Switzerland Field Trip

In May, there was a joint field trip between students from one of Strakonice's elementary schools and the Gymnázium to Switzerland. Unfortunately, I developed a cold a few days leading up to the trip, and spent the week literally teaching and sleeping. When things looked like they weren't getting any better, I had a colleague, Romana, take me to the doctor. It was my first doctor's visit as I had miraculously avoided getting sick since my arrival here in the Czech Republic! Well, I had to buy pain killers, a nose spray, decongestion, cough medicine, and antibiotics. The antibiotics were only prescribed as a precaution in case I obtained a fever while in Switzerland, which of course I did the first night, after a very long hike in the Alps! European medicine, however, is no joke. It's only prescribed for a short duration because it's ridiculously strong. I felt better after 24 hours and was able to enjoy the rest of the trip!

Our first destination in Switzerland was the capital city, Bern. We stopped here for about two hours to stretch our legs and see a few sights.

Astronomical Clock Tower

There are symbols of bears throughout the city.

There is even a Bear Park!

It's located right next to the river, which is very lovely. Switzerland has some of the cleanest, clearest water I've seen, so I was truly impressed.

We continued our journey and traveled near some lakes on our way to our accommodation. The Alps are in the background.

Sailboats!

Filip, Jana, Me & Klara

After traveling by bus overnight, stopping quite often for bathroom breaks and to stretch our legs (literally every hour because it's not common to use the bathroom on the bus), and viewing some of the picturesque scenery, we finally arrived at our accommodation approximately ten hours later. We stayed in this really cute village in the middle of nowhere.

It was basically like summer camp. 

Here are some views from the village.

After getting settled in, we ate dinner (the chef from my school canteen went on the trip with us and made breakfast and dinner each day and night). Then, some went for walks to explore the village while others played card games or talked until bedtime. I opted to play some card games with Jana and two of our students, Filip and Klara. I was here that I learned how to play Prši for the first time. This game involves using a thirty-seven card deck (the typical amount for Czech playing cards) and was very similar to Uno, with draw-two, skip, and change suit special cards.

The next day, we went for our hike (the one I mentioned in the beginning of this post). It was awesome! We rode a Gondola to the top of Reideralp, where we embarked on a 6-7km hike toward the Aletsch Glacier, the largest glacier in the Alps, and back.

Gondola Station

Klara & Filip, Gondola Ride

Atop the mountain..

Soaking It All In

A Paraglider!

Me & Jana

Me & Jana

Filip, Me, Jana, Jana, Klara, & Hana

Our journey begins...

The first part of the hike was actually really steep! It's definitely arduous to hike when one is sick. My breathing made it sound like I just ran a marathon. Our tour guide let us take a break when we got to the top of this portion of our hike. There were some cute lodges and stores, though none were open because it was in between the winter and summer seasons. We found the longest set of skis we've ever seen on display!

Resting...

Filip, Klara, Me, Jana, Hana & Jana

Continuing on our journey...

I'm on Top of the World!

The Whole Gang

If you look closely, Jana took this photo and I am standing in the middle toward the left by myself. I'm in blue with my hands up! The group had people of all different speeds during the hike, and we often switched places or got caught up taking photographs and fell behind.

Soon, we reached snow...

Jana & Me

Below is the Aletsch Glacier, or well, the beginning of it at least. It turns left and goes on forever. At this point, we were 3,173-meters above sea level.

I accidentally stepped in a huge snow-covered puddle before this shot. My foot was soaking wet for the rest of the hike! 

Jana, Me, Jana, Klara, & Filip

As we continued, we found this inscription in the snow. We were told there's a small lake underneath the ice, so perhaps it's a warning for us all.

The best part for the children was when the snow became really deep and we had to go down a giant decline. The obvious solution was to use your rain coat as a sled, and slide down the hill...

As you can see, even the adults played along!

It was one of the hardest hikes I've ever done, but perhaps the best one. Hey, how many Americans can say they hiked the Swiss Alps?!

The next day, we visited a tiny village called Zermatt, where we rode a train to the top of Gornergrat mountain. From this mountain, we could see the famed Matterhorn mountain, a national symbol for Switzerland.

We rode from the bottom of this red line to the top.

This is probably my best shot of the Matterhorn, it was a bit cloudy the day we went.

Saint Bernards are also a national symbol of Switzerland.

An Observation Tower

The peak of Matterhorn.

Filip, Jana, Robert & Klara

Jana & Me

We split up to do some shopping and eating, but Jana saw a mountain goat!

I enjoyed this picture, where the bird is kind of wondering what the mountain goat is doing.

After a few hours at the top, we rode back down and explored the town of Zermatt.

It's this quaint village, but then all of a sudden there's a really luxurious hotel in the middle.

It seems like it is a great ski town, filled with shops, cafes, and everything one needs.

Some surrounding scenery.

View from a bridge.

An outdated footbridge.

On the last day of our trip, we visited three factories. The first was a cheese factory, where we were able to see how cheese is made and try some samples. Personally, I'm not a huge cheese fan, but it was interesting to see, although horrible to smell!

I discovered that older cheese is darker and often harder. 

Everyone was anxious for the samples.

We were able to try five different types.

The next place was a vineyard, which I found interesting to visit on a school trip because none of the students were 18, therefore, none of them could taste the wine. They went on the tour with the adults to see how it is produced, but then they waited outside as we did some wine tasting. It was really absurd.

My favorite parts of brewery or winery tours are always the bottle and packaging sections. I just find it so neat how these machines do the majority of the work on an assembly line and everything turns out perfectly (at least most of the time). 

Filling the bottles with wine.

Putting the corks and tops on the bottles.

 Putting the labels on the bottles.

Magnificent!

Then, of course, the adults' favorite part: the wine tasting! 

I did have a slight moment of forgetfulness and did the wine tasting, and then afterward realized the antibiotics were still in my system, whoops! When in Switzerland...

The owners' favorite part: the wine bottle buying!

The last factory we visited was probably everyone's favorite-- a chocolate factory!

We were given free samples upon entry.

We looked inside the factory, but it was hard to take pictures because of the glass. Then, there was a small museum, but my favorite aspect was watching a video about the whole chocolate-making process.

In the end, my souvenirs from Switzerland included: a Swiss army knife, two bottles of wine, a large bag of chocolate-covered raisins, a Toblerone, and a dark chocolate candy bar. I'd say I made out like a bandit! I'd love to go back and explore other areas of Switzerland in the future, though one should be warned: it's an expensive country!

On our way back to the Czech Republic, we even stopped in the small country of Liechtenstein, in the capital of Vaduz. We ate dinner, walked around, and took a hike up to the castle.

Castle from a Distance

This was an interestingly designed house. It reminded me of a roller coaster..

The Castle!

View of Vaduz.

Liechtenstein is the only privately-owned country in the world. Yeah, a family actually OWNS the whole country. It's small, but beautiful. I caught a great glimpse of the sunset from near the castle, though sadly I don't have a picture for you. I have to say, this trip was definitely one of the highlights of my European year!