Switzerland, 2011

One of my friends landed a great house swap deal this year and him and his wife got to spend some time in Switzerland! They were kind enough to let me and a friend come over for a visit, so we went over for a week's stay. They were in a very pretty small town in the east of less than a thousand people. We had some great walks on the wanderwegs that just connected all of the little towns, walking between different farms and cows. Each little town had very pretty houses in it, quite different than the architecture I was used toseeing. The walls were really think and there seemed to be a lot of untreated wood, almost giving them a little bit of the feel of the old cabins out here in the West!

Switzerland has an amazing train system, and after a stop in Zurich to get a discount pass we definitely put it to work. Thinking back, I'm amazed at all the different areas of the country that we saw. With another friend from Italy and his family we went to go see the transportation museum which had lots of interesting exhibits including a real-size Matchbox collectors car garage with full cranes that lifted the cars ontoa rotating stage. We went to Lugano to walk around the old town and rode the funicular up to the top of Mount Bre. We also took the train to Murren and went to go see the high Alps, even riding a gondola up to the top of one of the higher mountains. It really was a phenomenal place. The glaciers were huge compared to what I'd seen in the US and are clearly still at work. The entire trip there, waterfalls just cascaded into different valleys down steep rock walls, reminiscent of Yosemite. Though brief, I saw how beautiful it was and hope someday I'll be able to get back there for some hiking and tospend more time among the mountains.

The Photographs

Unfortunately I lost the battery cover for my camera's built in lightmeter on the first day of the trip... Stupidly I didn't bring a backup body, but I did at least remember to pack my handheld lightmeter. I hadn't used it in a long time so even though the exposure isn't spot on I was happy that some pictures turned out well. I also took a bunch of iPhone shots as I wasn't sure if the film would turn out. But thankfully the film did! I shot a mixture of one roll of Scala in the mountains and then a blend of Kodak E200 and E100VS.

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