Zurich-area October weekend

 Okay! Last bits of Swiss fun before I headed to Italy for 12 days. 

On Saturday I went on adventures with Toni, and Sunday saw Patrick showing me around. Their kids had things going on, so this way each parent got out for some fun with their esteemed guest (ahem, that’s me). 

For the last weekend in October, the weather was amazing - sunny and mild. 

Toni and I drove less than 90 minutes to the town of Appenzell, in the Appenzeller region. First we went to a cheese producer for samples and tours, then to a chocolate factory, and lastly wandered around town and went to a beer garden. 

Appenzeller cheese was first mentioned in writing in 1282 (not a typo! 740 years ago!) when the local monastery documented accepting cheese as a tax payment. It was fun to sample some, see videos with farmers about their traditions, and then admire the massive numbers of cheese wheels being aged.  

The chocolate factory had an option to decorate your own bar - and also had nigh-unlimited samples. I sampled a LOT! 

The whole region was super charming - a set of performers (from a nearby festival) even sang a few times as we enjoyed our beer. 

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Sunday was my adventure day with Patrick. Again, we used the luxury of having a car - this time we drove fewer than 90 minutes, almost due East. I was tempted to set foot in Liechtenstein just to say I had, but it seemed too silly. Besides, we had places to be!

First we went to Pizol, an Alpine skiing & hiking destination. We took first a gondola, and then a chairlift, to the topmost area - which was super windy! In the spirit of Adventure we decided to hike downhill and skip the chairlift part. We did make it but OOH was it steep - pretty much 45 degrees, and we didn’t have hiking poles. 

Then we had a really delicious lunch (including a confusingly-named but delicious “kaffee mélange”) before taking the gondola back down. I was fascinated to see that one of their sporty options is a funky stand-up two-wheeled cross between a bike and a scooter. You can ride downhill, then take a gently sloped moving walkway back to the starting point. Brilliant! They didn’t seem to be in use that day and we speculated that maybe it was too late in the season.  

For our final adventure, we drove to a spa that required we leave our cameras behind. It was a bathing-suit required all-age pool paradise called Tamina Therme, in Bad Ragaz. 

I don’t have any pictures, but the experience included an enormous outdoor pool (it held at least 50 people without at all feeling full) that had features in different areas: jetted massage reclining areas, a whirlpool you could get swept around, a hot tub, and a waterfall feature. The equally large indoor pool had jets built into the walls, so you could back up to one jet for a lower-back massage, then scoot over for a mid-back jet, then slide along further for your upper back to get a turn. People lined up along the wall and shifted from jet to jet (at least ten of them!) when a neon arrow lit up to move us along. And, since it was thermal baths, there were smaller pools that were varying degrees of hot and cold water.

What fun! I actually laughed aloud when I saw it, and would definitely seek it out again.

Next up: traveling light via train in Italy.