Touring Switzerland with the Keatings
Part 1
Tour Part 2    Tour Part 3    Tour Part 4    Tour Part 5    Comment by Konrad Meyer-Usteri

Old Town of Arosa

St. Peter Bahnhof

Appenzell railroad cog

Landwasser Viaduct

Hi Joe
This is the first part of a multi message travelogue on our trip to Switzerland. Liz took 264 pictures. I selected 40, 2/3rds are covered bridge pix and the balance are pictures characteristic of Switzerland. All pictures, except for a couple (with Liz in photo) were taken by my wife, Lisette. I took the ones with her in them.

We arrived in Zurich on April 20. We met our tour guides, Carl Fowler and Jan Brink at the airport. We then took the train to central Zurich, transferred to another train to Chur (pronounced "Kur") and checked in to our hotel. Carl Fowler, our chief guide and VP of Rail Travel Center, advised us that we could take a no-additional cost cog rail trip (each of us had a Swiss 1st class rail/bus pass) to Arosa, a pretty town high in the mountains. Liz and I elected to take the trip. It was snowing when we got there!! Along the way, Liz took a picture of the St. Peter Bahnhof (bahn=train, hof=house). Note the roof not 50/50 but 70/30. I guess it had something to do with the snow. She also took a picture of a building with "sgraffiti". Many Swiss buildings have these drawings.

On April 21, we went to St. Gallen and then to Appenzell. Appenzell is in the mountains and is reachable via a cog railway (see photo). Appenzell has some rather gruesome drawings of a battle between the Appenzellers and the Austrians that took place about 700 years ago. All the Austrians were killed. Although I was not aware of this history, the Austrians ruled eastern Switzerland for a while. In the William Tell myth (William Tell was not a historically verified person, according to Carl), it was an Austrian nobleman, who forced Tell to shoot the apple off his son's head as punishment for not doffing his hat to said nobleman. Tell subsequently murdered the nobleman.

On April 22, we took the Bernina Express to Tirano, Italy. See the photo of the famous Landwasser Viaduct, built in 1902, part of the Bernina Express. Tirano is a pretty little town. On April 23, we went to the Mainau Gardens, located on an island in the Bodensee(Lake Contance)--see photo.

On April 24, we went to Davos. Along the way, we went thru a concrete bridge built in a covered bridge style (see photo). This bridge is a railroad bridge over the Landquart river at Klosters. Next photos are of two covered bridges, SZ-10-15, near Churwalden on Rt#3, over the Eggatobel river (taken thru a bus window). SZ-10-12 is south of Rt 19, over the Vorderrhein river, near Rueun.
Tom

Mainau Gardens	Concrete bridge at Klosters resembles covered bridge

Covered Bridge S-10-15 near Churwalden over Eggatobel R.	Rueun Covered Bridge S-10-12 over Vorderrhein R.