Day 14 to Appenzell

Day 14 to Appenzell - This had not been edited by the group, so all mistakes are mine alone.  We may make changes and additions later.

Sue and I walked to the Post Office in order to ship some breakable items back home and to free up some space in our luggage.  We then met for breakfast with the others and had another good one.  They really know how to do breakfast here.   Afterwards we loaded the van, that’s getting more and more difficult to do since we continue to gather items to bring back, and started out of town.  We debated between going the faster way (autobahn) or the slower way (through the countryside).  They left it up to me so we went by the countryside.  As we drove into Austria, we were stopped by police or border patrol, but they quickly waved us on after just glancing into the car.  Thank goodness. 

We drove through Austria in the sprinkling rain but we could still see lots of pretty scenery since the rain was not hard rain and the clouds were pretty high.  We were on autobahn type roads for a short distance and then started going through small towns.  It looked like ghost towns because no cars were out driving and no one was walking around and almost all the stores were closed.  We found it was a national holiday.  In one town we saw several groups of people dressed in the traditional national costumes and the groups were all heading for the same area of town.  In another town, we found thousands of cars and people and we could not continue through the town because it was closed down in order to have some kind of festival.  We were almost at the end of the small road and close to Switzerland.  We had no choice but to turn around and retrace our steps for a while until we could go another route. 

We ended up taking the next best route which took us past many ski resorts in the mountains.  Of course, this meant we were up IN the mountains on very narrow, curving, switchbacking roads.  Some of the switchbacks had large mirrors so you could tell if a car was coming from the other side, but most did not and we just hoped there was nothing coming towards us.  Some of the roads did not have enough land available for the road to sit on so the roads had been built out on piers beside the mountain – talk about scary.  Many times, there were no guard railings because there was not enough land for them to be placed.  The drop offs were severe and everyone in the car was tense, including the driver.  I had to keep wiping my sweating hands on my jeans and I know that was not comforting to the others in the car.   Of course, these mountain roads meant that the scenery was spectacular and breathtaking.  Houses were perched right on the sides on the steep mountain slopes and the colors of the leaves helped make everything even more beautiful.  We also passed through many tunnels that went through the mountains or on the sides of the mountains where we could see out one side of the tunnel.  We stayed on this road for quite a while.  Sue had to read the maps very carefully but she did a great job of guiding through the villages and on into Switzerland. 

We finally saw the name “Appenzell” on a road sign and we were all happy about that.  For some reason, Linda was very, very happy about it.  When I had to go back out of the way to see some rabbits that I had just glimpsed, she got depressed that we were not speeding on to Appenzell, but I just had to get out and see the bunnies.  They were out and about on the grass within fenced in areas and they were hoping around nibbling on grass.  Those bunnies were large, probably Flemish Giants but I’m not sure.  We were soon back on our way to Appenzell and wouldn’t you just know that we had to climb up another narrow twisty mountain road to get there!!!!  None of us were happy about that but again, we saw lots more beautiful scenery.  It seems that the more dangerous the road, the better the scenery.  During the last section of the road we passed many fields containing cows but we also saw many cats in these fields, probably looking for dinner.  We had not seen this many cats during the entire trip and they seemed to be everywhere here.

 As we drove into town, we had to search a while to find out hotel, but we got there and got parked.  We checked into the hotel, took the small luggage up to our rooms, and then went to see the shops.  We all found something we wanted. I found the wood carver’s shop that I had visited the last time I was here and will return to talk to the carver again.  The restaurants don’t open for dinner until about 6 so we had to wait and shop – just a tough life we have.  We finally went to the same restaurant that we went to years ago and the other girls had fondue (which they seemed to enjoy tremendously) and I had vegetables.  We had a very difficult time communicating with the owner/waiter/cook but another customer was very helpful and translated for us.  He told us of his work (for the Swiss government verifying accounts) and of his travels to the US. 

After dinner, I went straight to bed after my shower because I was exhausted from the physical, mental, and emotional stress of driving those mountain roads.  I think everyone else was exhausted from the same stress of riding those mountain roads – they really are unlike any I’m seen in anywhere else, except for perhaps the Cinque Terre in Italy.