Zurich - Trip to Appenzell

Appenzell - Main Street

Another day was taken up visiting Appenzell, often called Heidiland by the tourist industry. It was quite an expensive train fare (if you don’t have half tax, the card that gets you half-price rail fares for a year).

I didn’t know much about Appenzell before I went other than it had a pedestrian centre and the houses were all traditional Swiss chalets. On arrival, it already felt quite rural because we had to cross the rail tracks, whereas before we’d seen and talked about all the signs you usually see warning you always to use the underpass and not to cross the tracks.

Our journey, and around Appenzell itself, was very pretty with scenery replete with rolling hills that looked so green and smooth in the autumn light that they could have been fake. Given that it had been stressed to me that Appenzell was pedestrian, there were more cars than I was expecting. Although the main street was indeed closed to vehicles, traffic flowed either side of it, so it didn’t seem any less open to traffic than many other towns.

Nevertheless, the town centre was worth seeing. The chalet-type buildings for the shops were huge. We looked round the church and from there saw a little picnic table and chairs by the river, which seemed like a nice spot to have lunch if you had something with you. But, as we gazed out, the chair reared up on its back two legs and spurted water into the river from the front two! Just as well we didn’t sit ourselves down there. This repeated every ten minutes or so – it was equally fun to watch other tourists gasping when they saw it for the first time. Appenzell also had something that looked like the top of a pothole where you could stand and it would turn round very slowly so that you could eventually get a 360 degree view. It was in the middle of the road and not in the pedestrianised bit, so it felt a bit risky!

We stopped for a bite to eat and found a bakery selling yesterday’s “fresh” cakes for half price. I can’t resist a bargain (or a cake, come to that). So, we sat outside to look at the menu. The waitress came up and asked if we were ready to order, so I asked if it was possible to reserve two cakes before they sold. However, I wasn’t entirely sure she’d understood, as she asked us to order. We ordered, and I said again that I’d like a cake. She didn’t ask me what cake I wanted, so I explained again that we wanted one of the half-price ones. She gave me a quizzical look and said “cake is very important to you, isn’t it?”

We laughed and by this time I was too embarrassed to ask again about reserving a cake, but fortunately she volunteered the idea that we look at them and set aside the ones we wanted. When it came to the time to have the cakes, she brought them with a big flourish of “Ta da! Here are the cakes!”

Meanwhile, a man walked past with a monster dog, causing many people to stop and chat to him. I’ve seen a few people recently with remarkable dogs and they always get accosted by onlookers. If you want to gain attention, it’s a good method. It must be difficult for the owners to ever get anywhere, though. It’s like in Egypt, only in Egypt, you don’t need a dog; you just can’t go anywhere for people asking you to come in for a cup of tea.

After our cakes, we went for a walk along the river that had been recommended by Tourist Information. It started off badly as we had the map upside down and so we walked in the wrong direction and up towards a busy road. Eventually, we managed to get on the path, but we decided to deviate as the scenery looked more interesting up the hill. There was the occasional chalet dotted about here and there and we stopped for some time to watch the red squirrels (only they looked black) playing in the trees. As we progressed, we weren’t too sure where we were, so we strode across a field where we could see the railway line and then the town on the other side. On arriving at the other side, we were confronted by a notice to the entrance of the field saying “no entry”. Whoops.

After that, we walked a little way up the other side of the river, visited the small chapel, and then ate in Appenzell in a bar/restaurant in a small, leafy courtyard. And we got home with no further incident.