Rooted Wanderings

Our two weeks in Ticino had flown by, but it was time to move on to new adventures at our second WWOOF farm. Rather than zipping there as fast as possible, we decided to take the scenic route -- a panoramic train across the Alps followed by a 3-hour steamboat ride across the sparkling Lake of Lucerne. Although we didn’t get the time advantage of going 200 km/hr as we had before, we did get to sit back and take in the changes of the landscape at a pace we could absorb. After a long 11-hour day of traveling, we finally hopped off the Postbus up in the rural hillsides above Thun. The last big push was to stumble up our hosts’ steep driveway with our massive packs. But what a reward once we got to the top and gazed out at the view! We could see why our hosts love living here. It was a strikingly different landscape from Ticino, but equally lovely -- a region of steep lush pastures, small villages, hillsides of thick evergreen forests, with a high craggy ridge watching over it al...

Photo by a fellow hiker Arriving in Ticino After Marianne and Ewald wished us farewell, we hopped on the train and set off towards our first WWOOF (World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms) farm. Not knowing quite what we’d be doing on the farm, or precisely where the farm was, we were nevertheless excited to jump into a new adventure on the southern side of the Alps. When our train emerged from the neverending darkness of the 57-km long Gotthard tunnel, we were greeted with a new landscape. With its lush deciduous forests, Italian-style buildings, and a smattering of palm trees, the canton of Ticino felt very different from what we had seen of Switzerland so far. Ticino’s proximity to Italy has influenced its language, architecture, and culture over the centuries. It’s also a relatively small region -- out of Switzerland’s 8,000,000 people, only about 300,000 live in the Italian-speaking Ticino. For the final leg of our journey, we climbed onto a big yellow Postbus ...

The First Day After our fast-paced spin through Iceland, our first week in Switzerland gave us a chance to slow down into the rhythms of daily life. Colby’s relatives Marianne and Ewald welcomed us with warm hugs at the Zurich Airport. We schlepped our backpacks into their little red car and rode about 30 minutes to their house in Winterthur, where we would spend the next week. Winterthur is known as “the garden city,” and it couldn’t have been a more striking contrast from the barrenness of Iceland. As we drove through the streets, we couldn’t stop marveling at the lushness of this new place  -- the fullness of the soaring trees, the colorful bursts of May flowers. Once we settled in at the house, we were immediately introduced to the diverse wonders of Swiss cheese. For an afternoon snack together, we were presented with a beautiful spread of cheeses from various regions of Switzerland: Emmental, Appenzell, Tilsiter, and Tête de Moin (meaning “monk’s head” in French,...