Good days, bad days

Try as we might to avoid them, mistakes are inevitable — traveling in a foreign land is never problem free. Homer was pretty emphatic on that point (i.e. the day the temptress Circe turned all of Ulysses’ shipmates into pigs, or that singular unpleasantness with the giant one-eyed cannibal…)
Some things just can’t be sugar-coated.

I’m speaking personally now, having just spent an entire night lying on a stone bench in the Zurich train station looking very much like someone who needs to be rousted.
All because I thought I was doing the right thing, boarding a long-distance night train to Vienna a half hour early to make sure I got a decent sleeping berth.
I had my Eurail pass. I had my reservation. I’d paid for the couchette and felt pretty sure I was set to go. I’d just checked the departure board and saw that my train was due to leave Platform 6 in 25 minutes. Glancing in that direction, I saw it sitting there. A train waiting at Platform 6. So I stepped aboard and, within seconds, all the doors slammed shut and the train began to move, leaving the station way early and, as I suddenly realized, going someplace that wasn’t Vienna.
That’s a long way of saying I failed to double-check the destination of the train I’d just boarded. And by the time I’d gotten off at the first stop and taken the first train back to Zurich, the train I should have boarded at Platform 6 (which later moved into place) … had just left.
That’s a bad day — and night.

The previous couple of days, however, were just about as good as it gets, enjoying myself in the stunningly picturesque mountain-top village of Gimmelwald. (See slide show below.)
Gimmelwald is one of those less-visited, not-yet-spoiled destinations that the travel writer Rick Steves recommends, both on his popular NPR radio show and in his book, Europe through the Back Door.

Ever since I said goodbye to all my crew-mates back in Torino, all the other places I’d passed through seemed to me less than perfect. Tunneling through the alpine border from northwest Italy into France, I’d emerged into the daylight of a spectacular valley bordering Mont Blanc (the highest peak in Europe) at Chamonix, which may be the most handsome ski resort I’ve ever seen. But it also had that certain rich jet-set touristy feel that, years ago, contributed toward finally pushing me out of my home in the High Sierra town of Truckee toward Alaska.

After one night in Chamonix, I caught a series of trains that took me to the doorstep of the Swiss Alps at Interlaken. Which was even more touristy than Chamonix and, from my perspective, not as friendly. Interlaken (and in fact nearly all of Switzerland) may well be the stingiest place I’ve ever visited in terms of offering travelers a free wi-fi signal. Which is a real disadvantage for anyone who’s trying to communicate to the outside world through a blog.

Good thing I continued a little further, taking a short train to
Lauterbrunnen, then a bus to Steckelberg, then finally a vertigo-inducing tram up the side of a cliff to Gimmelwald, which I can now report hasn’t lost its charm. I liked everything about it. The friendly Swiss staff at the inexpensive hostel where I’d be staying. The cheerful guests, who seemed to be a pleasant blend of crusty mountaineers and talkative college grads, many of them Americans. The sunny look of the place. The peaks jousting with clouds through my bedside window. The working farms on the hillside. The fantastic network of mountain trails rising in every direction. The great weather, like Alaska on a nice summer day. Real strip off your shirt and go for a hike weather. The post-hike draft beer in the hostel restaurant. The good food. The coffee. The free wi-fi signal that never failed and didn’t even require a password. Yep. I can’t help but think even homesick Ulysses would’ve been willing to stick around.

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