Jean and I raced down the stairs, pushing through the crowds, barely able to breathe. We were, once again, cutting it a little close. "Which platform?" Jean asked me, I scanned the old-fashioned departure board at Prague's main train station, struggling to keep up with the flipping pages "number 18, the last one," I answered, and we ran down the tunnel and up one final flight of stairs, swinging into the last carriage mere minutes before the train left. After pushing our way through multiple carriages, we found our bunks just as the train picked up speed. "Goodbye Prague, hello Switzerland!" Jean announced with a smile.We were on an adventure of epic proportions. The plan was to take the night train to Basel, and then a smaller, connecting train to Interlaken, Switzerland and stay at the Backpackers Villa Sonnenhoff for some awesome adventures. Most importantly, for me, was a trip to the village where I thought my great-grandma grew up. She'd been a little hazy on the details when I was a kid, so we were kind of guessing, but Jean and I were determined to go for it. It was, after all, number 30 on my bucket list. Jean, my study abroad roomie, was more than happy to be my partner in crime for a long weekend in Switzerland.
Armed with last minute (thanks mom!) information on great-grandma's hometown, Jean and I left Interlaken on a train bound for Innertkirchen via Meiringen, on the other side of Brienzersee (Lake Brienz). We didn't realize how beautiful the lake would be. The bright November sunshine turned the lake to glass, and the clouds were like small cotton-balls in the sky. The view had us pressing our noses (and cameras) up against the window, endeavoring to take it all in.
We somehow managed to get lost in Meiringen, even though the town has less than 5,000 inhabitants, and missed our hourly connecting train - more like a tram - to Innertkirchen. So, as we strove to amuse ourselves for the next 45 minutes. Jean decided to reenact bad westerns by sitting on the train tracks and pretending to be a damsel in distress.
Pfengli was high in the Alps, and while not much higher in elevation than Interlaken, Prague was much lower. So when we finally reached Pfengli, we took a break at these cute chairs. The sign in between them says "Vacation Homes Pfengli."
Some scouting around led us to a house that I thought might be one from a picture that was sent to me by a distant cousin. While there were occasional puffs of smoke coming from the chimney, I was too scared to go talk to them. (I'm kicking myself for that now!)After refilling our water bottles in a small mountain brook, we took a look at the setting sun and headed back down the hill.
I was practically shaking on the way down the hill, I couldn't believe that I might have found the home of my great-grandma. As the city of Innertkirchen came into view, I wondered what these small mountain villages had been like nearly 100 years ago when my great-grandma had left them for the United States. Maybe she, like Jean, had stopped for one last glance up the hill, and then run down the mountain to embrace her future.
I still don't know if that was the village or house that my great-grandma grew up in, but I know that without it, our adventure in Switzerland would have been just another long, sleepless weekend of travel.
0 comments:
Post a Comment