Appenzell Switzerland

Appenzell Region of Switzerland

Appenzell

On the left you see Teufen, a couple of towns away from Appenzell, one of the stops on my off-season November 1996 vacation. I stayed 2 nights in the hotel on the left, a fortunate find after arriving late in the evening in a snowstorm and finding that most of the hotels in these small towns are closed in November. This turned out to be a really nice place. It's run by Irene and Christian Guler, who are from western Switzerland. Irene's a full of energy former gymnast, and a great cook. (Hotel-Restaurant Schützengarten, phone 071/333 28 48) As you can see, the train goes right through the town, on tracks along the edge of the road. The train station is about 1/4 mile up the road from the hotel. [Appenzell]

On the right you see Appenzell and the Hotel Adler where I stayed 3 nights in October 1997. I called back to try to get a room at the Schützengarten in Teufen, but they were full so I stayed here at a hotel recommended by my travel book (also a nice place - a bit more comfortable and modern but with a bit less local flavor). But it is in a nice location, and the town of Appenzell is a bit more interesting than Teufen. On the street in front of the hotel you see one of many farms bringing their animals into town for show and judging - no trucking, they just drive them right down the streets of town, shouting and yelling (I won't call it yodeling) as they go. Most of the animals were cows, but there were also some goats (some seen in this picture). The farmers come dressed up, with fancy bells for their cows and painted wooden buckets also displayed for judging. The cows themselves were not dressed up, as I've seen in southern Bavaria, but this was still worth seeing (as in Bavaria, this is an annual event, part of returning the cows from summer pastures for the winter, I just happened to be here on the right day to see it). There were lots of cows in town by mid-morning, but as I left town later in the day before these cows left, there seemed to be just as many cows as ever in the fields in the surrounding countryside. This made the town much more interesting than when I stopped by in November 1997 when the town was cold, damp, and there wasn't much going on.

Ebenalp

Unfortunately, sometimes the weather just doesn't work out. You just have to hope for the best. Here's the starting point of the Ebenalp lift in Wasserauen (above Appenzell) when I stopped by in November 1997. You can see the cables disappearing into the mist. The lift was closed for the season, which is just as well since I don't think I would have paid to ride up into the clouds anyway. I did start hiking up a trail into the mountains, but the farther up I got the more snow-covered it became and I finally had to turn back because it was getting too slippery. November is definitely off-season here. I did meet a few other hikers, but the place was pretty deserted. The hotels in Wasserauen looked deserted, and when I left on the train I was the only passenger on the entire train. [Ebenalp Hut]

I returned here also in October 1997, this time with much better weather, and this time there were many more people around and I finally got to ride to the top of the mountain and hike back down on the trails I tried to hike the year before. The trails you see here are all further up than what I was able to hike to the year before (and would have been even more difficult and dangerous to hike in the snow than the part I was on). You even have to be careful on this trail in good weather (and there are warnings posted about hiking with children - you can see why). There are several interesting things along the way - the trail first passes through a cave (in one end and out the other), where there is a reconstructed hermit's hut and a church in a cave, and just below this a hiking hut (with overnight lodging, although I wouldn't recommend trying to come here with much luggage) that you see beneath a cliff. My book says there's a piano here that was brought in by helicopter, but I can't see how even with a helicopter anybody could get a piano into here. The trail continues back down to the base of the mountain, with a possible detour to the Seealpsee, a nice mountain lake with a couple of buildings with dorm beds available. The lake was low, and the outlet was completely dry when I was here, due to a month and a half of no rain. My book says you can drive up the private road to stay at these places, but it didn't appear that way to me. The "road" is more of a hiking trail, very steep, narrow, and bumpy and probably passable only with a small 4WD vehicle (the gate at the base was closed, and I didn't see any vehicles up here, and anyone trying to drive up here would be a problem for the many hikers on the trail). There were lots of people of all ages hiking up here on the fine fall day when I was here.

Säntis

Säntis, at 2501 meters, is the highest peak in this corner of Switzerland. While not as high as the peaks in the heart of the Alps, it's still an impressive mountain. The cable car lift takes you up the face of a very high practically vertical cliff to a large station at the top. There's a large multi-story building and a smaller older one on top, the bigger one topped off by the very big tower you see here (which dwarfs a large construction crane being used for further expansion). There's several restaurants, shops, and other exhibits, and weather instruments. The tall tower contains antennas (including microwave antennas visible in the windows). Some other mountains have similar towers on top (e.g. Aiguille du Midi above Chamonix, France). The other picture is a view to the north, showing Ebenalp at the far end of the ridge. If you click on the picture you'll get an enlarged view of the right side showing the Seealpsee that I hiked to on the right, and in the upper left the short vertical cliff with the hiking hut at its base. Although it may not look like it from this picture, Ebenalp is 1640 meters high. I hiked down from the top, past the cliff and the hut, to the lake, then down the rest of the way to Wasserauen in the valley beyound the lake.

[Santis Hiking] There were a lot of people hiking all over the top of Säntis too. These are officially marked hiking trails (the picture to the right shows a trail sign). Many of these trails are very steep, which just seems to add to the appeal. I only ventured out a short distance here because I'd already done the Ebenalp hike in the morning, but I could see people all over, many on difficult trails.

I visited both Säntis and Ebenalp in one day, traveling from Appenzell on my Swiss Pass train pass. The train took me from Appenzell right to the Ebenalp lift, then after my ride to the top and hike back down, by train to Urnäsch, connecting to a Postal bus that took me right to the Säntis lift, then back again to Appenzell after riding up and down the Säntis lift. The trains and buses were all free with my pass, and the lifts were discounted with the pass. And I had the whole day all planned out ahead of time, including all connections, from the Swiss railroad's Online Timetable.

St. Gallen

If you have any spare time (or run into bad weather), you should stop and see the small Abbey Library (Stiftsbibliothek) and Cathedral in St. Gallen. The library is small, but has very impressive wood carving and also an excellent collection of very old books.

Created July 19, 1997
Updated June 27, 1998
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