Here is a two minute sample of our two hour walk to Ebenalp.

Here is a short video of Appenzell. There wasn’t much to take a video of but the town served as a good base.

Mainau is a “flowering garden” located on Bodensee. Mainau belongs to Germany even though it is surrounded by Switzerland. It was about an hour and half drive from Appenzell and was the perfect finish to the day after going to the top of an Alp. I’m sure the island is much more magical in the middle of summer when there are more plants in bloom but somehow I still managed to take plenty of pictures of flowers and butterflies.

The island was packed full of locals, kids and tourists. Lunch was complicated as we didn’t really want the buffet. We saw a sausage stand so I ordered two different things. Turns out I ordered myself Fleischkäse which is basically meat cheese. It came like a sandwich and I recall this was always one of my favorite meals as a child.

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Once we finished our two hour walk, we hopped on a cable car to take us up Ebanalp. Since we got going early in the morning, we had a pretty empty cable car. We had perfect weather at the top. It was so peaceful and quiet that I could have sat up there all day.

There are plenty of hikes you can do up there but I would say over half of the people going up, were going up there to jump back down the mountain. I opted to take the cable car back down and the train back to town. Guess I was lazy but I don’t have a desire to jump off the side of mountain. I would rather climb up or down one 🙂

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It really seems like this would be a nice picnic table next to a river however if you look at the table long enough the table tips up on two legs so all of your food would fall onto the grass and the other two legs shoot water into the river.  I’m still not sure on it’s purpose besides to scare people.  I’m pretty sure I would jump right off the seat and land in the river.

We woke up early on Sunday to go on a hike. We bought bread the day before at the bakery and decided to skip breakfast at the hotel so we could start the hike. (Breakfast isn’t until 8:30 which is very late for us.) We left at 6:45 mostly because we were still watching the Portland Timbers game.

The hike was a pretty easy walk for 2 hours. We were hiking to a cable car so we could go up Ebenalp. The path was mostly paved or gravel until the very end when we had to follow the cow pasture. Needless to say, our suitcases might smell like the cow pasture now because the grass was so long. My shoes and socks were soaked but it was all worth it in the end. The moon was still visible in the sky over the Alps and the early morning walk was pretty perfect.

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Appenzell has been our base for the last 3 days.  From here you can explore the Alps or head to Bodensee (Lake Constance).  Austria, Switzerland and Germany all border Bodensee and you could ride your bike around it if you had about 3 days to bike.  There are hiking and biking signs pretty much at every corner in Appenzell.  They have so many different ways you can go that you really have to pay attention to what hike you are doing.

Appenzell is famous for beer and cheese.  They say that beer is the cheapest thing you can buy here.  I didn’t try the beer but I did try the cheese.  It was a bit too strong for my taste so much so that I didn’t even finish my crepe.  The unique thing about Appenzell is that they still all gather in the main square and vote by counting hands.  Every male and female over 20 years old must appear personally to vote (or face financial penalty).  I haven’t figured out how they count the hands yet as there is around 16,000 people.

I am a little bummed that we weren’t here to see the farmers send their cows to the mountains. They don’t always announce when they are doing it so you have to have a bit of luck.  They walk the cows through the town and everybody comes out to cheer on the cows.

Some family friends drove 2 hours from Germany to come meet me in Appenzell. We had a nice dinner at our hotel and it was good to catch up with them. It was really nice to be able to see them on this trip as it is always good to catch up and hear how their families are doing.

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We stopped by Werdenberg on the way back from Vaduz. The town was founded in 1289 and it is believed to be the oldest settlement of timber houses in Switzerland. The castle is located on the hill and the other side has a pond. The houses look old but very well kept up. I’m not sure my 100 year old house looks as good as these. I also can’t imagine how long people take to stack their firewood. It seems like all houses in this country have their firewood ready for next winter.

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Liechtenstein is about a 45 minute drive from Appenzell. About half of the drive consisted of the one lane road where you just hope nobody is coming around the curve ahead. There are also the fun times of trying to get around tractors on the road.

Liechtenstein is a small country with Switzerland to the west and south and Austria to the east and north. There is about 35,000 people in the country that covers 62 square miles. They have one of the lowest unemployment rates in the world at 1.5%. We visited Vaduz, the capital.

There really isn’t much to do there and we arrived before most tourists. You can pay 3 Euros to get you passport stamped.  You can also walk up the hill to the castle. The castle is closed to the public since the prince still lives in the castle. They have a celebration once a year where they open the castle to the residents and everybody has a beer.

A random fact of Liechtenstein is that dentures are one of their major exports.

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I finally arrived in Appenzell, Switzerland. It is about an hour drive from Zurich to the northeast. After not sleeping for 24 hours, the drive is always a challenge. I got a larger car than anticipated because I showed up an hour earlier than expected. I received a free upgrade mostly because I said I didn’t want a manual transmission.

I was pretty tired the first night and forced myself to stay awake till 5:30. Today was our first full day here and I’m over my jet leg thanks to the good long night sleep I had. I’m keeping this post pretty short so I can get to bed to get a jump start on my day tomorrow.

Below is a picture of the hotel we are staying at. When I first pulled up in the parking, there was our large car, a couple of smaller cars and large tractor parked in the parking lot. I only wish I was here for the day they send the cows to the mountains. Unfortunately, it must be next weekend.