be the same and you’ll get to spend the morning following the Semmering Railway through the mountains. You can always have… Continue reading Along the Semmering Railway
It was a walk planned around train lines and train timetables. There was no real destination in mind, no peak to climb or pass to cross. All we had seen was a photograph. A little red train clinging to the mountainside. Hauled up from one village to the next by a series of cables for… Continue reading Along the Narcissus Path – Les Avants
Ahead of us, the mountains rose up out of the Bavarian countryside to meet the dark clouds that had gathered just above the peaks. That morning in Augsburg, the weather had been muggy. Yesterday’s clear skies and sunshine had given way to greyness; the air oppressive and close. There was a storm coming, and when… Continue reading Between the gates, before the storm – Heiterwanger See
The Winding Trail 