Switzerland – John Collings

Hindsight – The Best Posts of 2020

It is that time of the year again where we all look back at where we have been, and reflect on the lessons learned there. By far, 2020 will be remembered where there was a lot to be learned. I hope that we can take a lot from the experiences of this year and use it to grow not only as people but also as a world wide society.

When looking back at the posts that got the most views this year, I noticed that they had a sense of positivity to them, and I know that not all that I posted this year could say that they had that spin on them. It is nice to know that even though I might have found some dark places in this dark time, it did not bring people down and they still searched for that positivity in their lives.

I hope you enjoy the look back as much as I enjoy presenting it to you, and I hope, like me, that you look forward to 2021 with a new sense of revitalization as to what great prospects it may bring.

#10 To Choose a Side of the Valley – Wangen versus Murren

Most of my posts come from the first few days of 2020 when there was only a hint of disease taking over a small town in China. At this time, the hope of the year was still in front of me and I was wrapping up one of the best trips I have been on in a long time. It was great seeing snow again, and being forced to wear winter weather. This picture was taken on one of the last days on this trip as I sat on the balcony of our hotel room in Murren, Switzerland. My mind often wandered back to the beauty of this part of the world.

https://johncollings.com/2020/01/10/to-choose-a-side-of-the-valley-wangen-versus-murren/

#9 In a Valley in the Swiss Alps – Lauterbrunnen, Switzerland

Like I said, many of the most popular posts come from my trip to Europe and the beginning of the year, and this is no exception. Lauterbrunnen is a small town in a valley in the Swiss Alps and is the perfect home base for exploring these mountains. It is not nearly as cold in the valley as it is when you find your way to the towns closer to the top, and the views from down below are still as dramatic as they are up top.

https://johncollings.com/2020/01/06/in-a-valley-in-the-swiss-alps-lauterbrunnen-switzerland/

#8 A Phuket Sunset – Siam Summer

After a tough semester of teaching on-line and being quarantined, Thailand had done well enough with the world-wide pandemic to allow travel to open up again, but only for those who were living in the country. It was never my plan to get to know Thailand as well as I did this summer, and it was interesting to drive down to Phuket and see how much this island had been affected by Covid-19. It has picked up since then, but it is still wrangling with the devastating effects it had on its economy. I got to experience it with mainly only its residents, and I still wonder what it would be like to see it when it is full with its regular amount of tourists.

https://johncollings.com/2020/07/20/a-phuket-sunset-siam-summer/

#7 Never Forget Dachau – Germany

I am actually really glad that this post had the reception that it had. Dachau was one of the more earnest moments of an unforgettable year. I did not know it at the time that I walked around the site of the Nazi’s first concentration camp, but a lot of the images and lessons learned there would haunt me all year long as I saw similar things play out on the political stages all around the world. It is one of the places that I believe everybody should see at least once in their lifetimes, right up there with Auschwitz and Hiroshima.

https://johncollings.com/2020/01/04/never-forget-dachau-germany/

#6 Koh Yao Yai – Siam Summer

Koa Yao Yai was one of the most pleasant surprises of the year. I was able to travel to this exclusive island in mid-July just as it was starting to open its doors again, and they were trying to entice tourists to come and stay. The prices were too good to pass up on this amazing island, and I am so happy that I was able to stay in this little paradise. I am pretty sure I will never be able to afford it again, but it is one of those things that make me look back at this year and realize that I was pretty lucky to be stuck in Thailand for this worldwide crisis.

https://johncollings.com/2020/07/17/koh-yao-yai-siam-summer/

#5 Fortress Hohensalzburg – Salzburg, Austria

This was one of the more touristy posts I gave on this trip. It is a must do if ever traveling to Salzburg, and it is really hard to forget about because no matter where you are in town, this imposing fortress is staring down at you from its hill. It is a fun way to spend a day in Salzburg and really lets you feel that medieval experience that you want to get when you travel to Europe.

https://johncollings.com/2020/01/01/fortress-hohensalzburg-salzburg-austria/

#4 James Bond’s Peak – Schilthorn, Switzerland

When I was in this part of the world back in 2007, I was on a very limited budget and could not afford the brunch at the top of this Swiss peak. I almost did not believe it was worth the price earlier this year, but I am glad that I decided against being frugal and went up to this restaurant and had breakfast. It was fun going up and coming down this mountain, and I will never forget this experience. The post really picked up after the death of Sean Connery which is weird because this peak is most famous for the first Bond movie after he stopped playing the iconic character.

https://johncollings.com/2020/01/08/james-bonds-peak-schilthorn-switzerland/

#3 Their Insanity

I have only had one of my other poems make the top ten list, but there was something that struck a nerve with a lot of people when I first posted this poem. It was early in the lockdown stage that everybody in the world was feeling, and they might have understood the sentiment I was trying to get at with this poem even though that was not what it was written about.

https://johncollings.com/2020/05/03/their-insanity/

#2 A Toast to the End of the Semester

The image of a half full bottle of champagne sitting in front of this statue on the university campus in Salzburg is what inspired this poem. I did not post the poem with this picture until the end of the last school year, but it was around the holiday season this year that the poem started to gain in popularity. It took a year to get back to that feeling of the end of the semester, but I hope it helped everybody rejoice when the difficulty of both school semesters ended.

https://johncollings.com/2020/05/18/a-toast-to-the-end-of-the-semester/

#1 It’s No Rayong – Siam Summer

The title of this post started as a joke between a few people that I travelled to Rayong with earlier this summer. It was one of the first places that opened up after lockdown, and we went there for a couple of days before traveling to Koh Samet when that finally opened up. Rayong was not the best place to stay, but it was nice to be out of Bangkok. This post was about a comparison between Rayong and the amazing island of Koh Yao Yai, and people must have really loved it because the still visit it today. I do not know if it is because they want to know more about Koh Yao Yai, or if the title makes them laugh, but either way thank you for visiting it.

https://johncollings.com/2020/07/16/its-no-rayong-siam-summer/

Honorable Mentions

As always, these are posts that received a lot of traffic this year even though they were not posted this year. Some of them have taken a couple of years to gain in popularity, but the last one is the one I can guarantee somebody visits on a daily basis. The funny thing about “Bend Sucks! Move Somewhere Else” is that it was a throw away post that has now become one of the ones that gets the most traffic. It just goes to show that I do not know what will speak to the public, and what will not. It is always surprises me which posts do well, and which just disappear into obscurity.

You Can’t Go Back to the Green – The Holidays Day 20

https://johncollings.com/2019/01/09/you-cant-go-back-to-the-green-the-holidays-day-20/

Being Indiana Jone – Hua Hin, Thailand

https://johncollings.com/2019/10/13/being-indiana-jones-hua-hin-thailand/

Lessons from Ankor Wat

https://johncollings.com/2017/10/11/lessons-from-angkor-wat/

Bend Sucks! Move Somewhere Else – Around the World Day 39

https://johncollings.com/2018/07/25/bend-sucks-move-somewhere-else-around-the-world-day-39/

Thank you for joining me in my travels this year. I am sorry that it was not as diverse as it has been in previous years, but it has been an interesting year for everybody. I hope that when things loosen up again next year that you find these posts and the other ones that I will continue to post inspiring and that you get out there and see the world. It is a great way to experience life and I would love to hear about some your adventures some day.

Thanks again for the interesting year.

The Neighborhood Playground

Kids, I have brought you to this special place
So you can stretch your legs and get some play.
The playground is next to a sacred place
That you will visit on some distant day.
When you are laughing and playing your games,
Look over the fence to the other side;
There another person reaps all the claims
To our souls when we have finished our ride.
Children, you’ll find plenty of time to rest
When he comes a-knocking on your home’s door,
So for now you need to do what is best,
Play on the equipment you see before.
Ignore the fate that we are all meeting,
And play because time is always fleeting.

Back to Summer

Back when I watched television, I remember a commercial of a person taking a trip from Flagstaff, Arizona to Phoenix, and how they shed their clothes along the way because of the changing weather. On my last day in Europe, I had a similar experience. I took a bunch of trains with many stops along the way from Murren, Switzerland on top of the Alps to Frankfurt, Germany where I took a plane back to Bangkok. I left at 8:30 in the morning wearing all of my warm clothes to hopping back into shorts and a t-shirt by the time I went to bed the next night. I thought I would point out the change as it happened by taking a picture at each one of the stops along the way.

Murren, Switzerland was the highest point, and the coldest. I had to bundle up and crunch across the snow.

We were still pretty high up when we arrived in Grutschlap, but did not have to leave the station as we waited for the cable car to take us down the mountain.

It was still a little cold in Lauterbrunnen because it was early in the morning, but the short wait did not make it feel that cold.

We had made it to Interlaken, Switzerland on a train and felt the constant descent from the valley we had stayed in for the last five days. The snow was still there, but reserved for the far away mountains.

We hopped on another train to Spiez in Switzerland, and we could start to see more blue sky and the need to pull off the coat.

Basel was our last town in Switzerland. We had quite the break there and it was getting really nice.

We reached the outer station of Frankfurt and had to put the coats back on and stick under the safety of shelter because of the rain that had come out of nowhere.

The rains had stopped in the twenty minutes it took us to get to Frankfurt’s main station, but it was still cool outside because the sun had dipped below the horizon.

Even though it was cold outside, I was in Frankfurt Airport, and knew my next stop would be Thailand, so I packed my coat away for the next couple of months. I would not need it where I was going.

It was fun being out in Europe for the Winter Break. Thanks for following along as I got to enjoy the cold weather for a little bit. Never take it for granted because you will miss it when it is gone.

The View from My Window

One of my favorite things to do while out on a long vacation that will take me to new and exciting place is to take a picture of the view I can see from my window of the hotel or hostel or Air B+B that I am staying at. It is surprising to see the differences of the places, and I think each place really show what certain places are really like. These are the views from the six place that I stay at.

Bad Windsheim, Germany

This was a really nice Air B+B we stayed at in Bad Windsheim, Germany. It sat above a nice pizzeria, and overlooked other people’s backyards. This feeling of being at home and comfortable in the very private surroundings that describes this quaint Germanic town.

Fussen, Germany

We only spent one night in this town that is most famous for the two big castles that sit on the mountains just outside of town. It was a small little hostel that was very crowded with only two bathrooms that I had to squeeze into if I wanted to use the shower. The building right across the street described the feeling of this place perfectly.

Salzburg, Austria

We stayed on the campus of one of the colleges in this town in a hotel chain. It was very comfortable and the staff was great. They had a nice community bar downstairs that many people visited throughout the day, and wherever you looked you saw other guests. The fact that I could look into other people’s rooms demonstrated this fact nicely. I tended to look over the building though at the mountains that surrounded the town.

Munich, Germany

I was back in the city with this hostel. We had a private room in the place, and it even had a sink in our room which made things a little more comfortable. There were a couple of shared bathrooms, and I could see during a busier time of the year it being a problem, but due to the fact that we were there at the beginning of the holiday after hangover, it wasn’t ever really a problem. I really enjoyed this place even the view could have been a little better, even though what should I have expected while staying in a city but a view of the city.

Lauterbrunnen, Switzerland

This was a great hostel and the views were amazing. It had a really nice kitchen and a great patio for each of the rooms. We did not use the patio because it was just a little too chilly, but that was the reason we came out here in the first place. The room was big and the people we shared the place with very friendly even though there were very few of them. It was exactly what it was like exploring this place that has easily become one of my favorite places in the world.

Murren, Switzerland

We like to splurge on one place on trips like this, and this was the place that we chose to do it at. The place was right across from the train station, but when you are in a town as small and quant as Murren, this is not something that should cause alarm. We were the only people staying at the place that night as well which made for a fun experience, and one again, the views were just spectacular. It also a a patio, and even though it was cold outside, we took advantage of it, and had a drink while enjoying the moon rise over the mountains.

To Choose a Side of the Valley – Wangen versus Murren

There are two mountain towns on either side of the Lauterbrunnen Valley in the Bernese Alps in Switzerland that attract people to them. They both offer amazing things to do in the wintertime and summertime and if you can’t decide which one would be the perfect place for you then maybe this post will help you make that decision for you.

To start off with, both of these towns are obviously tourist towns. They both have an extensive amount of hotels and restaurants to choose from, and it would really be hard to decide which one you wish to travel to based upon this. Also both of them offer skiing, snowboarding and sledding during the winter, and hiking, biking and base jumping during the summer, and it would be hard to decide which one does this better. They both sit at the base of a mountain peak (Jungfrau in Wangen and Schilthorn in Murren) that you can travel to the top to see amazing view of the valley, and even if you do not go up these peaks, you will still get spectacular views. So the idea really comes down to the feel of the town and how that matches your tastes.

Both towns can be reached with public transportation leaving from the valley town of Lauterbrunnen. Wangan has just a short fifteen minute train ride to get to the center of town; whereas, Murren requires a transfer to a gondola from either Lauterbrunnen or a little further up the valley in Stechelberg. Because of this, Murren has a more isolated feeling to it, and not as many people make the extra effort to stay there. Depending on whether you like those crowds or not, this is a big factor in deciding which one to stay at.

A full moon rising from the vantage point of Murren

It is important to decide if you enjoy the sunrise or the sunset more. Murren gets the sunrise and it is a little after noon during the winter where the town starts to get shrouded in shadow, but if you are a morning person, the sun warms up the town quickly and it has some spectacular sunrises.

The view of Wangen from the church that overlooks the town

Wangen nestles into the other side of the valley and experiences the sun in the afternoon on clear days, making it a really pleasant place to be. It also get the sunsets and they can be amazing if the clouds are situated in the right position. But this also cause a little bit of a problem with the snow. The Murren side definitely gets more snow and it sticks around a little longer because of this movement of the sun. It does not really affect the skiing because when you go high enough up, you will be able to find the snow needed for this activity, so it may make you think about things as you decide what life will be like while you wander around the town.

Overall, they are both great cities that have a lot to offer. I personally enjoyed Murren a little bit more but I like the quieter towns, and I no longer look for the night time that I did when I was younger. Both towns are close enough to each other that if you are out here, you can take a day and explore both towns completely. It is also one of the most beautiful areas in the world that still holds on to those traditional ideals, so it is worth scheduling time to visit, whether that is summer or winter.

Happy traveling, folks!

James Bond’s Peak – Schilthorn, Switzerland

One of the many spectacular views from the top of Schilthorn Peak

Back in 1967, the James Bond franchise was taking off. They had three very successful movies starring Sean Connery, and were looking to make the fourth installment in the franchise. The only problem was they were not going to have their star for this installment. Instead, they were going to go with then unknown Australian actor, George Lazenby. In order for the franchise to sustain this change, they were going to need to up their game a bit. They decided that the best thing they could do was to film the whole movie on location instead of mostly in the movie studio like they had done in the previous three movies. So the search started to find the best location, and eventually stumbles upon Schilthorn Peak in Switzerland.

The rotating restaurant completed by the film crew of On Her Majesty’s Secret Service.

At the time, this tiny peak in the Swiss Alps, right outside of Murren, was building a rotating restaurant that would allow the diners to see the majestic peaks that surrounded the location while enjoying a great meal. The only problem was they had run out of money, and the project was still far from completion. It seemed like it was going to be an abandoned building sitting high up in the mountains that nobody would ever come to visit. But the production company thought it was the perfect place to tell their story and they offered to complete the project if they would be allowed to film there.

Enjoying a champaign brunch in the rotating restaurant

It was a match made it heaven and after the movie finished filming, they were able to open the restaurant and people still come here to today to enjoy a nice meal while enjoying the ever changing scenery as they rotate around the the dining room at their seats. If you find yourself in the Lauterbrunnen, it is a fun way to spend the day, and you get a nice meal out of it at the same time.

One of the many Bond themed places to take your picture

That is not to say that they still do not play up the James Bond angle for those who come to visit. They have many places where you can get picture with life-sized cutouts of the characters from the movie, and many other places where you can fun James Bond themed pictures. There is even a whole level of the building dedicated to this iconic character and probably one of the franchise’s easily forgotten movies, On Her Majesty’s Secret Service. They have a short film that tells all about the making of the movie along with set pieces and interactive games that tries to put you in the middle of the action.

It costs a little bit of money and time to get up to the top of the mountain, and you do have to wriggle your way in between other tourists and skiers who have come to enjoy the mountain in a completely different way. We also had to pay attention to the weather and make a split decision to go up there on a day when it was going to be clear. Clouds can change the whole make-up of the experience. But the tickets do come with an all you can eat brunch that is actually really good, and includes all of the champaign that you can have while you are there.

The view on the left side of the train to Murren

To get there, you need to cross the street from the train station at Lauterbrunnen and grab a gondola up to the town of Grutschlap on the top of the ridge. From there you catch an old train, and take a ten minute ride to the town of Murren. I would recommend getting on the left side of the train so you can have a clear view of the scenery from across the valley.

The next gondola that you have to hop on is not right next to the train station, and requires that you take a ten minute stroll through the town of Murren. This is a beautiful town and completely worth the walk, and during the winter you really start to feel like you a part of the ski community that is out here.

One of the features on the Thrill Walk in Berg

The next gondola will take you up to the town of Berg. It is another short little hop to reach the top of Schilthorn, but there is fun to be had in Berg before you make that last finally leap. You can also wait to enjoy it on the way back down since the only way to do that is the same way you came up but only in reverse. You can also ski down if it is winter, but then the Thrill Walk in Berg would be harder to do.

The glass bridge on the Thrill Walk in Berg

Basically the thrill walk is a series of rope bridges, and clear walkways that hang precariously over a big cliff. Everything on the walk is safe and I had to wait a few moments before I could make my way out onto each of the features as other people wanted to get their turn on them, but a lot of this was probably due to the fact that it was winter and I assume it is a lot busier during the summer months. Either way, it was free to get out there, and it was a lot of fun to play around on them.

The view from the Walk of Fame at the summit of Schilthorn Peak

I was lucky enough to have spent a clear and relatively warm day on top of the Alps and it has become one of the highlights of this trip. The food was good. The views were spectacular. It was fun pretending to be a part of a Bond movie for a little bit, and the ride up was even enjoyable. If you can afford to do it, I would highly recommend making your way up to Schilthorn Peak.

In a Valley in the Swiss Alps – Lauterbrunnen, Switzerland

I woke up yesterday morning in the last area I am going to explore on this trip to Europe and it easily became my favorite. This is nothing to the holiday fun I had in the various German cities I visited or the cultural exploration I went on in Salzburg, but it was because of the dramatic landscape of the Swiss Alps is hard to beat.

This little town is none other than Lauterbrunnen, a ski town that finds itself tucked away in a valley between the impressive rocky peaks of the Bernese mountains of the Alps. It is often referred to the people who live here as the land of 72 waterfalls, and there are two with walking distance from the train station that will drop you off in this town.

Though these waterfalls are impressive to see, it is impossible to get close to them this time of the year because the paths leading up to them are closed down due to the dangers of winter weather. It does not mean that it is not a beautiful valley to take a hike through, and no matter which way I looked, there was always something to take a picture of. Many people come up here in throughout the year to enjoy the scenery, and to go biking, skiing, sledding, or paragliding. It is nature’s playground, and the sleepy town of Lauterbrunnen lives in harmony with this fact.

Tourism is basically the main industry out here, but that does not stop people from earning a living farming, ranching, and making homemade cheeses and sausages. The local brands are always for sale in the grocery stores, but there are many farm fronts that will sell these delicacies as well. My favorite was the farm house that had a vending machine in front of its house with hunks of cheese and sausage available along with tiny bottles of homemade wine.

Overall, it is a beautiful part of the world, and I am happy to have landed here for the last part of my Winter Break. Lauterbrunnen is in the center of a bunch of small mountains towns that all hold their own special charm which I am going to be able to explore over the next few days, and I am excited to see each and every one of them.