beekeepers | schwingeninswitzerland

Why drive to visit a brewery when you can hike there? We had visitors who were up for a little physical activity so we set off. We arrived at the Brasserie des Murailles after they had closed, but had a wonderful hike. You may notice that isn’t us. We had Mr. Rome and Ms. Barcelona with us. Although we’d never met them before picking them up at the train station, we (and all our friends) loved having them around.

We set off from the center of Geneva. The lakefront was beautiful. Once you turn away from the Lake Geneva, there is nowhere to go but up…literally. Whether on bike or on foot, anywhere you head from Geneva’s lakefront, you climb. It’s unavoidable. The good news is that it doesn’t last forever. Soon, we were higher, cooler and out of the city.

Switzerland is committed to remaining neutral. Only 1/3 of its land is cultivable. As a result, farms are subsidized and farmers act as stewards of the land. It also means that it is almost impossible to build on farmland in Switzerland, limiting urban sprawl. It doesn’t take long to get out of the city and into farmland.

Geneva’s mountains are astoundingly beautiful. It’s countryside is pretty all right too.

Although it isn’t as dramatic as the mountain scenery, there is always something interesting to see. We paused over vineyards, horses, beekeepers, to check out frogs in streams, to examine crops and check out the colza fields.

We loved that behind the fields and vineyards, the mountains were almost always visible. Depending on the direction, they were either the Alps with Mont Blanc, the Jura or Le Salève. Not too shabby.