The
Bernese Oberland
Copyright
Vladimir Kagan 2010
Good-by Paris - Hello Geneva!....and a brief
visit with my sister and family. …However, no trip to Europe is complete
without a pilgrimage to the Swiss Alps: our Mecca, our little corner of heaven:
The Bernese Oberland. It’s where we go to hibernate each year and have done so
for the past forty years or more. It is where my parents found peace. It is
where Erica and I loved to go skiing
among the rolling hills of Gstaad. It is where we mountain climbed each summer (Sadly, those joys are a thing of the past
with our inability to walk any distance)…. It is here we retreated to on
September 11, 2001 as we were about to board a plane in Paris bound for New
York…. and it where we spent this past 9/11. It is where I am most inspired to
sit and smell the alpine flowers…the fresh manure spread over the lush green
grass for the cows to feed on…. and where I have created some of my most
innovative designs.
My niece, Polly and her husband Christof, have
an enchanting chalet plunged into the middle of a farmer’s field in a tiny
village called Les Moulins…(if you drive fast, you’re through it before you
know it)… It’s a dot on the map on your way to Châteaux D’Oex. They generously
lend it to us every time we are in town.
This is where we find tranquility…. September is
already off-season…most restaurants are closed to give their staff a vacation.
The colors haven’t changed yet, but the snow on the mountain tops get refreshed
and creeps down to a lower altitude. It is the time when the farmers bring
their cows off the alpine meadows to lower feeding ground. This is an occasion
to celebrate with small parades of decorated cows taking over the road.
Swiss mountain farms are small enterprises
consisting typically of a herd of 20 cows and calves. It is small enough for
one farmer to cope with, often holding down a second job as a carpenter in the
summer and ski instructor in the winter. Help may come from an aging, but fit as
a fiddle father and the children. It is a tradition deeply rooted in their DNC.
Their farms and alpine meadows have been in the family often over five hundred
years. Their chalet
“quarter-boards” bearing dates of 1600, give or take a few years.
Farmers are subsidized to keep them from drifting into city jobs. There is
little chance of this, as they love their land and cows. We have a friend in
Gstaad that did leave the farm and has become wealthy running successful
clothing and ski shops, but comes fall, he goes into the mountains to help his
father and siblings hand scythe the hay on the slopes too steep for a tractor.
It is a tradition that won’t die.
To watch the farmers work is a marvel of modern
farm technology. Multi-functional small tractors are equipped to cut the hay,
rake it, gather it, and bail it, spread the manure and tow the milk urns to the
local Molkerei (farm cooperative). Here it is processed into an unbelievable
Gruyere Cheese, in these parts affectionately called “Berg Kässe”…. when it’s
three years old, it is so hard that it must be cut with a plane producing curly
nuggets called “Hobelkässe”…which is to
die for! When it’s still soft, perhaps a year or so old, it’s magically
transformed into Fondue…(a Swiss concoction almost as famous as their
chocolate). It is much enhanced with a shot or two of Kirsch (a Swiss Liquor
made from cherries) and a generous helping of their dry local Fondant white
wine….. While it can be ordered in any city or town, to really enjoy Fondue,
you must savor it in a local restaurant along the road or up a winding dirt
road into the hinterland.
The first half of these mountains is French
speaking, but drive eight kilometer out of Rouchmont to Saanen and you are in
“Schweitzerdeutch” country. The French speak no German and the others no
French. However, English suffices in both parts.
The drive from Geneva now takes less than one
and a half hours, much of it along bucolic Lake Geneva. As you drive out of
Lausanne and gently up the road overlooking Montreux, you are mesmerized by a
last glance of the lake’s shimmering water and the impressive mountains
overlooking the city of Evian… Evian is
Erica’s favorite water. It has been bottled there for over one hundred years.
Several years ago, we made a visit to see the town and where it all happens.
(Skeptics like me say it comes from the lake, but Erica is certain it flows
down mountain streams, being purified for over a two-year period, meandering
through subterranean rivers and little brooks until it is finally funneled into
an Evian bottle…. and what’s left over (if any) trickles into Lake Geneva.
Once you turn off the main highway to drive up
into the mountains, the road cuts through plush green pastureland, where
Switzerland’s commercial milk is produced. Before you know it, you arrive in
Bulle, a small provincial town that is the start of the two-lane road climbing
up into the Alps. (Thanks to Swiss foresight and planning all the little towns
now have underground bi-passes that have knocked off a good half hour of the
drive.) As you emerge out of the tunnel, there, perched on a steep hill looms
the impressive castle of Gruyere, once an impenetrable defensive position
against marauding neighbors, but now a tourist attraction for anyone coming to
the mountains for the first time. It has given its name to one of Switzerland’s
finest cheeses. (We choose to bi-pass and slog up the mountain pass.) The road,
which was once a menace, has been vastly improved with spectacular engineering,
and is now passable without your heart in your mouth. It is a haven for weekend
warriors, riding their motorcycles at top speed, taking each turn at a dizzying
angle, sparks flying behind them as they grind their footrests into the
pavement. Though only 16 kilometers up the road, it seems an eternity until we
reach our hidden village of Les Moulins. Take a sharp right before the stream
(it’s easy to miss) and we arrive in time to catch the last rays of sun
streaming down the steep slopes, the sound of cow bells off in the distance and
the soft snorting of the cows feeding on lush grasses, 20 feet in front of you.
Serenity sets in instantly…. We don’t want to leave for dinner…just hang out.
This time, it was truly a short visit: two nights with a lovely day squeezed in
the middle. But for us it was an eternity.
Reality took control, as we had to depart the
next morning from Geneva Airport at 7:30 AM for our lugubrious trip back to
Nantucket, via London and Boston.
Below,
I am sharing my precious mountains…Probably more photos than you want to see.
Flying-in over the Alps...
"Our" hide-away chalet in Les Moulins
Cows munching on sweet grass in front of our chalet.
Up the hill....Frederick's farm with the cows grazing after miking.
Cows coming off their high alpine meadows to lower feeding grounds.
Traffic stops as the cows come home
View of the Wildhorn from the village of Lauennen
Fresh snow in early September
A mountain restaurant off the beaten path
After the Fondu on the mountains with friends
Huldi Bach's ancient Chalet in Gstaad
Huldi and me enjoying the afternoon sun in front of her chalet
The other winter sport...ballooning in Chateau D'Oex....famous of Bertrand Piccard and Brian Jones' record flight around the world in 1999
Balloons rising above the Church steeple in Chateau D'Oex
Balloners landing in our backyard...They couldn't gain enough altitude to make it through the pass
Erica welcoming our surprise visitors
A wintery mood from our Chalet