Sacro Monte di Orta

The hilltop between the campsite and the town of Orta is a wooded park that looks down over the lake giving lovely views in all directions. This shot of the island in the lake is a good example.

The most impressive and unusual feature of this park is the collection of 20 temples it contains, each different in shape and size, built during a period of 90 years from the mid 17th century. They are beautifully and ornately constructed, as the photo of one shows.

The temples are dedicated to the life of St Francis, and each temple depicts a different scene from his life. This is the amazing part: these scenes are shown in wall and ceiling illustrations, and also life-size painted terracotta models, literally hundreds of them in total. UNESCO recognised the park’s unique quality 7 years ago by granting it World Heritage Status. The next photo shows a scene where St Francis is meeting the King. Observe that each model is individually cast, and has lifelike expression and movement as well as a superbly detailed painted finish.

Example 2 below, from another temple, even surpasses this with full-size horses and a man climbing a pole. St Francis is just around the corner being persecuted. It’s so realistic that you want to shout and put some backbone into St Francis: “Don’t put up with it, Frankie, hit him back!” Unfortunately, some of the paint has peeled to reveal the terracotta, but that’s still not bad after 350ish years in a damp atmosphere.

The Italian Lakes

Last Thursday we left Interlaken and arrived at Lake Orta in Italy, near the town of Orta. Never heard of it? We hadn’t, either: it’s one of the beautiful smaller lakes near Lake Maggiore. We have a pitch right on the lakeside with a lovely view. The only downside is that the caravan portaloo nearly rolled itself into the lake, just about where Jane is sitting. Fortunately I grabbed it. Imagine having to hire a fisherman to trawl it out from the depths, assuming you could explain in Italian the equivalent of…”yes, that’s right, mate, it’s me bog. It’s down there somewhere…”

The town of Orta is a gem. It’s right on the lake and is full of old buildings, so inevitably attracts the tourists but it’s not gone tacky. Notice a few big coats, as the weather was changeable.

While we were in the square at Orta, a wedding party appeared and boarded the tourist transport back to one of the posh hotels on the edge of town. Puts a totally new meaning on: “did you see the bride’s train?”

We also came across a small courtyard dedicated to Padre Pio. He was sanctified by the Vatican in 2003, having led an austere life and had miracles attributed to him. He wasn’t a local lad, and the reason for the courtyard being full of Padre Pio tribute items was that a miracle was claimed to have occurred in the very house attached to the courtyard. An image of Padre Pio revealed itself in the peeling paintwork of a blank upper floor recess, with a photo as evidence. Below is my photo of the same peeling paintwork. You need to be focused on the area on the right of the window, and then decide where he is, like one of those puzzle pictures you did as a child.

Monday 27th: The Capital, Bern

The 26 cantons that make up the Swiss Confederation each has its own parliament, constitution and courts, so there is a great deal of regional autonomy. Over the top of this is the Federal Council and Parliament that is based in Bern, making it the federal capital. Bern is less than an hour by train from Interlaken and has World Heritage status because its centre is so well preserved, so it seemed a natural for a day out on the rover tickets. Picture 1 below is one of these elegant old streets, all arcaded, in fact the most arcaded city in the world.

It also must also be the fast lunch capital of Switzerland. See the guy scoffing a roll, bottom right hand corner, well practically every part of the arcades in this street had a fast-food stall or shop. Hundreds of folks were buying lunch and eating it in the street either standing up or sat on the step-up from the road to the arcades.
At the end of the street is the Zytglogge or clock tower, with mechanical figures performing on the hour. The original clock tower was made in 1218, of wood, but burnt down in 1405 and was replaced with the present one in stone. The wooden version was also a prison for a time for prostitutes that made a living servicing the clergy.

Bern’s emblem is the bear, and the statue shows a knight with a small bear at his feet holding a gun. As interesting as it may be to speculate on what the bear is intending to shoot, it has to be admitted that one’s eyes are drawn to the knight- they don’t make cod-pieces like that these days!

They take their bears seriously, and have made a bear park next to the remains of the old bear-bating pits by the river. There’s even a section of the river for the bears to swim in, so the wealthy with riverside gardens must have to occasionally contend with a bear lumbering up the lawn. This is also a pretty part of the town as the photo shows, the bridge being one of the oldest in the country. It is now a des res area but was formerly a self-contained district of craftsmen and dockworkers with their own language incomprehensible to other Bernese.

The last, rather austere, photo is of the HQ of the Swiss National Bank. It stands next to the Parliament building and symbolises the wealth of the Swiss nation created by the diligence of its inhabitants. This is the somewhat smug official Swiss picture. But there is another story: vast sums were made during the last war. For example, the Bank was buying Nazi gold right up to the very end knowing full well that these transactions were prolonging the misery of the war and that the gold was stolen, some of it in the most unimaginably awful ways.

Thursday 23rd: A Walk in the Alps

Some campers on the site recommended this walk: an easy path with incredible views. We needed to start from a point 2,200 metres up that meant first a train, and then the cable car seen here in the photo. All included in our rover ticket, thankfully, as just this cable car, one-way, would have cost us £15 each.

It’s cooler at the top, but not cold, and we set off in bright sunshine on a well-surfaced path. The photo shows Jane rarin’ to go set against the backdrop of a huge vista.

It’s like walking at the top of the world, and we start looking for a handy rock to sit on to eat our sandwiches and enjoy the view. It must be that all other walkers have the same thoughts at this precise point because we come across the following notice written, as are all the best notices abroad, in quaint English.

Lunch being finished, and the debris suitably deposed in our dust-pan, we continued on the path that gradually rounded a headland of rock to lead into a south-facing valley. Here there were many more alpine plants in the rock crevices, and mixtures of heather and an unidentified red-leafed shrub covering most of the open ground, looking like a Scottish glen. The next two pictures are examples.


There’s been something of a problem taking the big mountain views on this holiday. The Eiger, Mönch and Jungfrau peaks dominate the scenery. You take them from all angles, distances and weather and light combinations. Yes, they are fantastic, but soon you realise that you’ve got far too many snaps of them, and none of them is as good as the professional photos in books, brochures and on the net. People are fed up with seeing them, anyway. After all that, would you believe it, I’ve included one last one of the north face of the Eiger! It just looks as if I’m about to climb it, alpenstock in hand, and be back in time for tea. We caught the mountain train down shortly after.

Tuesday: The Top Station

I imagine almost everyone who visits this area takes this trip, to the highest station in Europe. It was conceived by a Swiss industrialist on an Alpine hike in 1893, and was completed in 1912. His idea was to extend the existing railway from Kleine Scheidegg, at 2,000 metres, to the top of the Jungfrau, at 4,158 metres, by tunnelling into the Eiger and diagonally upwards and across to reach the Jungfrau summit. It turned out to be a project beset by geological and financial problems, so they stopped short of the target, having reached 3,454 metres. Still pretty remarkable! This poor reproduction will perhaps give you some idea of the tunnel’s route.It's the dotted red line.

The train stops in the tunnel twice on the ascent so that passengers can walk through galleries to observation windows set in the side of the mountain. These galleries have access doors onto the mountain itself from which climbers have been rescued. This is the view from the Eigerwand stop (see fuzzy plan above) There’s not much of the Eiger in view other than a strip of rock on the right because it’s a vertical cliff.

So here we are at the top, with Jane in front of the longest glacier in Europe being supported by a pole shoved up the back of her jacket. It was very slippery and cold, but the scenery was superb. It’s possible to see France, Germany and Italy in clear weather- which we had- so we’re claiming all three.

How do they survive in this temperature? A colony of alpine choughs lives at the top, cleverly scrounging tit-bits from the tourists. We unfortunately had eaten our sandwiches by this time, so one of them crapped on Jane’s hat: just remember to save some next time.

They can’t resist a bit of Disney: an Ice Palace, full of chambers and ice carvings. This is a pair of eagles, the best of the bunch, the others being, predictably, polar bears and penguins, some of which appeared to have been done over by vandals with a blowlamp.

In summary, it was a brilliant day out with the incredible views as the crowning glory.

Saturday 19th: Boat Trip

Before coming to Switzerland we had bought a bargain rover ticket covering bus, train and boat, so even though the clouds were low and the light gloomy we decided to go for it- a boat trip, that is. Interlaken is between two lakes (hence the name Interlaken, I guess), so we took the boat plying the bigger lake to the town of Thun at the far end, about 15 miles from Interlaken. Thun’s history goes back to pre-Roman times and following the Roman occupation in 58BC was an important administrative centre. The castle dates from 1190, and is shown in the photo with other ancient and picturesque buildings.

The boat zigzags across the lake, calling in at most towns and villages on the banks. It’s obviously prime dwelling location and few detached houses anywhere in the area seem to be up for sale for less than £1,000,000, so it’s certain that none of the lakeside houses here would go for less than £2 million

The lake itself is very pretty with small, partly wooded mountains sloping steeply down to the shore, with the high peaks in the background (when you can see them!). Also, the odd waterfall, or what we assumed to be a waterfall rather than the combined effluent stream from the houses on the cliff.

The shipping services started on lake Thun in 1835 with the SS Bellevue operated by an enterprising hotelier. This is the boat in question: a more interesting picture than one of the modern, much larger boat we travelled in.

Wednesday 16th: Schynige Platte

This was a journey by rack and pinion railway, starting from just outside Interlaken, to a plateau 6,500 feet up. The little train is shown in the distance chugging away amidst lovely scenery, looking down towards Interlaken. Our campsite is on the far side of the town not far from the lake.

The plateau is pretty bleak, but is the starting point for many mountain trails. There are farm buildings even at this elevation, and we opened a gate for an old farmer patrolling in his ancient truck. He stopped the truck and shook hands with us, then rumbled off in the truck singing and yodelling at the top of his voice! First hand experience that they really do yodel.


There is also a huge alpine garden laid out on a rocky prominence, but as we’re nearing autumn there wasn’t much life in it. The few plants that were performing were bright and fresh in colour, and an indication of what the garden must be like in spring.

The big views from up here are of the high peaks, and in particular the north face of the Eiger. This is the forbidding photo below: the face is 5,900 feet sheer. Just before we came away we watched a TV programme about the severe challenges the climb presents and how 64 climbers have died since the first ascent in 1938. Chris Bonnington featured prominently, and recounted stories of the extreme difficulties climbers face. It usually involves at least one night on the mountain - there’s even a ledge named “death bivouac”. Bonnington himself climbed it in 1962.
However, right at the end of the programme, we saw speed climber Ueli Steck who scaled the face in 2hrs 47 minutes in 2008! However even-handed traditional climbers like Bonninton are, they must be pig sick that their death-defying exploits lasting for days on the mountain are almost rubbished by some fitness nut tearing up the face in 2¾ hours!