Fearless in Switzerland

A few days ago Dana and 15 of her friends had planned to jump off a cliff and paraglide over the Pacific Ocean in Miraflores, the upscale Lima suburb where she and fellow students are living for a few weeks of their six-week Peruvian edu-adventure, but Lima's crappy winter weather took the wind out of their sails. Which made momma happy.

But my relief was short-lived, as I've been informed via Facebook that the group has scouted a paragliding venue near Cusco, their next destination. Instead of jumping from a cliff and sailing over an angry, gunmetal ocean, Dana and company, when they can find a few hours off from language and culture classes, will be leaping off a mountain and sailing over Andean foothills and brown valleys dotted with Inca ruins made of really hard stone. Oh, I feel better now.

Dana's fearless. She's been a sassy ball of chutzpah since she was born and has often demonstrated this trait while traveling. Like the time she jumped off a bridge in Switzerland.

We were in Bern, a medieval idyll built astride the fast-moving, glacial-blue Aare River. The Bernese use the Aare as a natural waterpark and a big patch of grass near downtown as Mazili Beach.

People hike from Mazili up a trail to a bridge in the woods, jump off the bridge, then float down the Aare, grabbing onto metal bars at intermittent concrete exit ramps, where they pull themselves out.

The water was too swift-moving for my liking, and I told Mike and the kids I didn't think body-surfing it was a great idea. They looked at me, stripped down to their bathing suits, left me holding everybody's clothes, and followed the population of Bern up the trail to the bridge. I followed and planted myself a bit downstream from the bridge.

There were a few dozen people on the bridge when Mike, Adam and Dana marched onto it. Mike and Adam stood by the railing, looked over the edge, then backed away. Dana looked at them like they were wusses, climbed over the railing to the narrow ledge on the bridge's outer side, and jumped off. I screamed at Mike, "Get in there with her!" Mike and Adam duly ejected themselves from the bridge and were whisked away by the current. Happily, they were able to steer their bodies in Dana's direction, and I soon saw my family's bobbing heads rush by me.
I ran to the nearest exit station and jumped up and down, pointing to the grab-bar. I was petrified they'd miss it -- and succeeding off-ramps -- and get carried over the waterfall that lay downstream. When they saw me, they aimed for the ramp, joined hands, and Mike grabbed the bar. They emerged from the Aare dripping, laughing hysterically, and primed for more. Off they went up the trail and back to the bridge.

For the next hour, I sat on a rock on the riverbank and watched my family float repeatedly by. Sometimes it was hard for me to pick them out from the rest of the river-surfing crowd. Hundreds of people were in the water at any given time. Most used their bodies as their craft, but others whooshed by riding on tubes, boogy boards and rubber rafts. One family zoomed by atop a giant, inflatable plastic zebra-striped couch.

www.LoriHein.com

Minaret: Stone poetry

Shame on Switzerland. The Swiss finished up 2009 by banning the construction of new minarets. Switzerland is arguably the world's purest democracy -- every person's individual vote counts, and it's those votes that effectively determine policy. So the people really do rule, which makes this sad decision all the sadder: it is truly the Swiss people who have spoken.

I'm glad I've been to Switzerland several times and have taken in its astounding physical beauty, as I'd be hard pressed to book a trip to that Alpine land now. I'd feel I was supporting or at least turning a blind eye to intolerance -- not just random acts of intolerance that exist wherever there are humans, but mass, premeditated intolerance that will be written into the Swiss constitution. (France, please don't ban the burka or I will have to put you on my bad list, too.)

I've gazed at hundreds of minarets around the world -- in cities of all sizes, in dusty villages, desert outposts, mountaintop hamlets and seaside towns, in diverse countries on four continents. Many have been small and simple, some towering and ornate, and their age has ranged from just-built with funds collected by the citizens of a village to a thousand years old. They are invariably elegant.

I feel a quiet rush of peace when I see a minaret, and, when I've been lucky enough to hear the call to prayer that is a minaret's reason for standing tall and pointing heavenward, I feel doubly blessed.

I'll never forget the morning in Izmir, Turkey when Adam and I were awakened in a purple pre-dawn by multiple, simultaneous calls to prayer emanating from the dozen minarets we could see from our hotel room balcony. We stood on the balcony and tried to connect each call to the minaret that owned it. Izmir, site of ancient, biblical Smyrna, is built across broad hills, and the muezzins' calls bounced off the hillsides and reverberated through the city. It was a sublime moment, alone worth traveling halfway across the world.

Here are photos of a few of the minarets I've met: At top are the slender fingers of Istanbul's Blue Mosque and the Koutoubia in Marrakesh, Morocco.


At left, an Ottoman-era mosque sits in central Sofia, Bulgaria, and below, a richly-tiled prayer tower rises from the floor of a valley in Morocco's Atlas Mountains.

And here, the Qutb Minar, built in 1199. Rising 238 feet above the streets of old Delhi, it is the world's tallest brick minaret and a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

www.LoriHein.com

Liechtenstein: Rent Me

Once upon a time, when corporations had things like employees, customers, fat expense accounts and black bottom lines, and taking everybody and their spouses (or not -- up to you) on extravagant, self-celebratory bonding trips was the law of the land, a prince looked out from his hilltop castle and decreed that his little country should get in on some of that action.

And so it came to pass that Liechtenstein put itself up for rent. And so it remains.

If you have at least 450 people to entertain and $500 per head per day to entertain them with, you can rent this 16-mile-long, 4-mile wide principality wedged between Austria and Switzerland.

The go-to guys, if you're interested, are event marketers Xnet, whose Rent a Village program (they offer nine hamlets in Austria, Switzerland and Germany that you can temporarily overtake) becomes, in the case of Liechtenstein, "Rent a whole country."

Once you pay the rent, Xnet will take care of the details of your group's Alpine adventure and will also see to it that you can, if you're inclined and, presumably, pay extra, "rename streets and squares using names that have a connection with your company. Have your logo carved into the white snow of a mountain slope or introduce your own currency for the duration of your stay."

If you rent Liechtenstein, you do not get to move into Prince Hans-Adam II's castle (photo). You will be in regular hotels, and you'll only see the prince if he happens to drive by in his (I'm guessing) chauffered car.

Nor do the 35,000 permanent residents of Liechtenstein vacate to other nations when you arrive. They stay and go about their business, and you, whose flags, banners and logos flap from the lampposts that line their lanes, do your frolicing, skiing, hiking, biking, team-building, skydiving and bacchanaling around them. I do not know whether your company currency can be used in all establishments, or just those paid to play along for the length of your invasion.

Sound fun? I've been to Liechtenstein, for less than an hour, and it was all I could take.

We were in Switzerland, close to Liechtenstein's border, so we drove in one end and out the other, back into Switzerland.

Liechtenstein, despite its jaw-dropping natural beauty, gave me a mild case of the heebie-jeebies. It smothered me with its perfectness, and I couldn't wait to get back to the less-perfect-perfectness of Switzerland, a wild and crazy place by comparison.

The walls of mountains that surround Liechtenstein were, at first, awe-inspiring, but then they started to move in on our car, inducing claustrophia. We drove right under the royal castle, and I imagined the prince staring down at us, watching us move through his little country. I drove fast, looking for the exit.

There was nothing out of place in Liechtenstein, neither rock nor piece of paper nor shirttail nor blade of grass. The place was impeccable, pristine and unbearably plastic-feeling. The well-put together women strolling the sidewalks looked Stepford Wife-ish. I got the same feeling from Liechtenstein as I get from Angelina Jolie: I was creeped out.

I did like one thing about the perfect little principality: the pronunciation of its capital, Vaduz. It's va - DOOTS.

Go ahead, say it out loud, it's fun: "va - DOOTS, va - DOOTS, va - DOOTS." If you go to Forvo.com ("All the words in the world. Pronounced"), you can listen to Wolfgang Hofmeier ("male from Germany") say it .

Over and over and over, if you like.


www.LoriHein.com

Sankt Gallen: Sliding through the library

In a magazine that solicits "readers' tips for simplifying your life," I just read this pearl of domestic wisdom from reader Kristen:

"Asking adults and children to wear covers over their shoes in the house will prevent dirtying your floors and rugs -- and less cleaning sure simplifies your life. Purchase clear shower caps at a drug or discount store. Make them skid-resistant by sticking on a few strips of ordinary masking tape. Place a few at your front door. It's a snap to pull them on over shoes or boots, and the expandable size should fit all."

Wow. I see Kristen's family -- maybe even the dog -- padding around her antiseptic house with shower caps on their feet and watching reality TV from plastic-covered couches. I'm glad I don't know Kristen because there's no risk of my ever being invited to a dinner party at her house. Hand Kristen your hostess gift, and she hands you a pair of disposable booties that you are required to wear as you make small talk and sip chablis. Very hard to look hip, elegant or anything other than goofy when you've got what are basically Baggies wrapped around your ankles.

Kristen's paragraph peeved me a bit because it got magazine space (albeit unpaid, being a "reader's tip"), and no one knows better than a freelance writer how tough it is to get some of that.

But I do have to thank Kristen, because her shoes-in-shower-caps nonsense reminded me of a travel story.

We were in Sankt Gallen, Switzerland, in the city's historic center (photo) . We'd come to see the Stiftsbibliothek, or Abbey Library, one of the country's finest baroque buildings. With the Convent of St. Gall, to which it belongs, it's a UNESCO World Heritage Site because of its importance to the cultural history of mankind. The library, with magnificent wooden bookshelves, exquisite balconied gallery, ceiling frescoes, and plaster and gilt ornamentation galore, houses a priceless collection of religious literature amassed by monks beginning in the 8th century. Besides the thousands of volumes that line the walls, there are cases of handwritten and illuminated bibles, medieval music and hymn books, and a stunning jewel-and ivory-encrusted bible case.

But there's more wonder underfoot. The library floor is a vast masterpiece of inlaid wood, and you're given a map of the floor's design elements so you know what you're walking over. Or, rather, sliding over.

Along with your map, you get a pair of giant felt slippers that you're required to wear over your shoes. It was amusing -- though not, I venture, as amusing as the plastic scene at Kristen's house -- to see scholars and travelers thoughtfully ponder the literary treasures while standing in oversized elf shoes. For Dana and Adam, among the library's youngest guests at the time of our visit, the foot-long felt slippers were the Stiftsbibliothek's main event. They ignored the treasures and jewels and the riot of baroque excess in favor of skating around and across the polished floor. They were aware enough of the import of the setting to refrain from actually racing each other, and, knowing you're supposed to be quiet in a library, they swallowed most of their giggles.





www.LoriHein.com

Zug: A splash of color

I looked out my window on this wet winter day and saw a fat red cardinal sitting in a leafless bush. A ball of vibrant color lighting up a dull, brown day. I thought of the scarlet ibises we saw on a dank, rainy day in Zug, Switzerland.

Thousand-year-old Zug, a treasure trove of tall, proud, medieval architecture, sits on Lake Zug and on a clear day yields views of such beautiful peaks as Rigi, Pilatus and, in the far distance, the giants of the Bernese Oberland.

On the day of our visit clouds hid the Alps and drizzle bounced off the lake and the cobbled squares and the half-timbered houses, and Zug, while lovely, was wet and dull and quiet.

But in a huge round cage near the lakefront magnificent birds from all over the world rustled and darted and sang, and the most magnificent were five scarlet ibises.
Their bodies, even their legs, were electric red, and we stood under dripping umbrellas for a long time, watching them flap their scarlet wings, lighting up Zug as they flew from tree to tree.

www.LoriHein.com

Castles

Castles are magical; far more powerful and intriguing than palaces. I've seen hundreds, in North Africa, the Middle East and, of course, Europe. Some countries, like Scotland and Wales, are so full of castles that a several-hour road trip between two points can easily yield a half-dozen or more. Often, you have the whole castle to yourself -- there's no ticket window, no caretaker, no visitors. You park your car, walk up to the ruin, find an opening and go inside. It's just you, the stones and the ghosts.

Here, castles in Bellinzona, Switzerland; Caernarvon, Wales; Sion, Switzerland; the view from my hotel room in Sirmione, Italy:

Red Bull: A little extra kick

Adam sent me these emails during college finals week:

“so I’ve been at the library for the last 7 and a half
hours and 6 hours yesterday and I’ll probably be here
until my test tomorrow and I need a break from
studying, so I’m sending you this email”

and

“hey, I’m a little hyper, I’ve had a coffee and a few
energy drinks, I’m still studying, going strong,
tomorrow will be a loooong day,
love adam”


I opened these at nine in the morning and coughed up a heartbeat when I saw that Adam had sent the first message at 11:22 PM – and the second at 3:44 AM.

It was one of those watershed moments in the adventure we call parenting: My kid, who probably hadn’t eaten a real meal in days, was pulling an all-nighter in the campus library and would, one hour from the time I sat reading these “hey mom” emails, take a crucial macroeconomics final using a body and brain that had, assuming he'd gotten up yesterday at the not-unusual-for-college-students time of two in the afternoon, been up for some 20 straight hours.

And there was nothing I could do about it. This was his life, his deal, his way of making his way through his first tough semester, and all I could do was sit at the kitchen table, toss a “Please God” heavenward, shoot Adam a “Good luck!” email, and hope for the best.

I found myself putting some portion of my faith that this would all work out in those “few energy drinks” he’d been using to sustain himself. I guessed Red Bull, the jolt of choice among young people around here, indeed around the world.

The acid taurine is allegedly what gives the energy drink made by the Austrian company Red Bull GmbH its kick.

But not all the world’s Red Bull gets its kick from taurine. Beware the Bull that gets its kick from vodka.

A few summers ago we were in Zurich airport with two hours and a handful of Swiss francs to burn before our flight home. Adam wanted “some snacks” for the plane, so I gave him a pile of coins, and off he went to a nearby news and sundries shop.

He came back with a Toblerone bar the size of a baseball bat and a bag of vials filled with red liquid.

“What’s that?” I asked.

“It’s Red Bull.”

“Oh. The containers are cute. They look like test tubes.”

Dana took one of the vials, looked at it, then turned to Adam and said, “How come you get to drink alcohol?”

The Red Bull Adam innocently bought in the airport newstand was not the Red Bull he knew and loved. This bull in the vials was made by Lateltin, a Swiss liquor company.

In most of Europe the drinking age is 16 for beer and wine and 18 for spirits. In Switzerland, the beer-wine drinking age is 14.

Adam, who was over 14 but definitely and unmistakably under 18, had walked out of that airport shop with a sackful of 20-milliliter tubes of Red Bull “Kick80 Vodka Aperitif.” Alcohol content? 80 per cent. I found a photo on the Lateltin website of a retail display box for Kick80, and it carries these words: “Don’t drink pure. For MixDrinks (sic) only!”

I get the willies when I think what might have happened had Dana not inspected her brother’s purchase.

Picture it: We’re barreling through inner space in a sealed aircraft cabin at 40,000 feet in close quarters with 300 strangers from assorted lands. The lights are low. People are sleeping, chilling with their music or watching a movie. And the teenager in 26B has just finished a snack of two pounds of Toblerone and a couple of Red Bulls...

Now, add turbulence...

(In case you're wondering: success on the macro final, dean's list for the semester. Must've been the Red Bull.)


LoriHein.com

Coming to America: The Smart car!

The Smart car. It's the coolest thing on wheels, and I've wanted one since the day last summer when I watched this silver and black edition roll up a tiny, ancient, cobbled alleyway in Geneva, Switzerland and slide into an ad-hoc parking space it created for itself between two close-set buttresses of a thousand-year-old Romanesque chapel.

We saw Smart cars all over Switzerland and France, and the people driving them looked hip, happy and, well, smart. In addition to private Smarts, I saw lots of logo-bedecked, two-seater Smarts with eye-catching paint jobs being used as company vehicles for traveling sales and service reps: one seat for the employee-driver and the other for his or her laptop and briefcase. Efficient, eco-friendly. Smart.

The German-built Smart, a joint product of Swatch and DaimlerChrysler, has been rolling around Europe and slipping into impossibly small places and spaces since 1998.

Well, starting next year, Americans looking to downsize their rides -- I figure you could fit about six of these beauties inside a mammoth Escalade or Excursion (both of which should really be classified as small houses on wheels) -- will be able to buy a Smart. Starting price tag will be under $12,000 for the basic model called the "fortwo pure." Reserve yours now for $99.

The other night, Mike and I sat on our deck sipping wine and looking down on our driveway, estimating how many Smarts we could park in that space, which currently holds a Ford Explorer and a Hyundai Sonata.

"Nine of them," said Mike. "We could fit nine Smart cars in that driveway." We marveled at that and kept sipping. By the end of his second glass of wine, Mike had upped the number to a dozen. Had we tapped another bottle we likely would have had 20 virtual Smart cars parked in our driveway.

I just want one.

www.LoriHein.com

Switzerland: Beautiful Bellinzona

I have a story on Bellinzona, Switzerland in a recent issue of International Living.

I filed the story with the title "Bella Bellinzona." I've always thought of cities as feminine. Most European languages agree: la ville, la cite, la ciudad, a cidade, la citta, die Stadt...

The editors retitled the piece as "Belli Bellinzona." I don't know why.

Click here to read "Belli (ouch) Bellinzona: A tale of three castles."


www.LoriHein.com

Horst and the summer snowballs

The meteorologists said it would rain today. It’s clear and sunny. Until they go to the same school that Horst went to and start getting their weather right, I’m going to stop listening to them entirely.

On a blistering July day, on our way to Samedan near St. Moritz, we stopped at Bellinzona (left), an ancient Swiss town that guards the St. Gotthard Pass. Bellinzona rates only a quick half-page in the Michelin Green Guide to Switzerland, but it should be on the cover. Almost no one stops here, but everyone should. It’s an extraordinary small city filled with exquisitely restored baroque and Renaissance squares. The place brims with arcaded walks and elaborately painted plaster and stone facades sporting intriguing designs and trompe l’oeil. Bellinzona is the capital of the Italian-speaking Ticino canton, and, as we walked through the Centro Storico, Bellinzona’s historic heart, I was happy to pack my German away for the day and try out some of the flowing, liquid Italian I’d been trying to learn.

Three castles from the 13th to the 15th centuries sit on successively higher hills above Bellinzona's twisting, cobbled streets. The smallest, youngest castle is on the highest hill. A magnificently turreted and crenellated creation sits in the middle. And the oldest, largest castle – the Castelgrande – rests massively on the lowest hill. From the Centro Storico, a space-age elevator whisked us up through a rock face and deposited us inside Castelgrande's walls. The air-conditioned elevator encased in cold stone provided wondrous relief from the heavy July heat.

We sat at a concrete picnic table at a terrace restaurant built into the castle walls and looked out over the panorama of Bellinzona below and the alpine mountainscape spreading away in the distance. A pergola of creeping vines provided spotty shade.

I began telling the kids about the Samedan hotel where we’d spend the night – the Berghotel Muottas Muragl, a sherbet-colored inn at the top of a 7,500-foot peak (2,456 meters, to be exact). We’d park our car at the Punt Muragl rail station and take a tiny mountain train to the hotel.

Suddenly a voice said, “It will snow above 2,000 meters.” Horst, a German mathematics professor who lived in Zurich and was on his way to a math conference in Ascona on Lake Maggiore, introduced himself and repeated, with certainty, “It will snow above 2,000 meters.”

Shielding our eyes from the blazing sun, we smiled at him. Snow. Sure. Let me run and get the boots and parkas. This was a blast furnace day. We were sweating bullets into our bisteca. During lunch, Adam and Horst talked math, and Horst did some career counseling, telling Adam over and over that “being a mathematician is really fun.”

Early that evening, we rode the mountain train to the top of Muottas Muragl. The stony summit was snow-free and carpeted with delicate lichen and pink and yellow wildflowers. We stood in the warm setting sun and looked across the Upper Engadine Valley to the powerful peaks of the Bernina Massif, full in our faces.

That night, while the family slept, I sat at our hotel room window and looked out on a view that included the twinkling lights of St. Moritz far below. Stars peppered the clear, cobalt sky.

Then a heavy cloud rolled right past the window. It seemed to stop and look in at me long enough to deliver a strange "I told you so" stare. Then it grew bigger and darker, and I watched as it swallowed the hotel. Flakes began to fall.

The next morning we woke to a world covered in Horst-foretold snow above 2,000 meters. The kids hooted and ran across the frosted, white mountaintop, slipping and sliding in their sneakers. They made an arsenal of July snowballs and pitched the orbs at each other and out over the side of the mountain, watching as they sailed into the green, snowless valley below.

www.LoriHein.com

Four travel favorites: Lakes

It came to me while I was running...how to share glimpses of lots of great places in the the short space of a blog post: a list. With FOUR TRAVEL FAVORITES, I’ll share four of my favorite fill in the blank (exotic places, museums, bridges, mountains, islands, man-made wonders, natural wonders, scenic drives, seaside towns, buildings, ruins, castles, rivers, cities of various sizes...tell me what you want to see LHein10257@aol.com).

Let’s start with lakes:

• Moraine Lake, Alberta, Canada – Alberta’s glacial lakes sit like aquamarine jewels cradled in magnificent Rocky Mountain settings. Base yourself in Banff or Jasper and drive the Icefields Parkway between them, detouring to take in the necklace of stunningly-colored lakes. Moraine is close to Lake Louise, another mountain-ringed eyepopper. Just off the Parkway, take in the arresting beauty of Peyto Lake. It’s a color you’ve never seen before.
• Lake Titicaca, Bolivia – Earth’s highest navigable lake sits between Peru and Bolivia, and you can access the lake from either. From the lakefront Inca Utama Hotel in Huatajata, Bolivia, take a hydrofoil trip on the 12,500-foot lake to the Island of the Sun, peppered with agricultural terraces built by the Incas, many still under cultivation. Stand on the island’s pebble beach and face the towering massif of the Andes’ Cordillera Real, which towers above Titicaca’s eastern shore.
• Lake Como, Italy – La dolce vita doesn’t get any sweeter than this. Go in summer, pick a lakeside town like Cadenabbia, Bellagio, Tremezzo, Varenna or Menaggio to base yourself in, and enjoy the sweetness of doing nothing—dolce far niente. Nothing but soaking up sun, drinking brilliant local wines, eating food so fresh it bursts in your mouth, and watching sunlight and moonlight play on water, green mountains and rainbow-colored buildings.
• Lake Lucerne, Switzerland – Called Vierwaldstatter See, Lake of the Four Forest Cantons in German, Lake Lucerne is a high-altitude beauty ringed by Alps, plied by inter-canton ferries and lined with pristine Swiss towns. Base yourself in Lucerne, and take in the medieval walls, watchtowers and painted covered bridge that juts out into the lake. Mounts Pilatus and Rigi kiss the clouds above you. (Yes, there’s a pattern here. I like my lakes served with a side order of mountain grandeur.)
  
  Travel to stunning American places in Ribbons of Highway: A Mother-Child Journey Across America