Hiking the Swiss Alps
It’s official: the weather has transitioned from being ski weather to being hiking weather! Of course, I had to try out some of the infamous Swiss hikes in all their gorgeous greenery. One beautiful hike I did early on a Sunday morning was to Seealpsee, which I thought was a funny name because you can truly “see the alps” at “Seealpsee.”
It’s about a 40-minute train ride from St. Gallen, and the entire train ride is filled with beautiful scenery of rolling green hills leading up to the mountains in the area. My favorite part about the train rides in Switzerland is getting to see all the cows grazing. They don’t have very much in the way of restrictions for these cows, so you can see them roaming almost everywhere you go. They’re extra cute because they walk around with little cow bells and if you’re walking, they’ll look right at you for a minute or two before they continue grazing. This happened on the hike to Seealpsee. To get to the lake that this valley is known for, you can either walk up a gravel path or you can take various hikes to get there that scale the mountains on either side. We took the hike that brought us through the woods and up high into the mountains, and then hiked down to the lake after about an hour and a half of hiking.
The scenery was breathtaking. We hiked up the side of one of the hills first and passed lots of cows eating flowers. They let you get very close to them, I fed one flowers and they are so cute and clean with perfect hair on their bodies. Once we got into the forest, the trees were so green they looked like they were photoshopped in real life. After the forest, there was a clearing with a beautiful surrounding of snow-capped mountains and even two little cabins.
Once we reached the lake, there were a couple of people walking around the lake, as well as some in the water and a rowboat being rowed serenely across, creating the only ripples visible in the still water. Just like many of the European hiking areas, there was a mountain restaurant by the lake, and we were able to get some breakfast with a gorgeous, peaceful view. It was a great start to the day before we headed back. Swiss scenery is unmatched!
Bis zum nächsten mal!
Kara