{"id":356,"date":"2012-10-20T09:35:05","date_gmt":"2012-10-20T07:35:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/joncu.roguenet.org\/swissblog\/?p=356"},"modified":"2021-09-21T22:48:36","modified_gmt":"2021-09-21T22:48:36","slug":"smell-the-roses-zurichsee","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jmcw.blog\/swissblog\/2012\/10\/20\/smell-the-roses-zurichsee\/","title":{"rendered":"Smell the Roses – Zurichsee"},"content":{"rendered":"

Another one-day holiday:\u00a0 Jon had rehearsal on Sunday, so we had only Saturday for touring.\u00a0 Jon\u2019s request:\u00a0 once around the lake, any lake.<\/p>\n

Lake Neuchatel\u2014did it, Bodensee\u2014did it.\u00a0 Lake Geneva\u2014too big.\u00a0\u00a0 Lake Zurich or Lake Lucerne or Lake Zug\u2014all possible.\u00a0 Further research turned up Rapperswil on Lake Zurich is the \u201cCity of Roses\u201d, which bloom into October.\u00a0 Decision:\u00a0 Get there before they\u2019re all gone.\u00a0 And we did.<\/p>\n

On the train to Zurich we met a wonderful couple:\u00a0 Pieter and Anna.\u00a0 Both are teachers:\u00a0 he of German, she of music.\u00a0 Great conversation, very open.\u00a0 They told me from their time in America (lived there for 9 months) that Americans generally are helpful:\u00a0 when asking directions or just looking a little lost, people often went out of their way to help.\u00a0 I have always felt \u201chelpful\u201d, it seems natural to me to offer to help people and I enjoy it when I can, but I hadn\u2019t thought of it as an American trait.\u00a0 They consider it a good thing.\u00a0 While in general I agree, I couldn\u2019t help thinking Americans go a little far, sticking ourselves in before we understand what\u2019s going on.<\/p>\n

Our bike route quickly left the city and headed into countryside, taking us up high onto a ridge.\u00a0 We had hoped for views of the lake, but fog covered the water, so we looked out on a field of white puffs.<\/p>\n

\"Swiss<\/a>

Pause at the top. Benches are common at view points in Switzerland. Here the fog is clearing and we begin to see Lake Zurich.<\/p><\/div>\n

After conquering miles of uphill, we were\u00a0nearly flew\u00a0back down to the lake on steep roads.\u00a0 Then we crossed the land bridge into Rapperswil.<\/p>\n

\"Rapperswil\"<\/a>

Land Bridge into Rapperswil<\/p><\/div>\n

\"Rapperswil<\/a>

As usual Jon and the bike get attention from the ladies.<\/p><\/div>\n

\"Rapperswil<\/a>

Best way to access a playground: hillside slide.<\/p><\/div>\n

One of the rose gardens in Rapperswil is specially planted for the blind, with varieties that are strongly scented.\u00a0 Although it\u2019s getting cold here, many of the roses were still blooming and we went sniffing from rose to rose .<\/p>\n

\"Rapperswil<\/a>

There are 15,000 rose bushes in Rapperswil. Here the garden for the blind, specially fragrant and identified in Braille.<\/p><\/div>\n

By the time we had seen the castle (exterior only) and the church (also exterior only, as a wedding was in progress) and smelled all the roses, we were 5 hours into our day and worried that we might not make it back to Zurich before dark so we headed out.<\/p>\n

\"Rapperswil<\/a>

Rapperswil Castle<\/p><\/div>\n

\"Rapperswil<\/a>

Castle courtyard<\/p><\/div>\n

Missing a turn at one point brought us onto a two-lane highway instead of the signed route.\u00a0 But there was a bike lane, it was wonderfully flat, and there were few stoplights, so we took it all the way back to Zurich.\u00a0 Such a change from the morning!\u00a0 We zoomed along at 25+ kph.\u00a0 Made it back with time to dawdle in Zurich, which meant apple strudel with vanilla sauce eaten lakeside.\u00a0 Train home, fell asleep on the couch.\u00a0 AAAHHH!<\/p>\n

\"Lake<\/a>

Another view bench, here beside Lake Zurich.<\/p><\/div>\n

\"Lake<\/a>

Apple streudel by Lake Zurich<\/p><\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Another one-day holiday:\u00a0 Jon had rehearsal on Sunday, so we had only Saturday for touring.\u00a0 Jon\u2019s request:\u00a0 once around the lake, any lake. Lake Neuchatel\u2014did it, Bodensee\u2014did it.\u00a0 Lake Geneva\u2014too big.\u00a0\u00a0 Lake Zurich or Lake Lucerne or Lake Zug\u2014all possible.\u00a0 … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-356","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-switzerland"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jmcw.blog\/swissblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/356","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jmcw.blog\/swissblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jmcw.blog\/swissblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jmcw.blog\/swissblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jmcw.blog\/swissblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=356"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.jmcw.blog\/swissblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/356\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1505,"href":"https:\/\/www.jmcw.blog\/swissblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/356\/revisions\/1505"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jmcw.blog\/swissblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=356"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jmcw.blog\/swissblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=356"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jmcw.blog\/swissblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=356"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}