Tuesday, August 5, 2008

Another Swiss Favorite Pastime: Wandern

If recycling is the Swiss' #1 favorite pastime, then Wandern is the #2. Basically, Wandern is the all encompassing German word for hiking, walking, and bumming around in the woods - perhaps the best, and most obvious translation, is wandering. :)

I am not sure if the Swiss go to such lengths as the Germans (my guess is yes), but when I studied abroad in Germany in my teenage years, some of the classes would actually go on Wandertags - full days of just walking aimlessly around the countryside, with no real goal in mind, just the goal of wandering far and wide for 9 hours.

Back then, I don't think even my weight in nutella would have persuaded me to do a Wandertag... but these days the hiking is growing on me (although you wouldn't know it from our last little adventure...) and signs like this intrigue me more and more.

I am really keen actually to walk from Urdorf up to Uetliberg sometime soon. In fact, it isn't that far of a walk from here. Plus the more I see these signs, the more I convince myself I can do it!

Here is a fun site with tons of Wandern suggestions in Switzerland.

Ahh.. Wandern. I love Switzlerland.

Walk from Urdorf to Uetliberg:

3 comments:

N said...

That sounds fun...it's always nice to take a walk. The only walk I get is walking to school from the metro station.

Anonymous said...

I love how there are so many "Wandern" and biking tracks all through Switzerland. Thanks for the link to that website too. Very helpful - I have been trying to find one. Happy Wanderning!

Jessica said...

Yeah I love the track and signs too. I also picked up a big brochure of the hiking, biking, rollerblading, and baden (swimming) locations, and routes, and such from the train station... I will have to blog about that soon. It is a great little brochure.

 

Contact me. | Advertise on Swisstory