Planettenweg Ütliberg

Today we had an epic journey from the center of the solar system to its outer reaches. Well, in a precise 1:1,000,000,000 scale, walking close to 6 km in all, but that was epic for the children, and they were incredibly proud of themselves. When I tucked Alex into bed tonight, he was still talking about how strong he was today.

The trails were filled with Nordic hikers

We, however, did not use the proper Nordic
hiking technique

Also at a 1:1,000,000,000 scale, the inner planets were
quite small: Vanna here is showing us Venus 

The road sign promise that the hike would last an hour and 45 minutes. If you were to scale that up, walking at that pace is equivalent to traveling though the solar system at twice the speed of light.













Clearly whoever was calculating the times didn't allow for a lollygagging 2-year-old.  We started at 10:40 and didn't finish until 2:00.  Essentially, we merely traveling at light speed. We took frequent stops along the way, for peanut butter sandwiches, for throwing snowballs down the hillside, for changing diapers, for selecting walking sticks, for crumbling Fastnacht cakes down our shirt fronts.  (Which I desperately wish I never, ever purchased. Imagine the best funnel cake you've ever had, crisp and perfect. Danger!)

After Jupiter here, we really started to get a feel for how far
apart those outer planets are

After the trail conditions last week, we decided not to bring our stroller for Joey, so Dennis and I (but mostly Dennis) ended up carrying Joey for the entire walk. But he only let us carry him after quite a bit of negotiation.  If he had his way, he'd be meandering up there still, probably somewhere between Jupiter and Saturn.

Taking a little ice skating break

Refueling with some smarties (European M&Ms)
before that last kilometer

But the big kids were champs, usually running up the trail ahead of us and then stopping to play until we caught up.  Only at the end of the trail, which was a steep half-kilometer up a hill, did they start to slow down. But a couple of pieces of chocolate gave them enough energy to make it clear to Pluto.

Pluto! Success!

We'd read that there was a playground at the end of the trail, and as soon as the kids saw it they took off. But I was close enough to hear Ella say "Okay, playground! Prepare to be played on!" It amazed me that, after all of that exercise, scampering up a climbing wall seemed like a good idea to them.

What seemed like a good idea to Dennis and me was the cliffside restaurant next to the playground. They served traditional Swiss fare and were completely full inside (people here seem to enjoy lingering over their meals. The nerve!) but had plenty of picnic table seating outside: we had a wonderful table with a view of Zurich below and of the playground to the side, so the kids could run off and play between courses. Where courses consisted of cocoa, a plate of french fries and bowl of ice cream. Swiss fare isn't particularly Geels-child-friendly, and after all that marching, we felt like spoiling them.

The view from the restaurant. In the very center of this picture there's a little red and white tower. That's where we started our hike, by the sun. Which really puts the strength of the sun's gravitational pull into stark perspective. Awesome.

Swiss rosti

Dennis and I didn't skimp, though. I had a rosti with cheese and tomatoes: essentially a hashbrown pizza. Very Swiss. And Dennis had been anxious to try gluhwein (another Swiss specialty: mulled, sweetened wine) before it went out of season, so we had that as well, and hot fresh strudel with vanilla sauce for dessert. And all of our aches and pains were washed away.

The Luftseilbahn

To get down off the mountain we had to take a Luftseilbahn (an air cable train, or cable car) down the mountain. Each car had a capacity of 30 people, but even with several of those passengers being children and everyone being slender, we were sardines in a can. But it was fun, nonetheless, flying down the mountainside. After all of that we still had to take two trains to get home, so it was after 5:00 by the time we arrived at our doorstep.

I'm calling it a job well done.