We can easily take any nice hotel room and turn it into an absolute dirt-bag shit hole.
There are clothes hanging everywhere trying to dry after being washed in the sink, backpack contents are strewn everywhere in a seemingly random yet perfectly planned chaos, miscellaneous food articles are on a table or a bench or a desk or whatever’s available. Oh, and something is always plugged in to charge.
When possible, we take the opportunity to stay in relatively nice places on our pilgrim journeys. I suppose it’s because we can, and the fact that I like my own private rooms and bathrooms. But sometimes, when we walk into these hotels, strung out from the road as Bob Seger would say and looking a little ragged, I’m sure the innkeepers wonder if it was a good idea to rent to us.
Btw, turn the page is an excellent pilgrim song, even if it’s just for a minor allegory.
We’re in Switzerland now, slowing making our way up the mountains to the border of Italy. So, as I ice my ankle and await dinner time:
Random thoughts and useless observations on our journey so far
Switzerland is really expensive. I mean, $50 for a pizza for two is a tad over the top. How about a $150 hostel room…with a shared bathroom? $4 coffee? Yeah, that’s Starbucks prices, but this is a simple Nespresso pod espresso shot in the country that invented the thing.
Switzerland is one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever been. Yes, we’d been here before, but maybe we weren’t in a place to notice or appreciate it. This place is simply stunning. Which brings me to…
The only way to really see a place, experience a place, get a real feel for a place, is to engage in slow travel. For us, that’s walking through a country at 20km a day or so, walking through tiny villages, staying in local inns, and eating at local cafes or restaurants…not to mention shopping in local markets and picking through items at the little pharmacies. This allows us to experience a country and people in ways that most tourists simply choose not to.
Oh, and BTW, Swiss wine? Yeah. Swiss wine. Who knew? Well, I knew they made wine, but only like 1% gets exported. It’s good. Crisp whites. Interesting reds. I’ll go into more detail later as it deserves its own post, but what a pleasant surprise and Swiss wine country is just incredibly beautiful….I know that sounds redundant, but wow this place is stunning.
Stay tuned to this space for more.
Ciao for now.
Cheers. Clink!
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