Zürcher Oberland
hello everybody on this journey we're going to visit the part of switzerland that is referred to as Zürcher Oberland. you're looking at the extension of lake Zürich, the eastern part. let's get the story started. we're going to go to Bäretswil, which is the extension of Tannzapfenland towards the West. The landscape is very similar. this is the town hall of Bäretswil with a sculpture up front that somebody carved and this is part of the municipal complex. I think this is a building for people to meet. looking towards the South you can see the fall colors are starting to show. one way to use a old bathtub is you turn it into a trough for the cattle. in the background you see where there
is going to be the a ski tow for the in the winter time. target practice site for the solders. there is always a quiet place in town where I walked early the morning morning. this is the area where I think the success story of Switzerland is represented. small businesses are actually the backbone of the economy because a lot of the business have less than 15 employees and during recessions they tend to maybe lay off one or two persons and that way the downside of a recession is reduced. so I think this street is kind of representing what the backbone of The Swiss economy actually looks like.
this is the housing complex where Dany and Morella, our friends live. that's where we stayed. it's very nice setup. there was a fall fair with a cow Beauty competition . the local farmers bring the best looking
cows and get them evaluated with all the different criterias that farmers are looking for in cattle. of course they all had to bring their cowbells and show them off with pride. For some reason these two cows didn't make the cut so they looking kind of rejected over there on the the side It was interesting to see how most of swiss cows have the horn cut off. Here is a few that still have the horns. well here is looking at some of the beauty contest winners with a little ribbon for the kids are little goats kids like to feed them.
Calfs well and then we're off for a little hike down to Bauma to see where the steam train started there was a place where they had a switch station it showed what the station looked like 50 years ago there train come by again it's quite impressive after about an hour hiking down to Bauma we arrived at the station where the steam train starts out and they had a collection of all Railway cars and with the various shapes and forms this is more like a passenger rail car this is the steam engines that pulls us up to Bäretswil again. unfortunately they were burning coal to keep the old engine going and it ended up being a bit of a smokey Affair. this is a conductor that make sure everybody's had a ticket and everything was running smoothly. here is our train ticket and these are old fashion ticket that they used to have back in the 50s and 60s. train is reshuffling to turn around you can see it's kind of dirty well these two Ls are ready to go so let's go [Music] the sound of train well we're about to enter the town of Bäretswil well one thing that was really neat that people when they saw the train they would wave and smile and . young and old everybody was cheery to see us going by in the steam train that was actually the nicest part of the whole Journey [Music] in the old station they still had the old levers were they actually use to switch the tracks and lower the barrier and the other thing was neat the train is actually run all by volunteers and there are quite a few young people which is nice to see well now we're going to go and hike around the Pfäffiker See but first we're going to go up to the Rosin lookout this is a very popular destination for people in the area. also very family oriented swings and
a slide . this slide apparently has been there for 30 some years and I know it it does look like its worn out in places. and even little dwarfs are hanging out looking down towards Pfäffikoner See unfortunately it was a Monday and the restaurant was closed so we did not get our coffee this is the lake we're going to be walking around it's uh about 8 kilometers and you can see the Alps in the background very beautiful spot. Dany and Morella are ready to carry on with the next hike well now we're down by the lake. the first things we visited was
the Roman ruins and apparently the Romans built this to protect themselves against the northern tribes. looks like somebody is getting ready for a nice lunch. look at that nice bread. Karen taking a rest and enjoying the nice fall weather Along the Lake there is is swimming pool and if you don't feel like swimming in the pool you can go jump in the lake very peaceful but I'm sure is quite busy in the summertime and uh here's the temperatures Pool is 24C heated the lake is 16.7C and the drinks are cool at 7C what's interesting about Pfäffikon is that my father actually took his apprenticeship here in I guess 1925 to 1928 and his dad actually had to pay the Master Gardener to train my dad to be a gardener and that's quite a while ago. I this fellow is trying to catch some fish
maybe they're having more luck on this Lake no Motors are allowed so it's either rowboats or relatively small Sailboats now we're on the south side of Lake where is most Agriculture and there's a apple orchard and pear Orchard and they all grown as espalier so it's a high density Orchard. Now the question is, do we turn left or turn right well. I think Dany and Morella know so we end up at this Farm that's Geared for visitors. Movie Characters Iam sure you know this fellow
we keep on walking further east there a beautiful chapel nice Overlook from the cemetery Overlooking the lake and on the the next trip we're actually going to hike up to Pfannenstiel. we took the train to Meilen and then the bus up to Pfannenstiel and the name actually means Panhandle. it's a very popular hiking destination . bus dropped us off and now it's time to hike uphill and there's a tower and the couple of us decided to go up the very top and here is the view looking over Lake Zürich.
looking towards the Southeast unfortunately the view wasn't that great because it was overcast and it looked ominous in terms of weather and now this is looking straight down to where we started out and it didn't seem to be that high when you look at it from the side. now one of the interesting things that we saw at the top. they had this visors so you could actually pick a spot where you wanted to see. Pick a mountain and you just kind of put the visor out towards the mountain and line it up and then there is the description down below and you see what the name of mountain is.
well we carried on with our hike but unfortunately it started to rain. however we marched on. it's actually beautiful Trail along the creek Karen was able to get some nice pictures of the vegetation well there's another dwarf trying to avoid the rain after a soggy hike we ended up at Monica's house she prepared a nice supper for us and we enjoyed ourselves there with Stefan and Maria as well after a nice dinner we took the bus to the main railway station in Zurich and since it was October they also set up for an October Fest so it was pretty wild happening in the Central Station this is the guardian angel of Zürich and it shows that the zürchers are quite a cheery bunch. well I hope you enjoyed this little story and to wrap things up we're going to a church where Dany Gerber and his choir did a performance and that was very enjoyable so we'll just listen to that and I hope you'll enjoy it bye-bye [Music] all [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music]
2024-11-18 18:13
