Spa day

Fri 1 September

Another wet day, as forecast.

After breakfast we headed off in Gilbert's nice Audi to the Victorinox factory in the town of Ibach, in the nearby canton of Schwyz; the boys were after Swiss Army knives and were not disappointed. The assistants were low-pressure and very helpful and both MFs were very happy with their purchases.

We made a detour to Gnadenkapelle in the same canton; this is the Benedictine monastery of Einsiedeln, which is a major station on the Way of St. James (Jakobsweg it is called here) and the destination of many pilgrims. It is a magnificent Baroque monastery with a chapel of the Black Madonna. Amazing!

There is a specialty here for pilgrims called Schafböcke which Gilbert bought some for us to try. This is a biscuit made from a batter consisting of honey, spices and eggs. They were quite nice.

Also the stable of the Abbey (built 1764 - 1767) is considered the home of the oldest horse breed in Europe. The Einsiedeln horses were once held in great esteem all over Europe. In Italy they were known as Cavalli della Madonna.

We drove on through lovely rural countryside and towns. Certainly every shade of green here! Towards the end of Lake Zurich, we are not far from the source of the Rhine river. We pass the Lindt factory. Then through a series of long tunnels - but not long by Swiss standards!! The rain actually stopped and the valley had steep slopes with waterfalls everywhere pounding down the rocks.

We reach the Grand Hotel Hof Bad Ragaz which has a famous thermal spa that has been going since the Middle Ages in 1242. We had a wonderful couple of hours here and MF2 really impressed when he did the dipping from the 17 deg C pool (which I frankly found impossibly cold - surely it was colder than that??!!) and then into the 39 deg C pool. There were several other pools, some inside some out and all with different features. We had a lovely time.

Drove back (Gilbert and MF2 had fun picking out Tesla cars along the way) and after a break we enjoyed a yummy fish dinner and yummy chocolate kuchen (cake) with Sabine, Gilbert and Elodie.