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The hills are alive
In Switzerland, you're always a
hop, skip and a yodel from a great Alpine excursion
by Deanna MacDonald
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One of my favourite things to do when I am
in Switzerland for work is to play hooky. Who can concentrate on
conference lectures or revising text when those mountains beckon?
Really, haven't we all, at one time or another, pictured ourselves
in an Alpine pasture surrounded by edelweiss and snow-capped peaks,
swirling around like Julie Andrews -- or is that just me?
Regardless, Switzerland is designed to indulge
any Alpine yen, and you don't need to be a mountain climber to do
it. Nature is never far away. Even in the capital, Bern, or major
cites like Zurich and Geneva, you can easily find your way into
one of those picture-postcard panoramas in no time.
I once walked out of my hotel in central Zurich
and, only 30 minutes and a funicular ride later, I was walking along
a well-marked, leafy trail high above crystal blue Lake Zurich.
There is almost no point in Switzerland that
isn't a short train, boat or funicular ride away from a yodel-inspiring
landscape. With 60,000 kilometres of hiking trails, many in and
around urban areas, and an amazingly dense and efficient public
transport system, you can always indulge in an afternoon of Heidi-like
adventure even if you're in the city.
The following are just a few of the many walking
and hiking day trips from three of Switzerland's cities: Zurich,
Bern and Geneva. So go ahead, play hooky, and find your inner Julie
Andrews.
Zurich
Often topping the list of the world's most liveable cities, Zurich
is well known for its staid bankers (rather tongue-in-cheekily referred
to as "gnomes") and elegant Bahnhofstrasse, one of the most expensive
shopping streets in the world.
But despite its cosmopolitan air, Zurich is
an outdoorsy city at heart, as is much of Switzerland, and you'd
be hard pressed to find a Swiss resident without a pair of hiking
boots in his or her closet. Surrounded by wooded slopes at the north
end of pristine Lake Zurich, and with a population of less than
400,000, the city is also small enough to make nature a part of
urban life.
A favourite hiking escape for locals is the
871-metre Uetliberg, which can be summited by foot or by a 20-minute
train ride.
At the top, after admiring the jaw-dropping
views of the district and the Alpine Range (you can see the peak
of Jungfrau on clear days), I walked the Planetenweg, a two-hour
"planetary path" that follows the mountain ridge above Lake Zurich
and features models of the planets. Honestly, I didn't stop to look
at the models, I was too engrossed by the landscape: blue lake views
to one side and rolling pastures dotted with cows and classic wooden
Swiss houses on the other.
At the path's end in Felsenegg, a funicular
links up with a train that zooms back to Zurich in 10 minutes. You
can also continue walking: at almost every trail end, there are
always others that begin.
If your quads have had enough of mountainous
ascents, there are flat, easy walking trails all around Lake Zurich.
Begin in the city and wander along the lakeside Utoquai, or hop
on a boat for a scenic ride across the 29-kilometre lake.
There are numerous stops along the way where
you can step off and find a walking path back to Zurich or into
the surrounding hills. I sailed to the far north shore of the lake
and got off at the town of Rapperswil, known for its imposing medieval
castle and the longest wooden bridge in the country. The 841-metre
wooden footbridge crosses to the south side of the lake and offers
still more spectacular views.
Bern
Dramatically wrapped around a bend in the Aare River, Bern feels
both cosmopolitan and just a bit old-fashioned. It is a medieval
city (and a UNESCO Heritage Site) filled with vistas of Gothic spires
and red-tiled roofs, as well as the seat of the Swiss government.
It's also a green city where riverside paths
lead to gardens, parks and up to the high point of the city, the
858-metre Gurten that offers divine panoramic views. There are also
the 13-hectare Zoological Gardens within the city limits. They contain
a dense, riverside forest home to bison, reindeer and elk that can
make you forget you are in a capital city.
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