10
June
2008
On Tuesday (Day 12), we traveled to Davos. Before the discovery of penicillin, this was a major destination for people suffering from TB – the dry alpine air was sometimes an effective cure, and the various spas and wellness locations made for a pleasant stay. When this was rendered moot by modern medicine, Davos reinvented itself as a ski resort (still with good spas) and a business center (each year the World Economic Forum is held here).
We have visited a few tourism offices so far, but none so lukewarm as in Davos. Despite having been called, despite confirming that they were expecting a school group, the office was surprised when we arrived and was not at all prepared to greet us. After a bit of prompting, Cedric Kienscherff did give us a pleasant and informative lecture about Davos’ history along with brochures and tips about summer and winter attractions. …The dairyfarm was not ready to accomodate a surprise group visit, and the trolley up to a scenic view was (pardon the pun) steeply priced, so we decided to walk along the upper main street (Davos has basically two streets – an upper and a lower – which house all the hotels, restaurants, shops, and bus stops).
We were scheduled to visit the Arabella Sherraton Hotel Seehof, so we knew it was a detour of some variety that rocketed Dr. Garely up the drive to the Steigenberger Hotel Belvedere. As our group of fifteen (all in business attire) approached the steps to the main entrance, a lady in a gray suit came out to greet us and expressed curiosity because the hotel was not expecting a group to arrive. Dr. Garely explained that we were a study-abroad group learning about travel and tourism and that we had planned for a morning excursion that fell through, and then an afternoon site inspection of the Hotel Seehof. The lady in gray then very graciously asked if we would like a tour of her hotel as well.
She was in fact Silvia Wyrsch, and has been running the (five-star) Steigenberger Hotel Belvedere with her husband for the last 12 years. My first impressions of the hotel were that we had reached a place determined to set an example of luxury and hospitable service. I would not hesitate to recommend the hotel to anyone looking for a warm welcome in beautiful, tasteful, and spacious surroundings. (Bill Clinton would likely recommend it as well – he visited once while in office, and four times after). The standard rooms are roomy enough that two people wouldn’t feel cramped, and the suites are larger than some Manhattan multi-room apartments.
Each year the hotel plays host to the World Economic Forum (and is closed to non-forum travelers), and closes entirely from mid-april to mid-june as well as mid-october to mid-november. For the winter ski season and the summer off-season, it is definitely a place to visit. Check it out here: www.davos.steigenberger.ch (if it comes up in German, there’s a drop-down menu at the top of the page to change the language).
After the tour, Mrs. Wyrsch gave us directions to the nearby park, and we had our lunch on benches near a pretty little pond. There was also a playground with a treehouse and spiral slide hidden behind a stand of trees, but as I didn’t see it until we were leaving there was no time to indulge.
While the Belvedere is in the middle of the Promenade, surrounded by shops and restaurants, the (four-star) Arabella Sherraton Hotel Seehof is at the far end, so the view in one direction is of a main shopping route, and the view in the other is of a little road headed into the mountains. And while the oldest part of the Belvedere dates back to 1875, the oldest wing of the Seehof can claim seven hundred years and original pinewood paneling (in the panneled conference room there was a heavy scent, not particularly pleasant or pine-smelling to me, but the panneled bedroom was not noticeably scented at all). The Seehof is the other main host of the World Economic Forum, and some of their conference rooms will hold as many as six meetings in a single day. Check it out here: www.sheraton.com/seehof (if it comes up in German, there’s a drop-down menu at the top of the page to change the language).
If you can’t tell, I am a little in awe of having walked through a hotel built 700 years ago. Generally speaking, if I’m in a structure 700 years old, it’s somebody’s castle or something’s ruin, not a hotel that’s been up and running all that time. After the initial “wow” factor, there was a feeling of excited exploration mixed with amusement – the hallways are narrow, and the ceilings and doorways are much lower than in modern buildings, so at times I felt like I was suddenly tall, and at other times (because the rooms and furniture in the common rooms of the old wing are also a bit smaller scale) I felt like I was walking through an exquisitely crafted child’s playhouse. (On their website, the candlelit table is in the pine-panneled conference room in the old wing, and the room with the arched stone ceiling is a common sitting room in the old wing.)
When we crossed to the new wing (part of the original building that was refurbished in 1989), the enchantment faded a bit. Now it felt like we were in a Sheraton (they do have similar decoration, no matter where you go it seems) that was squished into a building with too-small hallways. I cringed at the thought of tall businessmen or businesswomen in heels being booked into the place – they would probably feel even more claustrophobic than little 5′4″ me in my flats.
For people planning a luxury vacation in Davos, I’d suggest booking the first night or two in the Seehof if they have room in the old wing (especially the bedroom with original pine paneling, if possible), and the rest of the stay at the Belvedere.
Back at school (which I’ve caught myself referring to as “home” in casual conversation – it’s amazing how fast the imprinting occurs sometimes) and after dinner, I checked my email and found a reply from the Rätisches Museum. Specifically from Dr. Simonette, the museum’s director, offering to provide us with a personal tour at 10am on Thursday. How cool. I responded with thanks and confirmed the date and time as well as the size of our group. Then I printed the (now-solid) itinerary and handed a copy to Adele, the designated tour guide for that day. She asked me to email it to her as well, so that she could print and distribute copies to everyone. Then she buckled down to research the itinerary as we all do – making sure she understood how to get to each location, and finding information about the various points of interest. For my part, I took a shower and then buckled down to the homework waiting in my textbook.
Posted under daily log
7
June
2008
Saturday (day 9), I slept in for the first time since we arrived. Then spent some time doing laundry, reading, and completing assignments from our textbook. In the afternoon I went with Shevarma on the bus into Chur hoping to catch the weekend market. …Farmer’s markets in Chur, unlike in New York, are not all-day affairs. When we reached the square a little after 2pm, we found no trace of the market – it had ended at noon. So we strolled through the old City and through the new, and were amazed at the level of noise. Swiss drivers really lean on their horns! For dinner we split a pizza, which is how we learned that in this part of Switzerland at least, “pepperoni” means sauteed mixed bell peppers.
Sunday (day 10), woke up early and took the city bus with Mark and Andy into Chur again. We first went to a diner, hoping for hot breakfast, but we were greeted with coffee and an array of pastries. Cindy’s Diner in the Chur train station is mostly a lunch counter, and they do not cook breakfast. We settled for the local bakery instead (I had a very rich chocolate milk and a chocolate croissant, Andy had a soft pretzel with butter, Mark opted for fresh strawberries and chocolate milk). From the train station we walked up to the Kathedral, and joined Professor Blake-Neis and a few others for mass.
This was my first mass, and it was in German, but others assured me that everything was the same except for the language. I was struck again at the difference between group singing in Europe and at home – there was no choir, but the people in the pews sounded just as professional and beautiful as a trained and experienced choir would at home, not like the enthusiastic and unpolished voices I would have expected.
After the service, we all strolled back to the train station and (out of curiosity and limited options) sampled the fare at Cindy’s Diner for lunch. In addition to offering both ketchup and mayonaise for the french fries, they offered three sauces to accompany the chicken fingers: sweet and sour, barbeque, and curry. …The curry tasted neither like Carribbean curry, nor like any Indian curry I’m familiar with. It tasted like tartar sauce without any pickle relish. (In other words, almost but not quite just like mayonaise.) Incidentally, there was an evening earlier this week when our dinner at school was given as chicken curry. …it tasted very, very mild, and seemed to be a cream sauce flavored with tumeric.
Dinner that evening at the school – salad, spaghetti with marinara and meatballs, icecream and a sort of poundcake with golden raisins for dessert.
Monday (day 11) we stayed on campus. After breakfast, Ms. Blattmann gave us a lecture about the differences between American and Swiss hotels, followed by a discussion and demonstration of coffee drinks served in Switzerland. The most interesting differences between US and Swiss hotels are size (US hotels are typically much larger than in Switzerland, where anything over 100 rooms is “large”), and the lack of security departments or personnel at Swiss hotels (more on this to come).
As for coffee, in addition to black (”café nature”), with cream (”café crème”), espresso, and cappuccino, there is also ristretto, café mélange, schale and latte macchiato. Ristretto is made using the same amount of ground coffee as for espresso, but with half as much water – it’s really strong. Café mélange is black coffee topped with soft-whipped cream. Schale is somewhat like café au lait – it’s 3 parts coffee to 1 part hot milk. Latte macchiato is a layered drink to be served in a glass cup (about 12 ounces in capacity) with a slight V – narrower at the bottom than at the top. The glass is filled 3/4ths full of steamed milk and foam, then a shot of espresso is poured over the back of a spoon and near the edge of the glass, and another spoonful (or more) of foam is then placed on top, creating a layered drink dark on the bottom, lighter in the middle, and white on top. And yes, there is decaf here – just ask for “café hag” (like “hoover” for vacuums, this brand name has come to mean any form of decaf coffee).
After lunch (lunches and dinners, by the way, are now fancy affairs with table linens, formal waitstaff, and three courses each because 60 students arrived from eastern Europe for a whirlwind course in cooking and waiting tables before embarking on 3-month internships, and we get to eat what they prepare and be waited on so that they have more people to practice with.) …after lunch (puff pastry shells with mixed veggies in cream sauce, beef with spatzli and brown sauce, napoleon ice cream (chocolate, strawberry, and vanilla with citron), and still or sparkling water to drink), we returned to the classroom to discuss our impressions of La Claustra (that cavernous hotel from Friday), and then moved into the computer lab. There, we practiced filling out expense reports (aka T&E or Travel and Entertainment forms) using the receipts we had each accumulated over the weekend, and also caught up on our homework a bit.
After dinner I went up to take a shower, and had just gotten out when the phone rang – it was Dr. Garely, asking if I could meet her at the front desk. I jumped into my casual clothes (suits, or at least black dress pants and a white business shirt, are required for all classes and meals at SSTH) and rushed down. There I was offered a special assignment: create a replacement itinerary for this Thursday, of things to do in Chur instead of a planned visit that would have been several hours each way by train. Dr. Garely expressed interest in the the local cable car and in visiting a museum.
I began my research by reading some of the information we had been given by Michael Meier (the Director of Tourism at the Chur Tourism Office). A booklet gave me the websites of each museum in Chur, and also gave me the spelling of the cable car (bergbahnen brambrüesch). A little more research and I knew that the Rätisches Museum (www.raetischesmuseum.gr.ch/) seemed the most unique and therefore the most interesting, that the sculpture garden outside the Kulturforum Würth Museum (www.kulturforum-wurth.ch) also looked interesting, and that the cable car is only open on weekends until June 14. A map of the city helped me gage the distances between each point of interest, and also suggested the Stadtgarten – a municipal park built in the 1860s. At Dr. Garely’s prompting (it turned out to be an excellent suggestion and lesson), I emailed the museum to ask if a tour for our group could be arranged. Then I spent some time in the lobby with my TTA friends, working in our textbooks and sharing jokes until bedtime.
Posted under daily log
5
June
2008
Day Seven:
Instead of getting up early and taking another all-day tour, we spent today at School (the chance to catch our breath and focus was really a relief). Breakfast was followed by a few hours in the classroom, then lunch, then an afternoon in the computer lab. First we went through some exercises, doing research and preparing tours to satisfy examples of things people might ask for. Then we were turned loose to do our own research: the weekend is coming, and many are looking to prepare their own self-guided tours.
For my part, I sat down to research tomorrow’s tour – for which I will be the guide.
When we arrived at the Swiss School of Tourism and Hospitality, we were provided with itineraries listing each day’s events and excursions, including travel details. The research required by each tour guide of the day is first to make sure that the travel information is correct, then to get an idea about where the tour is and what it’s about, then to share this information with the group.
Well. The itinerary stated a bus to a train to the village of Andermatt (and a few hours free – which I would have to fill in), a taxi to the Hotel La Claustra (and a guided tour by one of their staff), then a bus to a different train station and a journey home. …I could not verify the bus that was supposed to move us from the hotel. At all. And when I called the hotel the woman who answered said there is no bus in the entire region. Mind you, it is now a little after 5pm, and we are scheduled to depart for tomorrow’s tour on a 7:29am bus. Fortunately the person who prepared our initial itineraries (Ms. Blattmann of SSTH) was still in her office. She apologized and explained that the itinerary had been changed (because the bus was suspended), but that the information had not been passed along.
So after speaking with her and finding that our entire schedule was now different from 10:25am until the end of the day (the new schedule was to visit the hotel, then visit Andermatt, then return via Andermatt station and not Airolo station) I went back to the computer lab and typed up a new itinerary. It included a few tentative times because while the trains and buses were at fixed times, the length of the hotel tour was not fixed – and without knowing how long we would be visiting the hotel I could not say for sure when we would depart the hotel (via taxi and not bus) to visit Andermatt, nor could I know how much time we would have for sightseeing in Andermatt. Sometimes knowing how to be flexible and play things by ear is needed in this job.
At dinner on Thursday I passed out the revised itinerary and explained why there were a few tentative times listed on the schedule. The next morning the real work began.
Day Eight:
6:15am: wake-up call for all rooms
7:00-7:20am: breakfast (school dining room)
7:22am: group departs for bus station
7:29am: bus departs for Chur (arrives 7:42am)
7:42am: group continues to train station
7:56am:train departs for Disentis/Muster (arrives 9:11am)
9:19am: train departs for Andermatt (arrives 10:25am)
10:25am: group continues to taxi stand (taxi prebooked)
10:30am: via taxi, group continues to La Claustra Hotel (arrive 11am)
11am: presentation of Mr. Sawiri’s project
followed by hotel tour
followed by refreshment (included)
1pm (intended) group depart via taxi for Andermatt (this time could change)
1:30pm group explore Andermatt (Attraction TBA)
3:20pm: group assembly at Train Station
3:30pm: train departs for Disentis/Muster (arrives 4:42pm)
4:45pm: train departs for Chur (arrives 6:02pm)
6:02-6:55pm: free time in Chur
6:55pm: group assembly at bus station
7:05pm: bus departs for SSTH (arrives 7:15pm)
8:30pm: dinner (school restaurant)
(looks like a long day, doesn’t it?)My alarm went off at 6am (it didn’t wake my roommate), by 6:15 I was dressed and making the rounds of the rooms to be sure everyone was getting ready. I returned to my room, reset my alarm, checked that my roommate’s alarm was set (for 6:30am), and went back to bed. At 6:30 she woke up, at 6:50 I took my portfolio and my bookbag and headed for the dining room. I was the first to arrive, but the rest of the group was there at 7am, when breakfast was scheduled to begin. By 7:20 we were wrapping up, by 7:25 we were on our way to catch the bus. At the train station, our designated photographers took pictures, and our designated information gatherers checked with one of the train crew to confirm which car we should sit in, and which station was our connecting station. Everything was very smooth, and a lady on the train who spoke only German tried to ask me a question – I guess because I really looked like a Tour Guide!
Once in Andermatt I had no trouble finding our waiting taxi van, and we took an otherworldly half-hour drive up into the mountains on a winding cobblestone road through very thick white fog. At the end of that half hour, the taxi pulled up into a little parking area that looked like absolutely nothing, and led us across a graveled way to a large and forbidding door. We walked down a long passage that was dark and concrete and wet and so cold that our breath misted in the air. When I looked up, I saw thin icesicles hanging from the ceiling. A few of us had flashlights and were glad of the extra light, but the driver walked as if the space were well-lit and dry. At the end of the corridor we found a lobby-lounge area with a shiny black floor, rough-rock walls, furniture that would have been quite at home in a New York City club, and a glassed-in restaurant with pale walls, blond wood tables and floors, and waitstaff in familiar dressy-casual black attire.
The Hotel La Claustra is very small (17 bedrooms, one restaurant with two rooms, and two conference rooms) and very unique: it is entirely underground (carved out of a mountain), in caverns and passages which were once a Swiss army base. In the winter it is not open. In the spring, the entire place suffers from thawing – melt-water runs down the walls and is collected in gutters at the edges of the floor, and until the outside temperature warms up the inside of the hotel is anywhere from cool to icy. There is no front desk, and just seven or so staff members to handle the typical front-desk, bellhop, concierge and management responsibilities. The hotel’s guests are almost all from Europe and Japan, and the space is a blend of the sparse yet elegant Swiss/Scandenavian style and more Eastern accents such as rock gardens and art objects.
Due to local laws, the hotel was not permitted to install bathrooms within the new bedrooms, so the bathrooms, tubs, and showers are shared and in the style of an upscale spa or gym (though the facilities are also coed – a la Ally McBeal). There are no televisions in the rooms, and no windows to the outside world. To combat the possibility of claustrophobia, every door contains a glass pannel (frosted for the bathrooms) to remind that there is at least another room or passage beyond. For privacy in the bedrooms, the clear glass may be hidden behind a rolling clothes and luggage rack. Having this rather than a shade or curtain means that it’s very obvious when the room is occupied and does not wish to be disturbed, versus when it is vacant or occupied but willing to open to service.
In addition to our tour of the hotel, we were treated to a presentation on the resort underway down in the valley of Andermatt. It will revitalize the area, providing tourism income to replace the overland trade-route income lost with the implementation of more efficient (and less proximate) underground trains. The designs are both ecologically and location- friendly, with a few buildings being constructed within the village of Andermatt, and the bulk of the resort being constructed on two shooting ranges outside of Andermatt purchased from the Swiss military. A golf course is to be built on outlying farmland, but the remaining open space in the valley and on the mountain slopes is not to be built on – preserving the beauty of the landscape and maintaining open space is a key element of the construction. What impressed me the most is the length the designers are going to in order to make the new resort “fit in” with the existing villages design of the region: not only will the new buildings have similar designs, but multiple architects have been hired to draft plans for them, further ensuring that once everything is built the resort will seem like a natural extension of Andermatt – buildings and roads which grew naturally over the generations, just as the village of Andermatt itself expanded and developed new styles over time. Also, while the initial phase of construction is quite agressive (and quick), once the resort opens (scheduled for 2014) it could be as many as twenty years before it is fully complete – the designers anticipate that the destination will evolve over time.
When the tour and presentation were over (about 40 minutes) the hotel’s manager and I had thought we would be departing. (We had discussed with each other how long it might take to tour the hotel and see the presentation, but each went longer than expected). We piled into the waiting taxi van and headed back down the mountain (incidentally, the entrance to La Claustra is 2050 meters above sea level, and the main body of the hotel is covered by another 80 meters of mountain) to Andermatt (1400 meters above sea level). We returned to the train station surrounded by a cold rain, and a horror-movie mist. A unanimous group vote nixed attempting sight-seeing in Andermatt, and instead we checked the train schedules and left on earlier trains. My group of 14 dimished to just 8 on the route back to Chur, with 3 students departing from Andermatt to Geneva for the weekend, and another 3 students heading to Lucerne.
I had fun guiding for the day, the more so because La Claustra was (for me) one of the most exciting places on our three-week itinerary, and especially because the entire group was working with me and staying focused. We didn’t have straglers or wanderers, and we had photographers and fact-finders ready and willing to help.
My leanings in the travel and tourism sphere have always been more aligned with hospitality (so of course I’m excited by a unique hotel), and while I like seeing new places I often dislike the time and trouble it takes to reach them (especially because I don’t like sitting still for long periods). Part of my learning on this trip is to realize that I might also really like on-site or city guiding, where the format is that people come to the guide, and then the guide shows them a specific place or area. The tour escorting and trip guiding (where the tour guide travels with a group for several days or even a few weeks), is probably not for me – though I think with a little more study I could do the job if I had to.
And, of course, the day (and the day before) did bring a number of lessons:
1. If as a tour guide you are handed an itinerary, do not trust that it is complete and accurate. Check the information, confirm that you understand the routes and transportation, and (where applicable) confirm with the destinations that they are expecting your group.
2. Check with the person who prepared the itinerary and with the destinations to see whether they are expecting to be paid! There was a bit of a shock for me as we were wrapping up our visit to the hotel: not only had the (prebooked) taxi not been paid for, the hotel itself was expecting payment for the coffee and tea served to us when we arrived (the itinerary I was given said that refreshment was “included” – I took this to mean “paid for”, not “part of the day and subject to fees”), and to top it all off the hotel’s bill offered charges for our guided tour, the presentation, and the use of a projector and laptop in said presentation! (In fact, the hotel was expecting to submit its own charges as well as a bill for reimbursement (they paid the taxi driver for the roundtrip) directly to SSTH, and not to our group as we left – but it was still quite a surprise.)
3. As our textbook says, be ready to be flexible. I could have insisted on completing our tour as written, leading the group in a cold rain through the village of Andermatt and out to the Devil’s Bridge and back… …and they would have been wet and cold and miserable and annoyed. Instead I changed the itinerary to suit the weather and needs of the group, and everyone was happier with the day.
Posted under daily log
4
June
2008
(the end of) Day Five:
A rough learning experience (the bad)
To be honest, by the end of Tuesday a lot of stress and tension had built up among much of our group (myself included) – there’s the usual stuff of being (far) away from home, being in a group where not everyone knows everyone else, and having to juggle class, homework/blog, and social time along with the less common: a very intense site-tour schedule (from 7:30am until evening many days) where touring is work and not vacation. Tempers flared enough that Dr. Garely and Professor Blake-Neis scheduled individual meetings with each student, so that everyone could privately say what was really bothering them and what they’d like to see changed without fear of what anyone else in the group might think. It was hard, and unpleasant, but Wednesday morning brought the chance for a fresh start.
Day Six:
the new day (the good)
We began by taking another kind of class entirely: cooking. Mr. Schmitt and his staff in the kitchen of SSTH opened their doors and their cookbooks. Mr. Schmitt divided the preparation (mainly from scratch) of each item on the menu among all of us, handed out aprons and side towels, and put us to work!
The three-course menu looked like this:
Appetizer: smoked salmon and puff pastry with mixed greens and horseradish cream
Entrée: sautéed pork with peppers, spatzli, paprika cream sauce and broccoli with parmesan
Dessert: chocolate mousse with fresh fruit
It took about three hours for the thirteen of us working in small groups with supervision (not everyone could work on each course, but everyone made something) to prepare food for 20 or so people. …not restaurant speed, I know, but we had so much fun working together (the laughter and joking around were probably equal in measure to the learning and cooking), and found a brand new group dynamic in the process – we are now a group of companions instead of a group of individuals and little cliques. Getting to eat our tasty creations all together at one long table was pleasant too.
Lessons learned
Letting stress build up is not good. It is better to really share what the problem is so that a solution can be reached. (In this case our Professors offered a combination approach, including pushing back the homework deadline and canceling the tour scheduled for Thursday (June 6) to give more room for schoolwork and catching up our blogs, along with the chance to turn in earlier and catch some extra sleep. We’re picking up the original itinerary starting Friday (June 7), but if it looks like we might be headed for another case of burnout, another study day will be scheduled to let us catch our breath and keep our cool.)
Teambuilding exercises don’t always have to be trust-building games or outward-bound courses. Cooking a good meal together can be immensely rewarding on many levels.
…Also, I thought I didn’t like smoked salmon. Then I tried the salad I helped make. Smoked salmon, arugula, and fresh-whipped cream seasoned with horseradish is an awesome combination. I definitely recommend it. (The sliver of puff pastry with tomato, red cabbage, leaf lettuce and chopped chives with dressing was nice too, but it was the other combo that floored me.)
a promising finish
After this excellent lunch, we had a little time before our next scheduled appointment: a tour of Chur’s tourism office. Once Andy stepped up and organized a student meeting, we 13 people (no, it’s not an unlucky number) started with one thought in common: Tuesday’s wake-up call had made it clear how much more we needed to be working together and working hard on these tours. We talked over the responsibilities and then volunteered for positions: a tour guide, a wrangler (the last of the group, who keeps the stragglers moving and keeps track of where everyone is at all times), photographers, note-takers, brochure collectors, standbys. And then we were off!
It is still slightly amazing to me how very big the difference was, even in something as simple as taking a city bus into town and walking to an office. We were communicating with each other, we were alert and professional, and the entire afternoon was like clockwork.
The “tour” was actually a very informative and entertaining presentation by Michael Meier (the Direktor of Chur Tourismus) about the Chur Tourism Office’s marketing plans, strategies, and current advertising.
For the most part the office is targeting Swiss and German markets, advertising myriad day trip options for those planning vacations nearby, and also advertising Chur as a stand-alone destination. The office is also looking to increase the number of Italian tourists who visit, and has plans to begin targeting French and English tourists in the future.
…If you’re wondering about Americans, Chur is happy if we come but is not looking to lure us in. This is not an Americanized city, and knows it does not cater well to American needs: air conditioning is very rare, the shops close early and don’t open on Sundays, the signs are posted in German (and sometimes also in French and Italian)… you get the idea. As a European city, it is a better fit with other Europeans.
Chur is a beautiful place, and the advertising takes full advantage of this, using stunning photos and zippy captions. Here are some of my favorites:
“Chur doesn’t have an underground. Because we don’t need to hide our trains.”
“Many roads lead to Rome. But the most beautiful one is through Chur.”
“Chur is also a gym. Only with lots of fresh air. And 937 summits.”
After the tour, we returned to SSTH for dinner, and it was a very merry evening with everyone feeling much happier and more enthusiastic that we had in days.
Posted under daily log
3
June
2008
(or, Our Trip to Mount Pilatus and Lucerne)
On June 3rd, between sunrise and sunset, our group took 2 city buses, 1 trolleybus, 4 trains, 1 cogwheel train, a group of cable cars, 1 cable gondola, and 1 steamer boat. …not in that order.
At 7:30am, we caught the autobus (10 min ride) to Chur (elevation 1,946 ft). From Chur, we took 2 trains to Lucerne (130 min ride total). The sun and clouds were fighting for control of the sky (in fact some clouds were so low they seemed interested in annexing the earth), but the scenery was still breathtaking. From the Lucerne station, we caught a city trolleybus to Linde-Pilatus station (20 min ride). Then we walked up the hill to Kriens cablecar station.
Mrs. Colette Richer (PR for Mt. Pilatus) met us there and gave us an orientation of Mount Pilatus, making sure we understood about the cable car lines, the cable gondola line, the cogwheel rail (which travels up and down an incline of 48 degrees!) and the scenic boat that travels on Lake Lucerne between Alpnachstad and Lucerne. She also told us about the hiking trails at the top of the mountain and gave us maps, full-access travel tickets, very nice souvenir hats and booklets with the legends of the mountain.
The ancient name of the mountain is Fractus Mons (Broken Mountain), and stories tell of the dragons that might breathe fire and cause trouble or rescue fallen travelers and provide healing stones. The mountain came to be known as Mount Pilatus because it is rumored that Pontius Pilate was buried at the edge of the lake. For centuries (from the 1300’s until 1585), approaching the lake was forbidden and it was believed that Pilate’s troubled spirit was the cause of fierce thunderstorms and heavy flooding. His ghost was said to appear at the lake on Good Friday, forever wishing and forever unable to wash the blood from his hands. In 1585 the parish priest of Lucerne led a group of courageous citizens to the lake, where the water was bombarded with boulders and the shallows were disturbed by waders. When no supernatural response was offered, the curse of the mountain was deemed broken and the lake was declared safe.
The cable cars take 25 minutes to run 4,496 feet up the mountain (and when we went, this put us inside and then above the lowest cloud layer!). Then a cable gondola continues the ascent to Pilatus Kulm at 7,000 feet in just five minutes. On a clear day, the views from the top must be magical. On a cloudy day, it’s easy to make jokes about taking a walk in the clouds by traveling on the hiking trails.
We descended via a famous train: at a 48% gradient, it is the steepest cogwheel railway in the world! The track is 4618 meters long, and runs mainly along the surface of the mountain but also through 5 short tunnels into the mountain’s side. By this point the afternoon sun had made a few dents in the clouds, and we rode down through the cloud layers into patchy sunlight. For the countless time that day I was struck by the sheer pastoral beauty of Switzerland. Looking out of the window was like drinking in loveliness. (Although riding through the rough-rock tunnels was strikingly reminiscent of the runaway train ride at Disneyworld – it felt like that rollercoaster headed down the track and gearing up for a crazy turn.)
At the foot of the mountain we caught the last boat to Lucerne, and enjoyed soaking up the sunlight (the top of the mountain was misty, cold, and littered with hard-packed ice while the foot of the mountain was basking in near 80 degree heat). The waters of the lake are so crystal clear that they take on the color of whatever reflects into them. Out towards the center, this means a sky-cloud blue. Along the shoreline it means a jeweltone green with just a hint of blue. Were it not for the slight variation, it might be hard to tell where the vivid green forest and grasses end and the water begins. Again I say Switzerland is beautiful, stunning, magical, breathtaking – I don’t work for a tour company (yet), I swear I’m not exaggerating.
Back in Lucerne, we retraced our steps from the early morning, taking 2 trains and the last autobus from Chur back to our school in Passugg. (Sophie, our liaison at SSTH and the person who put our 3 week stay and numerous trips on paper in logical order with detailed transport information, actually came to the train station to wait for us in case we were delayed and missed the bus – but as everything ran according to the schedule she didn’t need to drive us all back and instead wished us a pleasant evening and continued on her own way).
Dinner was a beef consume with slivered carrots and celery (the menu is very traditional at times, but no less good for that) followed by pork and mixed vegetables with a red wine gravy and flat pasta, followed by sorbet.
Dinner was followed by a few hours of collective group homework in the lobby of the hotel – we had to ask the night watchman how to turn on the lights (it turned out the switch was in a room down the hall from the lobby itself) – but the tables, chairs, and oversized ottomans provided the coziest study hall I’ve ever had the pleasure of working in.
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2
June
2008
The post office (postgebaud) in Chur, followed by a close up of part of the painting.
Zschaler Haus – a rich example of the decorative painting found on many buildings in Chur
(most) of our group on the steps leading to the Kathedrale St. Maria Himmelfahrt
(pictured from left to right, seated: Liliana, Gia, Asha, Curtis, Sarah, standing: me, Katherine, Adele, Sasha, Shevy, Dr. Garely, Mark)
then around the bend and suddenly back at the courtyard of Brotlaube first seen on Sunday:
(pictured from left to right: Katherine, Andy, Elliott)
…check back soon for more stories (including our awesome intermodal trip to Mt. Pilatus, our Gore-Tex shoes and a different kind of class meal).
Posted under daily log
1
June
2008
(DAY THREE, continued)
Picking up where my last non-illustrated post left off, after the afternoon blogging our entire group treked on foot to the next bus stop (possibly a stone’s throw down the mountain, and a five minutes’ careful walk along a steep dirt and gravel trail). The corner of the bus stop is actually the local restaurant Mùhle. There we had salad (sunflower and pumpkin seeds with carrot, radish, cucumber, mixed greens and cream dressing) followed by perfectly cooked chicken breast in a brown gravy with green peppercorns, rice, and plain-cooked spinach.
Then a slightly longer walk back up to school, and a few adventurous souls (myself, Katherine, Sasha, Mark, Andy, Elliott, Sarah, Asha, Shevy) continued further up the road (and up the mountain) to see what we could see. We found road construction, and more stunning views (of the mountains, the river, and the sunset), and some friendly people who waved from their house above, and onto the next bus station. Due to some fears about certain horror movies having the potential to become real, the minority of intrepid explorers (myself, Katherine, Sasha and Asha) bowed to the majority of those wishing to return to campus.
DAY FOUR: Today (Monday) was a slew of tourism-travel information, experience, and problem case study.
The plan was to have an early breakfast and then take an audio-guided walking tour of Chur.
…the plan ran into technical difficulties of near-farsical proportions.
To begin with, we were provided this morning (as we were gathering to travel to the city and begin the tour) with one copy of the tour on CD. …so our start was delayed as we scrambled to load the CD onto every available audio device (it wasn’t compatible with all ipods, and not everyone brought a personal music player with them). Fortunately the guide also came with a map, of which there were enough copies for all. A driver was available to take our group to the city (since we had missed our expected public bus), but we could not arrange for a pickup. Therefore we had less than two hours to complete the entire tour and get back to the public bus to return to school for lunch and our afternoon lecture.
We did not complete the tour. We began (at the beginning) and quickly found that the entire commentary was quite detailed and lengthy. About a third of the way through, we started skipping attractions, and in all we found and heard about perhaps half the entire tour. (Kudos to our BMCC student guides, Sasha and Katherine, for puzzling out the map and deciding how best to truncate the tour.)
The good:
It was a beautiful (though warm) day for a walk, and I further appreciate the beauty of Chur (especially the “old city” with the cobblestone streets and decorated buildings and myriad arches), and I have learned a bit about the place. That building with the dragon-y door is actually the City Hall. The City originally had wells every 200 steps or less, and fountains now stand where the wells were (which is why it constantly feels like there’s a fountain looking for someone to take its picture). The end of Brotlaube (with the arch and the courtyard) is actually a T intersection: there are low arched passages at either end of the courtyard leading to other streets!
The not-so-good:
The narratation for the tour was introduced by a male and female (two students of SSTH – the entire tour was a collaboration between the city’s tourism board and SSTH students), but then every point of interest (at least that we heard) was narrated soley by the man. …and while his voice was clear, and his accent very intelligible (English was obviously not his first language), and it was almost monotone. After a dozen or so stops (with very detailed information all about the places and their long history), I gave up listening and just followed the group and the map and enjoyed looking at the scenery. Even if the female voice had been equally devoid of variation, just having the pair alternate narrating the tour might have provided enough interest to keep me engaged.
The moral of the story:
Always confirm the details of scheduled tours in advance: what is provided? what must be supplied by the group? does the schedule make sense, what are the alternatives if something comes up to delay the tour? what if it becomes neccesary for the tour to end early? what are other possible substitutions and alterations in the event that changes are needed?
…and always keep the ability to be flexible and find solutions to obstacles.
Continuing on:
Then lunch at school – more salad (and so long as they keep putting it in front of me I’ll keep eating it, but I’ve already eaten a usual fortnight’s worth of salad in the last four days), rice and a mild savory “curried” chicken, followed by kiwi sorbet. …The kiwi sorbet was exactly like a frozen kiwi, only softer. And it tasted very pleasant until my tongue froze (at which point the sorbet just tasted cold).
Then a short lecture about the state of tourism in Switzerland in general, and the canton of Graubünden (of which Chur is the capital) in particular. In brief, there is a push to tap into the underappreciated summer months (most hotels are only open from mid-December through Easter) and create new tourism options, visitors, and thus revenue. One of the options is two-pronged: boost tourism and boost the struggling farm estates by marketing farming vactions to travelers looking to try another life for a little while. Another initiative is to consolidate the 50 individual tourism associations in Graubünden into a smaller, more efficient, more effective package.
Then a bit of a break until dinner in the restaurant attached to the School. The menu included salad, cooked carrots, french fries, and boneless pork in a spiced butter sauce, followed by a creamy chocolate pudding – (my first chocolate dessert this trip!), and time for the students to mingle and relax. …and then eventually a half-dozen of us remembered we had blogs to write, which is why we six are sitting in the computer lab now.
Posted under daily log
31
May
2008
Zurich airport.
It’s 10am local time, 2am eastern standard time, and we’re ready to go to school!
(pictured from left to right: Sasha, Dr. Garely, Liliana, Curtis, Katherine, Prof. Blake-Neis, Sarah, Asha, Andy, Shevy)
The exit signs in Europe are much friendlier.
The view from a window at the Swiss School of Tourism and Hospitality.
Our morning in Chur:
Our group in front of the fountain in Martinsplatz, just next to the Kirche St. Martin.
(pictured from left to right, front row: Liliana, Gia, Sarah, Elliott, me, middle row: Mark, Adele, Prof. Blake-Neis, Katherine, Dr. Garely, back row: Curtis, Shevy, Andy, Sasha)
Inside the church (Kirche St. Martin) – it really wasn’t dark in there, but I couldn’t reconfigure the camera.
Walking down Reichsgasse
Chur’s architecture has lots of arches – from decorative portals to windowed hallway bridges:
(this is a view along Brotlaube)
(the Hotel Freieck has a pretty arch as well)
(the arch in the picture below crosses Bärenloch, which ends in a little courtyard with buildings and a garden)
The city of Chur and our School in the village of Passugg are both in the mountains at the edge of the Alps.
This is June, and yes – that’s snow. (The view is of the mountains beyond the square of Regierungsplatz).
and last of all, the door of 64 Reichsgasse (sorry, it’s a little fuzzy):
Posted under daily log
30
May
2008
Let’s start at the beginning.
Day One: Friday, May 30, 12:40pm. We gather at American Airlines, Terminal 8, JFK airport.
Check our bags (I checked in at the kiosk although our group was permitted to check in at the first-class desk), and minutes later the AA Tour began – Led by Bill Clark, an executive with American Airlines.
AA is quite proud of their new terminal – it is the largest at JFK, and the finishing touches are still being completed. A total of $1.3 billion went into the project, expanding and updating everything from the departure lobby to the baggage conveyor system to the number of gates to the size of the customs and immigration area. Each ticketing agent now has an individual baggage belt, and with the elimination of shared belts check-in times have been reduced to just 60-90 seconds. (For the complete do-it-yourself experience, there are also 44 self-check-in stands: swipe your passport, print your ticket, check your bags and go).
The security lanes have been revamped to accommodate as many as 1,800 travelers per hour, and the customs and immigration area can now handle 1,600 travelers per hour (up from just 855 in the old space). Nineteen gates feed directly into the immigration and customs area, and another seventeen gates host domestic flights.
Mostly hidden behind walls and underground, seven miles of conveyors process the checked baggage. Each bag rides from the ticket agent’s belt to the next available CAT scanner, and from there is automatically shunted to one of two belts: one belt for non-suspect luggage, one belt for suspect luggage requiring further inspection by TSA agents. (If the TSA agents do find hazardous materials, the situation is turned over to the onsite law enforcement authorities.) Sometimes the bar-code scanners can’t read the luggage tags, and then bags must ride to the end of the line where an AA employee finds the tag and enters the bag into the system. After passing inspection, the bags continue on conveyors either to carrousel’s (for international flights), or piers (for domestic flights). Baggage handlers load the bags from the carrousel’s and piers to the airplanes. If a plane is required to change its gate, the bags do not have to rerouted to different carrousel’s or piers: the handlers are simply notified of the change, and they drive the bags to the new gate. In the control room, computers monitor the entire system, and a large screen shows the status of each strip of conveyor and each scanning machine. Sometimes jams and small problems can be cleared remotely, from the Control Room. Others must be addressed by hand, and agents will reach the problem by ducking under the raised belts (they’re about four and a half feet off the ground), and stepping over the ground-level belts. (There are three-step staircases on either side of the ground-level belts, and a yard of space to span their width – on our tour, one belt was turned off when we started, and we stepped from the ground onto the stairs then onto the belt to the far stairs and then back to the ground. On our return this belt was in service, and we stepped from the near stairs right over the moving belt onto the far stairs. Our guide (Joe Daly, Manager of Ramp Agents) had long legs and didn’t mind the stride across, but those of us of the shorter persuasion were glad there were raised handrails at elbow height above the belt!)
We also visited the Control Tower, with banks of computers, camera monitors and screens to show the location of planes in the air. JFK and LaGuardia are just nine and half miles apart, and this means they share airspace – not only must planes avoid colliding with other planes arriving and departing at the same airport, but also all the planes at the airport “next door”. From the Control Tower, all routing and scheduling decisions take place: when and where planes may land and park, taxi and takeoff, whether they will travel on this ramp or that, whether they must wait or take priority. In the event of delays and cancellations, an agent in the Tower is responsible for sorting our alternate travel arrangements for each connecting passenger on the affected flight, and for notifying the correct agent at the connecting airport. (To help out, they also have a three-pot coffee maker).
Forgive me if I gloss over the actual flight: it was about seven hours in the air, we were fed a nice dinner and a snack masquerading as breakfast. The pilots can take credit for a smooth takeoff and pretty smooth landing all very nicely graduated (no trouble on the ears).
DAY TWO:
After landing in Zurich (7:30am local time, Saturday May 31), Doris, a Zurich VIP Service Guide, met our group and virtually whisked us through immigration and customs. The Zurich Airport has a terminal dedicated to US arrivals and departures, though occasionally other international flights will use it in the afternoons. Unlike our 24-hour airports, Zurich doesn’t schedule flights either in or out after about 6pm, and closes entirely overnight. Another surprise was the nursery area which is funded by the airport, it includes three rooms plus a lobby and an office area. Anyone traveling with children can visit for free, and they will find changing and washing stations, a room to let their children nap, a row of chairs and tables for snacks, and two playrooms with everything from dolls, trucks and storybooks to rocking horses, PlayStations, and a four-foot high Connect-Four game (which, just like the table-top variety, spills the red and yellow rings all over when the game finishes).
Next we collected our luggage (another neat moment: even though our group checked in at all three ticketing areas – first class, coach, and self-serve – all our bags were piled onto one luggage cart). A farewell gift from Doris was a 10 CFH voucher that we could use for (real) breakfast at the airport.
After a bit of time for us to explore the airport, find the aforementioned coffee and food (okay, and chocolate) and stretch our legs, we traveled another two hours by van to our host school in the village of Passugg (sounds like Pass-sue-gh) – ten minutes above the city of Chur (sounds like Coor).
A former hotel, the Swiss School dates back 110 years. The School offers students airy dorm rooms, classrooms with picture windows and views of the mountains leading to the Alps, an indoor swimming pool which has been converted to a movie room, a disco (with bar, lights, and sound – so students can get a feel for what it takes to work at and run a club), a mosaic-tiled bathhouse which has been converted into a student kitchen, and a pair of full restaurant-grade kitchens which both teach and provide food for two dinning rooms (large and small), and a third kitchen which provides food for a fully operational restaurant space (also a teaching facility).
DAY THREE:
Today (Sunday, June 1), we breakfasted at School, and then took the school van to the city of Chur. After strolling along some of the cobblestone and paved streets, and visiting the Church of St. Martin, we walked along the river to the train station. Almost all of the shops and restaurants are closed on Sundays (the exception was a little convenience mart in the train station).
By group consensus, we lunched at a Mexican restaurant. …The menu items were listed in Spanish, and the descriptions were in German. I ordered the spare ribs, mainly because I have never seen ribs on a Mexican menu, and I will say the food was tasty. The barbecue sauce was sweet and spicy (red pepper flakes, sugar and cumin, I think), the garnish was an orange slice, a radish cut into a flower shape, and a small purple blossom. The side dish appeared to be a small cup of sautéed vegetables, but turned out to be a mix of cold and lightly pickled vegetables. Definitely a local touch. After lunch we found the local bus service and returned to School, briefly meeting another School group heading further up the mountain for a weekend aiding the foresters and learning about the regional trees and wildlife.
Now it’s mid-afternoon (we’re six hours ahead of eastern standard time), and we’re back at School, sharing our pictures and writing about our trip – so far.
More to come!
Posted under daily log
28
May
2008
It’s almost 3pm and we’re on campus at BMCC, having our last meeting before we gather at the JFK.
Dr. Garely has given us the handbook for our host school (the Swiss School of Tourism and Hospitality), gone over the basics for dress codes and airport packing and all… and we’ve all got our new shoes. (Thank you Gore-Tex).
For the next three weeks, whenever dress shoes are not required, I will be wearing Gore-Tex shoes (I think my grandmother would approve). Already they feel lighter than my old sneakers, and they definitely have a more aesthetically-pleasing silhouette. I don’t know the technical term for it, but they aren’t a flat sole – the front angles up, and I think this might aid in walking/jogging, etc. (We’ll see).
So this afternoon I will be running around purchasing the last wardrobe touches (thanks to my theatrical background, much of my business attire is too colorful to be appropriately conservative), and packing.
Friday morning we will be meeting up at JFK, taking a behind – the- scenes tour of American Airlines, and then departing for Zurich, Switzerland. From Zurich we will travel to Chur and our new school.
For the next three weeks we will be learning in classrooms (textbook, lectures, and all), as well as through trips and tours in Switzerland. The goal is to become fluent in Tour Management, and for each of us to lead our own short tours while abroad. Each day we’ll be posting to our own blogs (like I’m doing right now), as well as collectively posting to a group blog for BMCC, so check back to read about the events and discoveries!
Posted under daily log
