I arrived in Munich at a bit past 9 on Thursday evening. Feeling very ready to socialise I dropped my bag in my room, stopping briefly to chat to the one room mate that was there, a Canadian girl, who was also heading out, and immediately headed down to the hostel bar. As expected, it didn’t take long to make some friends! I sat and chatted with three girls at the bar, two more Canadians (but this time french Canadian) called Sophie and Amy, and a lady who was there on business from South Korea. After a few hours my room mate appeared, and so she and her friend from Munich joined. They were going out to a club and invited us along, with two finnish guys who had also joined us, and that’s how I ended up hearing Abba being sung with a german accent on mass. We walked back to the hostel together, with the sun having risen and the birds singing. The german boys we met thanked us for partying with them (imagine it in a german accent for the full experience) and making it the best night out they’d had. A bit of a contrast to my last two weeks…

After a little bit of a lie in I left to explore the city, following the amazing recommendations from Leo (thanks again!). The weather was once again wonderful, and honestly, the whole day was just beautiful. The pastry and coffee from the food market was delicious; the colours of the buildings were all my favourite tones (oranges and yellows); the atmosphere was energetic but also very calming. I was surprised at the huge number of churches. I listened to a travel podcast on Munich as I walked around, making it like a 4D podcast. My highlight was the Englischer Garten. A network of rivers flowing through it, the sun shining, people sprawled on the grass, some playing volleyball - it made me so happy. I ended up at a bridge where surfer’s surf the wave on the river. Suddenly all of the people I’d seen on the metro carrying surfboards made sense. That evening I met up with Sophie and Amy and we went to a biergarten. We enjoyed traditional bavarian food (currywurst for me) with 1 litre steins of beer.

This isn’t a fashion blog, but I felt like my outfit choice fitted in well with Munich fashion.

A much earlier start on Saturday saw me catching the train to Starnburg and then Possenhofen - towns to the South of Munich, on the edge of Lake Starnburg. Interesting historical bit about this lake, it’s home to a true crime mystery where the ex-King Ludwig II was found dead in the lake in suspicious circumstances whilst staying in an insane asylum there. I enjoyed a much warmer lake swim than in Switzerland and my lunch of two types of pretzels with hummus, and peaches. I caught the train up to Nymphenburg Palace. It was very grand, sat in the centre of beautiful gardens. I treated myself to an audio tour and spent the next 90 minutes learning an awful lot about Bavaria, its rulers (seemingly all called Maximillian) and the palace itself. I really love audio tours (if I could make a law it would be that all audioguides are free) and visiting historical places. I get tired of museums eventually, but visiting the actual places and learning about them is so much more interesting. My favourite titbit was the ‘Gallery of Beauties’ adorned with 36 female portraits, commissioned by King Ludwig I of ‘beautiful’ women of all social standing. Seemed pretty odd to me, and I wouldn’t like to think of what he was using the portraits for exactly. The diversity of their social standing (princess to a daughter of a blacksmith) was the only diversity by the way. They all looked pretty identical to me. I hope that if someone was so strange as to something similar today, that the collection would look very different. After I’d exhausted the audioguide I had a little wander around the gardens before heading back to the city centre. I got off the train in the old town as I fancied a bit more of a walk around. The evening sun was delicious and I saw yet more churches. I met up with Sophie and Amy again and we bought some beers and other interesting drinks from Lidl and walked to the park along the bank of the river Isar. It was gorgeous in the sunset. We got a hotdog and ate it with our beers, chatting about traditional Canadian sweets, Quebec politics, our days and how lucky we are to be travelling. We used the electric scooters to return to the hostel, which I realised is a great way to explore cities.

I was originally going to catch a morning bus to Prague on Sunday, but decided I wasn’t quite finished with Munich. I spent the morning wandering around the old town once more, shocked at how quiet it was and how everything really did close on a Sunday. I had a traditional breakfast dish of Weisswurst (was not a big fan) and climbed a church tower to happily observe the city from above. I caught a bus to Prague in the afternoon, after transitioning to rain mode to brave the storm that had appeared.

Munich exceeded my expectations hugely. It was beautiful and the german culture was very enjoyable. The food wasn’t my favourite… But I did really love the pretzels. The people I met were truly lovely, especially Sophie and Amy, and I wish them luck in Italy!

A traditional swiss house. Zoom out once and you see it’s sat amongst the trees and a beautiful garden. Zoom out further and you see the deer that roam in the field next to it, the sheep, the ducks, the geese and the chickens. Zoom out again and you see the hill it’s perched just below the brow of. Zoom out yet again and you see the farm that’s just up the dirt track from the house, and the village that’s around the corner. This is where I’ve lived for the past 2 weeks. Alone, with an 88 year old Czech lady called Eva. I’ve been on a workaway, which means I work for around 5 hours each day in exchange for free food and accommodation. It’s been a really interesting time, in a lot of ways.

The Work

The work I did was mostly dealing with the animals (cleaning, feeding and putting them away at night), and the garden (planting, weeding and mowing). I learnt a lot. It’s been a long time since I’d done any gardening, and I realised I do really enjoy planting seeds, watering them and watching them germinate and sprout. Transferring them from the little pot in the greenhouse to the soil in the vegetable garden. I also found my favourite gardening task - cutting down weeds. One morning Eva told me she’d like me to cut down the nettles in the deer enclosure and other places around the garden. I imagined this would be using a petrol strimmer or something. Of course not. It was using a scythe (a literal grim reaper scythe). Eva told me she had brought it with her when she moved from Prague in 1969, so it was definitely a lot older than I was. She showed me how to use it and it seemed very simple. I tried it myself on the nettles and it was indeed very simple. And very satisfying. And hard enough work that you felt good and like you’d done exercise, but not too hard that you got tired after a few hours. I really enjoyed it and decided that when I have a garden that requires a similar treatment, I’d get a scythe rather than a strimmer. I did, however, wake the next morning with blisters on my hands, which was a first for me. There were some jobs that I enjoyed infinitely less however, namely one involving the chickens. Please see the food post about chicken to read more… I also had my first near death experience on this workaway. If you asked me to predict when I’d be in a dangerous situation before I left I would not have guessed driving to pick up some stale bread in Switzerland, but there we are. It was a 30 minute drive to the bakery and Eva wanted me to find the directions. I used google maps and saw that there was a toll, I mentioned it to Eva and she said she didn’t know what it was, but we’ll see. We set off, Eva is not a very good driver, but she is 88 so that is to be expected. After about 15 minutes we see a sign for the autobahn, Eva exclaims that we mustn’t go on the autobahn as she hasn’t paid. I now realise that this is what the toll was obviously for, and Eva perhaps hadn’t understood what toll meant, but I did think to myself that this bit of information would’ve been good to know before. She asks me to find a different route, I can’t really explain to her that I can’t because I have no data, but then I remember I have maps.me downloaded for the area so I use this to find a route avoiding tolls. It takes us through the city of Bern, I think because we were already a bit in it ready to get on the autobahn. Eva wasn’t happy about this and her driving got even worse, we were clipping curbs with every corner, I had to keep a constant eye out for cyclists so I could shout a warning as she kept drifting across the lanes. It culminated when we almost crashed into 2 cars on a roundabout. I could see it happening so managed to wave my arms enough to make Eva stop and swerve to the side. I stayed very calm to help Eva who I could tell was not happy. Eventually we made it to the bakery. Nine huge sacks of stale bread (which I found out was for giving to the animals) loaded into the car and we made a slightly less stressful drive back. I stopped asking Eva for lifts after this, hence the switch to the electric bike! The opposite of death is of course life, which offers a perfect segway into perhaps my favourite thing about this week: the birth of a new lamb! I went to check on the sheep one morning and saw there was a new addition that had clearly just been born (I had to pull the rest of the gunk out of the ewe). I was the first person to see the new lamb, pretty cool!

The Food

The food I was rewarded with after the work was always delicious, and there was always a lot of it. We had some traditional swiss dishes: fondue, raclette (my favourite) and rosti. We also had some traditional czech dishes, all involving egg and potatoes and all surprisingly delicious. Eva also made cakes and jams for after lunch snacks. I’ve never been so aggressively encouraged to eat in my life. Every meal Eva would cook enough for, I’d say, 4 people, and insist that I finish it. And then insist I have cake afterwards. Luckily I was always quite hungry after working in the garden, but I still never finished what she prepared. One lovely thing was that the milk we drank came straight from the cows of the farm up the track. Nice, fresh, unpasteurised milk that I’d leave an empty canister on a hook outside the barn for, and collect it a few hours later, with it magically having been filled.

A little something different

One evening Eva and I went to a concert. It was a saxophone, a cello and an accordion playing in a local church not too far away. It was really wonderful - they played both traditional music and then more experimental pieces, using other parts of the instrument to make wave like sounds in one of the pieces. We both really enjoyed it and spoke about music on the way home.

The Reality

When I called a friend one evening and recalled some of the craziness, I realised how this fortnight has given me some pretty great stories to tell. And honestly, that’s why I’m travelling, to have some weird experiences and to have some fun stories to tell. To live an interesting life. These stories are likely to be the main memories from this experience that last the tests of time. But they are the lesser component of my two weeks. I spent this time mostly alone. I saw Eva for meals, and some of the people in the village every few days, but beyond that I worked alone, I relaxed in the evenings alone, I felt alone. I spent two weeks inside my own head, exasperated by the menial tasks I was often doing. For a lot of that time I also felt lonely. I still hadn’t settled into travelling again, and I was plagued by doubts. Maybe I shouldn’t have taken a year out? Maybe 6 months travelling would’ve been enough? Maybe I’d miss my friends and my family too much? Maybe my relationships with people at home would be weakened by me not being there for so long? Maybe I should be spending a year off doing something more productive for my career? Maybe I should be travelling quickly, staying only in hostels and socialising more? The doubts sat heavy in my stomach (probably another reason I could never finish the food Eva prepared!). But I would ask myself: do you want to go home? And my gut would scream no! So I’d ask myself instead: do you want to move to the next place? And I’d feel relief in that idea. So that’s something! But I didn’t leave early, I stayed for the two weeks. I had a feeling it would do me a lot of good. And, now I’m leaving, I can see that it has. I worked out some things, and most importantly, my mindset for this trip has settled. I now know what this year is for me, and it’s not comparable to a few months travelling, more like living abroad crossed with travelling. I’m also really proud that I was able to do two weeks alone! And I do feel better for it, I feel very refreshed. A lot of people I spoke to about travelling alone would tell me that they could never do it, that they didn’t do anything by themselves. I get it. But I do think that most people would enjoy doing something alone every now and then, and everyone would benefit from it. Maybe take this as a sign to go out for dinner by yourself - if I can do two weeks, you can do two hours!

Overall…

To summarise, I had an interesting two weeks. It had moments of extreme craziness and I’ve made memories that I’m sure will stand out even at the end of this year. But the rest of the time was often lonely. I think I’d have preferred to this two week stint later in the year, after I’d spent a lot of time in hostels and needed a break from all of the socialising. But Switzerland is located where it’s located, and I think it might actually have been very beneficial to do this so early on. I’ve definitely settled back into travelling now. But I am very happy to be on rejoining civilisation this evening!

Little update: I safely arrived in Munich last night, immediately made lots of hostel friends and didn’t go to bed until 6:30am (wild I know…), so definitely not feeling lonely anymore!

I lived with Eva for 2 weeks, and slowly, over every meal, I learnt about her life and her views and her personality. So here it is.

She’s now 88 which means she was born in 19 , in Prague. She studied medicine and became a dentist. She married her husband there, and they had two sons. Her husband was a banker. In 1969 they made the decision to move to Switzerland. This was because of the unstable political landscape of Prague at the time, with the Soviet Union having invaded Czechia in August 1968. She didn’t want her children’s schooling and lives to be based in this uncertain place. They chose Bern because, and I quote, ‘’it felt right”. It was the capital so it had the appeal of being the main place. It was small and beautiful. It was german speaking, and her husband spoke german. To continue being a dentist here Eva needed to learn german and take further exams, which she did (although I’m not convinced she’s fluent in german even now). For a time they lived in Bern with their children going to school and Eva and her husband going to work. It was repetitive and Eva grew tired of it. She found some land out a bit from Bern, in the countryside, and they bought it. Slowly they built the house she currently lives in. It has 7.5 hectares of land, and they planted trees, a vegetable garden, flowers, hedges, the lot. When it was ready they moved here, travelling to Bern for work still, and keeping their apartment in Bern. They bought animals and so they had their little space in the world. Eventually they stopped working in Bern, I’m not sure when, if it was at retirement or before this, and spent all their time at the house. It sounded like a happy life.
Then a young polish lady moved into the village which is close to the house. She was around the age of their children, now grown and living in Bern alone, perhaps slightly older. And after 50 years of marriage, Eva’s husband took a fancy to this woman, and that was that. He know lives in Paris with her, although has apparently recently moved back to Bern. This happened around 10 years ago, and I’ve never pushed Eva to talk about it, but sometimes she does. She tells me that she’s okay about it all now, but she hopes he doesn’t come to the house, as seeing him would pain her. She says looking back, she realised it wasn’t that happy. She was always wanting to do something, or make something, and he was always coming up with reasons why she should not. She said it made her a little bit happy to think over the lockdowns that she had this lovely house and gardens, and he was in a tiny apartment in Paris - she’s only human I suppose.

Eva’s views on the world are interesting. She always wants to know more, and do more. She tells me that even now, she doesn’t read fiction, only books that teach her something. If it is to be known, she must know it. She acknowledges that it’s silly to do this now, as she will never use the information. She says she needs many lives, to do all of the things she’s interested in - something I’ve thought myself! She’s passionate about the importance of being passionate. About everything you do, including work. But also about being flexible, and going with the flow of life. She doesn’t understand travelling without a purpose, for example going somewhere for a work conference is okay, but not just to visit the place. She seems very unimpressed with her children. They look down on Czech traditions, they don’t understand her life here with her animals, and they don’t have the passion that Eva feels they should have. I haven’t actually heard her say a good word about them. I wonder what she was like when they were growing up.
It’s been interesting to discuss the situation in Ukraine with her, and she has an almost sad interest in it. Like she doesn’t want to hear about it but can’t help herself, with a knowing of how it will end. We spoke one evening about a Ukrainian student that stayed with her family in 1943. The police came one evening and took him away, to send him to the Ukrainian army to fight in the war. Her father told her that if the boy survived he would come back and stay with them again. He didn’t come back. I’m sure it’s these memories, and memories of the Soviet Union invading Czechia, that makes the Ukrainian situation more personal for her.
The most interesting thing about my time with Eva has been watching someone come to terms with their age. As already mentioned, Eva is 88, and up to very recently she has been fairly mobile and had no pain. But now she struggles to walk and has pain in her leg. The first few days I was here, she would begin the day by taking her dog for a walk. But now she cannot manage this. Watching her realise the things she can no longer do, and understanding that this is not something that’s broken and can be fixed, but the beginning of one-way deterioration is (and I know how unsympathetic this sounds, but…) interesting. Yes I feel for Eva and how sad it’s making her, but beyond that, for me, it’s really interesting to see someone process it. It helps that I’ve only just met Eva, she’s not my grandma or anything so I’m not exactly attached to her. For me, she’s 88, it’s remarkable she’s gotten this far before the inevitable ageing has affected her massively. Surely she can see that, and be thankful it’s coming this late, rather than sad it’s come at all? But she cannot. And I’m sure, if I reach old age and face the same situation, I will not either.

Takeaway point, live while you’re young (and by young I mean any age that you’re still able move freely without pain (I realise this is ableist but I hope you understand my point)). So take a gap year or something…

Why does this unappetising chicken get a food post you might be wondering? Even more so when I tell you that beyond a tiny taste, we didn’t even eat it! Well wonder no more, it gets a post because of its preparation. This gross looking chicken was killed, plucked and had its organs removed by me. So a big warning here, there’s a vivid description of this situation below.

Over lunch on my second day in Switzerland Eva told me she would like me to look at the chickens to find the biggest one, catch it and kill it. I laughed a bit but she apparently wasn’t joking. She told me I could use a net to catch it, and an axe to kill it. I found a net and an axe, and a block of wood to use as an execution block. I managed to catch a big chicken after only a few attempts, surprisingly quickly actually. I dragged it in the net to the block and the axe and composed myself. I held the chicken in the net and pulled the net over its little head. I now realised it would be possible to keep the chicken in the net whilst I did this, which was favourable to me (I didn’t want to touch the chicken) and the chicken (no chance of it escaping and having to undergo more trauma in being re-caught). I placed the chicken on the block with just its head out. I picked up the axe in my left hand and again took a second to compose myself. I apologised to the chicken and worked myself up to do this. I brought the axe down on its neck and it started to squirm a lot. After several more blows and one squishing movement the head was removed, but the body still squirmed for quite a while. Once it had stopped I took another moment to take in what I’d done. I went to report my ‘success’ to Eva, happy that it was over. But of course it was not, as Eva informed me I’d need to pluck it. She gave me an apron to wear and showed me how to sit, on an upturned bucket with the dead bird on my legs. As I plucked it I considered that a few months ago I was in law school in London, drinking overpriced coffees on my breaks and enjoying city life. I do love extreme contrasts… I removed the wings with a knife and Eva showed me how to cut the body and pull the organs out, carefully setting to one side the liver and stomach (she said we must save these to eat too, and I though “must we????” but I did as I was told). Once this was done I washed it in water and set it in the cellar to rest for a day. The following day Eva butchered it and cooked it, but she was very unhappy that the actual meat was black. She said she was surprised at herself, but she didn’t think she could eat it, it just didn’t look right! I had mixed emotions, on one hand I really didn’t want to eat it either, it looked gross and killing it was gross and I’d rather just forget the whole thing. But on the other hand, this was the first animal I’d ever killed, it felt almost disrespectful to not eat it. What swung it for me was that I realised if we didn’t eat it, it would mean I wouldn’t have to kill anymore! So I had a little nimble just to try it (it just tasted like chicken) and we gave it to the dog.

Sadly, my assumption that I’d not have to kill anymore was very wrong.

A few days later Eva said she wanted me to kill two more chickens, the biggest ones as they were likely cocks and she didn’t want them. I really didn’t want to do this. At first I considered putting it off for a few days, but decided it would be best to not dwell on it too much. So that afternoon I did it. It was difficult to see which were the biggest two, besides some that were definitely smaller, they all looked a similar size to me! But eventually I caught and killed two (probably the wrong two, at this point I was just blindly choosing chickens to execute like a crazy dictator). I used the same technique as last time, but with the axe in my right hand this time (thanks for the tip Sam). The last chicken only took three blows to decapitate, so there’s an improvement at least. As these were being fed straight to the dog, I didn’t have to pluck them but instead skin them. I wouldn’t have been able to predict that I’d be youtubing ‘how to skin a chicken’ whilst in Switzerland but here we are. The video was very helpful and I skinned both, removing the good meat for Kiona to eat. I put the rest of the carcasses into a paper bag with the other bits and bobs. I threw this off the side of the hill, into the deep valley, for the foxes to eat. I took the bones from the legs of the chicken and ground them up, to give to the alive chickens. Seemed a bit cannibalistic to me but Eva said that’s what I was to do. I did all of this in a trance to be honest, tried to block it all out. Once all of this was done it was time for dinner, and then I read my book in the sun and tried to forget the whole ordeal.

The next morning Eva said there were still a lot of big looking chickens! This time I stopped her and said no more Eva, I cannot kill anymore chickens. She didn’t ask me again. She did however ask me to catch and kill a carp from the pond (???), but I was really done with murdering animals at this point so I laughed her off and took no steps to do this.

This weekend began with me asking Eva if she had a bike. She said she used to but it’s gone now, she thinks the people who keep horses in her pasture opposite might have it. I eagerly waited for them to arrive that morning to check on the horses and I trotted up to ask about the bike. The dad, Vernard, said he did have a bike I could use! He said to come and get it after lunch, from their house which is the red one. So, following the instructions, after lunch I walked to the little village down the road and looked out for the red house. I found it and, to my absolute joy, Vernard said I could use the electric bike. The journey to literally anywhere from Eva’s is completely downhill so I was very relieved I wouldn’t have to push myself to almost death on the cycle home from wherever. I really wanted to go and see Bern, but as I was a bit tight for time (it was already 1:30pm) I decided I’d only cycle to the train station and catch the train to the city. I also didn’t really fancy cycling on main roads whilst trying to figure out which way to go.

Bern

And so that takes us to Bern. I’ll preface this by saying that the weather was absolutely glorious for my visit, and that might have affected my view.

I LOVED Bern. It’s very small, with the old town being the only interesting bit I gather, but it really follows quality over quantity. Every building is beautiful, often in a pastel olive green colour. There are decadent water fountains on literally every corner, with chilled drinking water flowing from them. I saw people sat in these fountains with boards holding wine. The main street features a covered arcade on both sides (the longest covered shopping street in Europe). It also features cellar openings with further lovely boutique stores or bars down the dark stairs. The central clock tower is gorgeous. The entire old town is surrounded by the river Aare, with it’s almost aggressive turquoise colour visible at every turn. The bridges are even pretty. And that’s just the bricks and mortar of the city, then came the surprises.
The first was a fashion show. Just on the street, in front of the parliament building. The second was the bears that live in a big enclosure between the road and the river, that you can peer into from the road and see them sleeping and playing. The third is that, and this was definitely my favourite and most probably the reason I love Bern so much, people float down the river Aare. You’ll be walking along the river, in the middle of the capital city of Switzerland, and a person will just float on by you. Often clutching a dry bag filled with their belongings. Apparently it’s quite common for this to be your daily commute in the summer. Business people remove their business suit and pop it in their dry bag, donning their bathing suit instead as they plop into the river and float back home. It’s so popular and integral to Bern it’s actually a UNESCO protected activity (I didn’t even know they protected activities). Can you imagine how lovely that would be? Floating home from work? I genuinely can’t think of anything more wonderful. Is it too early in this trip to decide that Bern is my favourite city ever? Perhaps, but for now it’s number one. (I also had the best ice cream ever here, homemade gelato from Gelateria di Berna, one scoop peanut butter and one scoop rhubarb). Oh, and it’s the city where Einstein came up with the Theory of Relativity.

And a bike ride

Something that easily could’ve been eclipsed by wonderful Bern was the cycle ride back from the train station, but it wasn’t. The sun was setting, I had an electric bike, what more could you want when zooming up huge hills? I enjoyed it so much that I decided the following day would be spent cycling. I’d already visited Thun, albeit very briefly, but it seemed the ideal destination. It would mean cycling along cycle trails through the valley all the way to the lake and the mountains. And there was a lido I wanted to try out by the lake. So I packed a sandwich and off I went. It’s around 30km to Thun, so a fair distance but very manageable with an electric bike. It took me about 2.5 hours to get there, I didn’t use the electric bit much as it’s literally all down hill or flat, and I was very worried about the bike running out of charge for the way back. And I kept getting lost (oops). But it really was a lovely way to spend a day. Beautiful scenery, as is a given in Switzerland it seems, more beautiful weather and no great physical exertion needed. The lido was also lovely, although not my favourite spot, there were a lot of families and children and there was a water polo match going on in one of the pools which was a bit odd. After I’d eaten my sandwich, swam and read my book I’d had my fill and started to cycle back. A thunderstorm was forecasted for the late afternoon so I was very aware of that. One thing about the wonderful electric bike I should mention, it did not have one of those nice cushiony seats. It had a rock hard little thing. And my bum was killing me. How people ride bikes for days or weeks is beyond me, it hurts so much! Perhaps this is the reason that when I cycled past a bit of the Aare river which had a little sunbathing area next to it with people swimming I was very keen to stop and take a look. Or perhaps because I hadn’t taken my bikini to Bern and felt like I’d really missed out on floating down the river (next time…). But either way, I got back into my damp bikini, walked up the river a bit and plopped in, floating down to the steps by the grassy sunbathing area. The water was cold and so blue, and the flow was just fast enough to be a bit exciting. After I’d dried off a second time it really was time to cycle the 30km back. The rain didn’t come, and the bike didn’t run out of charge. It was all just wonderful.

I’m currently doing a workaway in Switzerland, which is where you do a few hours work each day in return for free accommodation and food. I’ll do a post on that once I’m nearing the end of my time here! But today I had my first day off and decided to use it to explore Interlaken and the surrounding area. When I initially decided to go to Switzerland, Interlaken was the main place I wanted to visit. It’s a town situated between two lakes and several mountains. I spoke to someone who lives nearby on the workaway website (it really is the gift that keeps on giving) and they suggested I also go to Thun, which is a town on the opposite side of lake Thun to Interlaken. I wanted to spend time up close to mountains, so my first thought was to go up one. I looked at the options between the two towns, and Niesen and Stockhorn stood out. My plan was to go up one and do a walk on the top. I looked into this for a bit but the cable cars up were crazy expensive, like £50, and I wasn’t that bothered about actually going up the mountain, just being near them. I then looked into walks around Interlaken and found one that sounded wonderful - a walk up the valley of 72 waterfalls. I was happy with this option so worked out the trains I’d need to get (6 in total, and 1 bus) and packed my rucksack for the next morning.

Eva drove me to the station at 8:15am and I caught the train to Thun. I only had an hour here but made use of it by walking up to the church and castle, and then right down to the edge of the lake. It was a small but pretty town. Then I ran back to the station to catch my next train to Interlaken.

The train journey had some amazing views, of the mountains on the right and the lake on the left. Once at the station I caught a third train to Lauterbrunnen. I sat with an Australian couple and their American friend. They were nice, but the American was strange. She immediately asked me my views on Meghan Markle. And talked about that and the royal family for most of the journey. The views on this journey were a step up from the previous one. We ascended up the valley between the mountains, with an alpine river, with its characteristic grey/blue colour (the aussie gentleman informed me), to the left and snowcapped peaks high above us. When we reached Lauterbrunnen I said goodbye to the aussies and the american and headed out of the station. The moment I stepped off the train I had to pause to take in the views, the waterfall and the white mountain, they were something you had to give your full body’s attention to.

Lauterbrunnen is an even smaller town than Thun, consisting mostly of hotels, restaurants and a few shops - very touristy but still lovely. This was the starting point of the valley of 72 waterfalls walk, with Stechelberg being the finishing point. As I walked past the tourism information office I spotted a map outside for the walk so picked it up. I also saw a flyer about Tolkien, it explained that he had visited Lauterbrunnen and the surrounding valley and it was most likely his inspiration for Rivendell (something for the LOTR fans!). And off I went on my walk.

I, unsurprisingly, passed many beautiful waterfalls, and the views continued to develop to be more and more amazing. This is where I really appreciate travelling alone. I can look at these views so fully, I’m not talking to someone else or sharing the experience. It is solely my own. And I can feel it moving through my entire being. Maybe I’m being dramatic, but I felt so full of the scenery and so alive in that moment.

After about an hour of walking I saw some of the so-called ‘Basejumpers’ land. It was impressive to watch. They flew through the air in their bat style suits and then parachuted to land. One almost hit someone so that made it even more fun.

I then reached Trummelbach waterfalls, something a bit different to the other 71 in the valley. This waterfall occurs inside the Eiger mountain. Once I got to the valley side I realised you had to pay to go inside - 14 CHF which is around £11. I hesitated for a moment, that seemed like a lot of money and I didn’t really know what the waterfall was and if it would be worth it. But I decided that I’m not already going to not do things because of the money, so in I went. I’m so glad I did, it was 100% worth it! I went up in the lift which is inside the mountain, to about halfway up the waterfall cascades. From here I walked up through tunnels inside the mountain and along paths attached to the exterior of the mountain. The most notably thing was the sound. Inside the mountain, looking over the balconies down at the cascade and the river rushing down, the sound was almost deafening. It was just so loud. It made my heart beat faster and I felt almost panicked by it. The second most notable thing was how lovely and cool it was inside. And finally, the spray of the water hitting you. There were 8 cascades to see, some inside and some outside, and they were all amazing.

(At the end of this post is a link to a google album with some more photos and some videos, including some of the noise inside the mountain - just in case you’d like to listen!)

On my way out I noticed the welcome sign featured an extract from Lord Byron. Lord Byron is a poet who lived very near my house back at home in Somerset. We (my cousins and I) actually managed to find the ruins of his impressive villa-style house along with its tunnels on Boxing day last year. It was a nice reminder of home.

I continued all the way to Strechelburg, more beautiful waterfalls and with the snowy mountain at the end of the valley getting closer and closer. It took me around 3 hours to get there, including the time spent at Trummelbach.

At Strechelburg I arrived just in time for the bus, so hopped on it back to Lauterbrunnen. I then hopped on the train back to Interlaken. As I bought my ticket for this train I found 5 francs had been left in the change part of the machine, I’m not sure if it counts as stealing but I took them (I actually don’t think this counts as stealing, the money had been abandoned and I think it unlikely that a jury would find I was being dishonest in taking it. Did you know I’ve done the postgraduate diploma in law and the legal practice course???). I had 2 hours to explore Interlaken. I first went into the main part of the town, buying a postcard with 1 of my definitely not stolen 5 francs. Then I decided to walk to the lake. Interlaken is sat between lake Thun and lake Brienzersee. I was closer to Brienzersee so chose this one. The walk along the river was beautiful, it was such a deep turquoise colour.

When I got to the lake I thanked yesterday’s me for packing my bikini - I was so hot and the water looked so inviting. I swam for this first time on this trip, and it was glorious. I got out, dried off and walked back to the train station. I stopped at a ‘coop’ (not the same as in England) and spent the rest of the 5 francs on 2 chocolate bars. I haven’t had any chocolate on this trip, which has only been just over a week, but for me that’s a lot. I got the train back to Boll-Utzigen, changing at Bern, where Eva’s son Robin picked me up in a Tesla. I’m not sure if the Tesla surprised me or not, Eva was full of surprises so I was getting used to them now, but it was notable nonetheless.

Once back I put the animals to bed, swam again in the pool, showered and ate my dinner. All in all a beautiful day.
BUT in the interest of sharing the lows too, I developed a small rash under both my armpits which caused me moderate discomfort throughout the day, especially as I got more sweaty. Nice.

Click to see a google album with more photos and videos if you’d like :)
https://photos.app.goo.gl/ZZ3vt7PSgYcEgsaG7

Next stop is a workaway in Switzerland for 2 weeks. I needed to travel to Boll-Utzigen for this. The journey started with a 12:30am bus from the Bercy-Seine bus station in Paris. It was probably the worst place I’ve ever stepped foot in. I was quite nervous about this journey, it’s my first one of the trip, it’s at night and I’m alone. To get to the bus station you have to walk through a dark park, and directly past the exercise equipment area which was filled with men even though it was just before midnight. After being shouted at I made it to confines of the bus station. It was honestly like hell. It’s under a bridge and it was really really hot. People were running around confused, with one guy coming up to me with eyes pleading for help. I realised why when I looked at the ticket he was showing me - his bus was at 11:50 and it was currently 11:48. We hurried through the diesel fumes and I sent him off on the correct bus with a thumbs up, then I managed to find mine. I had a total of 12.5 hours of travelling ahead, but I mostly slept so it was fine. Below is a picture of me lying on the floor of the Lyon bus station waiting for my second bus, just to keep it real.

Once in Bern I had to walk to the train station and catch a train to my final destination, where Eva was picking me up. There was some slight stress when I realised I couldn’t use my data in Switzerland, there was no wifi at the end station and Eva was not there, but I remained remarkably calm for me. I managed to connect to the wifi on a passing bus for long enough to let Eva know I’d arrived and she appeared a little while later. It always works out it in the end, or, as Eva said, it all happened as it should.

This was my view this evening as I walked the dog Kiona. Much better than the Paris bus station.

Stepping off the eurostar alongside passengers who are much better dressed than I am, and stepping out of the station to see two police officers with their truncheons and both smoking cigarettes, I didn’t need the ‘Gare du Nord’ sign to tell me where I was, this was definitely Paris.

I broke the main port on my snazzy travel plug adapter. I really do need to learn to look after my belongings better. I woke up at 4:20 am and thought about Louis’ stupid joke of “there’s more than one 4 o’clock in the day?”. I had about 2 hours sleep, I was actually nervous that night and struggled to sleep. My trusted citymapper let me down, I arrived at Finsbury Park tube station to see the gates firmly shut, luckily there was a bus instead. Eurostar was very easy. And so here we are, country number 1: France. It was 10am with my hostel check-in at 3pm, but I decided against finding somewhere to leave my bag. First stop was a cafe (KP Roasters), I was starving and very much in need of a coffee. As I slowly ate a cheese and onion scone with chive cream cheese (it was interesting, I’ll leave it at that) and drank my flat white, the man next to me asked me where I was from. Clearly the french boy haircut (as dubbed by Tarsha) wasn’t fooling anyone. We had a lovely chat, he had done a similar trip when he was 24 and whilst on it set up a not-for profit organisation that now employs 200 people (makesense)! He gave me some tips for Paris and travelling in general. It energised me more than the coffee and scone did to be honest. Also whilst sitting at this cafe I noticed a cool looking building in the near distance, and this is where I aimed for next. It was the Sacre Coer of Montremarte, and it was up a lot of stairs. But my packing was proven light enough and I had a lovely time exploring the area, lots of people painting portraits and pretty small streets.

After I had my fill I made my way to the hostel. I didn’t fancy the trek to Gentilly so I used the metro. This is where I had my first two less glamorous travelling moments. Firstly, the doors on the metro don’t automatically open when you arrive at a station, and the button, in my opinion, is not well labelled. I’m sure you can work out the issue I had there. The second issue arose when I tried to exit the metro station, but couldn’t find a slot for my paper ticket. After waiting awkwardly for a while I caved and stopped a man to ask for help. He gestured to a different gate which did have a ticket slot but was out of order. Turns out the gates on that one were open the whole time. The following evening I was returning back quite late from a bar and this time the out of order sign had been removed. This had clearly been done in haste however, as the gate still didn’t actually work. Two other girls with paper tickets joined me in slight panic - stuck in a metro station at 1am is not where any of us wanted to be. A french man saw the situation and managed to gesture to us all to squeeze in the space between the barrier and the place you scan your ticket. He scanned his card and we all rushed through, with the man being only minorly crushed. I haven’t been impressed with the metro.

I thought it might be fun to try a french yoga class, and after walking with my rucksack all day my body would definitely benefit from one. I found a studio and booked in for an Iyengar yoga class. I’ve never tried (or even heard of) this form of yoga before, but thought it made sense to try something new. This was most definitely a mistake. I know very little french and without any familiarity of the poses or sequences it was a struggle. It was a very prop heavy class, that involved a lot of deep floor stretches. This would usually be a calming style of yoga, but this class was not calming. The instructor was very intense and almost aggressive, we were certainly not meeting her expectations. But as I didn’t actually know what she was saying I couldn’t do much to help. It was quite funny, and at least I wasn’t the british girl next to me who was picked on repeatedly by the instructor.

My time in Paris continued in a similarly slow and pleasant fashion (ignoring the metro issues). I met up with a friend who gave me an off the beaten path tour (thanks Laura), enjoyed the sun walking along the Seine and went to the catacombs. I had never liked Paris when I visited it previously, but I like it this time. I think it’s the sunny weather. Even Parisians can’t be grumpy when it’s sunny.

Some extras

Food/cafe highlights

• Cafe Med - 3 delicious courses for 14.50 euros
• The trusted baguette, jar of mustard mayonaise and emmental
• Lots of crepes
• The Musee de la vie Romantique cafe - sheltered under blossom trees and rose bushes, really beautiful
• Le Pavillon des Canaux - the most amazing cafe decorated like someone’s house, with tables in a kitchen and bathroom (and the actual bathtub)

Catacombs
Cost - 15 euros if bought on the day. Took about an hour. I wouldn’t recommend to be honest, the ones in Rome are more impressive. The bones are just sort of stacked here.

The catacombs were originally mining tunnels. They became catacombs when the department put in charge of dealing with the overfilled and unsanitary cemeteries decided the solution was to move the bones to the tunnels to create a tourist site. The whole thing was a bit tainted after learning that. Also by the australian guy behind me the whole way round who kept pointing out good eye holes he’d like to put his penis in. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t find it slightly funny though.

The inevitable

At the Louvre I had my first unwanted encounter with a man. How does a man think they’re making someone feel by coming up to them and saying “I like you” immediately followed by “are you alone?”, if not hugely uncomfortable? I’m almost certain this man had only good intentions, he was smiling pleasantly and wasn’t at all threatening, yet I still felt threatened. Luckily my large group of friends was just behind me…

But, for balance, the male receptionist at the hostel didn’t charge me the 4 euros to leave my bag in storage on my last day. I’m not sure he would’ve done that if I was a man, but who knows!

A true french meal: a baguette, a jar of mustard mayonaise, a pack of emmental cheese.
Cost: around 5 euro, with the mayo and cheese doing the next day’s lunch too

Laura and I went to find some lunch to enjoy in the sun on the side of the canal. We stopped at a boulangerie first, and I picked up a black baguette. After doing some research, it’s black because of the addition of charcoal. It just tasted like a normal baguette. We nipped into a Carrefour where I got the mustard mayonaise and the emmental, and also an Orangina and a packet of Prince sandwich biscuits. We found our way back to the canal and sat to enjoy our feast. The baguette was wonderfully soft inside, the mustard mayo had so much flavour of both good eggy mayo and dijon mustard, the emmental was plasticy and plain. A true french meal. And, honestly, my favourite meal in Paris.

It was so good, I had the same thing the next day sat in the sun in the Jardin du Luxembourg.

How do you prepare for a trip like this?

I knew I wanted a gap year very early on, in sixth form, but decided to do a post-uni one instead of the usual pre-uni. Any travel I did during uni cemented the idea that I absolutely wanted to have a year to travel before starting life. I got my training contract and asked for it to be delayed a year, they agreed and here we are! This trip was originally planned for straight after uni, so 2020. For obvious reasons it’s now happening this year, in 2022! I’m very lucky to have been able to postpone it 2 years without any major issues, being able to do my law conversion studying in the meantime. But now it’s finally time to go!

The idea for this trip came from watching the BBC show Race Across the World (I’d highly recommend). The first season saw the teams racing from London to Bangkok without flying. The actual travelling looked amazing and I thought the idea was a cool one - on both an environmental and slow travel level. So the location of my gap year was decided pretty easily.

Actual preparations have been sparse. I worked out a very rough route with some even rougher timings to check seasons were okay (no monsoons thank you) and that it was actually possible to cross certain borders. I looked into the countries and found some things I’d definitely like to see/do, but I’ve left most of that sort of thing to later. I’ll have plenty of time to look into stuff whilst travelling, and can get recommendations from people I meet on the way. I sorted my vaccinations and travel insurance. I brought a new bag (see below for more packing insights). I contacted my first workaway host for when I’m in Switzerland. About a month before I left I booked transport to Paris and a hostel for two nights. And that’s it!

I love packing

Said no one literally ever. And definitely not me. But I have actually loved packing for this trip. Something about carefully choosing the only items you’re going to have with you for the next year is oddly satisfying. I thought it might be interesting to share my packing list. A little amuse bouche before the travel posts begin.

What’s in my bag?

The final bag…

My bag is the Osprey Fairview 55 litres. It includes a day pack that attaches to the main bag.
I’m also taking a small cross-body bag.

So there we are, packed and ready to go!
I’ll have to buy some warmer clothes when I move into colder climates, and perhaps some hiking boots, but hopefully this will have me sorted for the first 6 months.