Appenzell and the Alpstein Massif (Eastern Switzerland)

August 6, 2018 -- Vacation Week Day 3: Our day in the Appenzell area of eastern Switzerland started the night before as we came this way after our hike at the Klausen Pass, and spent the night at Urs' brother's home, which is an old historical building under heritage protection. Back in the day when travel was done on horseback, this house was the local hostel, where the horses spent the night on the lower stable level, and the upper levels were the sleeping quarters. In the meantime it has been nicely renovated on the inside (including moving the floors down as the ceilings used to be very low), but no changes are permitted on the outside of the house.

Early the next morning, after a 20-minute train ride to Wasserauen, we started this day's hike in the Alpstein Massif, an unusual outcropping of the eastern Alps with Mount Säntis as its highest peak at 2500m, which is not very high, and turns out we didn't start early enough, as it was a very very hot hike. Also, there were way more people here than expected on a Monday, but it is a very popular area. Especially popular is the little restaurant/hotel called Wildkirchli, which is built directly into the cliff wall, and has received worldwide attention through travel blogs and magazines such as National Geographic and Huffington Post.

Usually we try to avoid tourist places, but we thought this would be an interesting one to show our guest.

What most people hike when they come here is up to the Seealpsee lake, then further up along a cliff trail to the restaurant, a total of 800 uphill meters, but it was way too hot for that so we did a different tour starting with the Ebenalp cable-way, and walking to a different hotel-restaurant called Schäfler, which is perched high atop one of the ridges with spectacular 360 deg. views, and a welcome place to stop for a drink. (Also only a 300m climb). From here we looped back around below the cliffs to reach the Wildkirchli restaurant for a lunch of their famous Rösti (fancy hash browns).

Other highlights of this hike, though very hot, were of course the cows and goats and sheep, the young man selling milkshakes next to his family's mountain dairy, a prehistoric bear cave, and watching the paragliders jump off the mountain.

This was also a trip to try out all kinds of local specialties, from Appenzeller beers and panachés with lemon, to the locally-produced Elderberry drink called Flauder, to Appenzeller cheeses and Rostis. The day ended with a tour of the small town of Appenzell with its colourful painted houses and large community square where even to this day all citizens gather to take a show of hands when they vote (no secret ballots here!). Oh, and icecream sundaes...

Traveling with the Appenzell Railway through Canton Appenzell

After a long hike in Canton Uri, a dip in the local swimming hole was very welcome (near Appenzell)

This is the little historical house (previously a stopover for travelers and horses), i.e. my brother-in-law's home where we spent the night.

A short 20-minute train ride from Appenzell takes us to Wasserauen and the Ebenalp Cableway. Our hike is between those two arrows.

From Wasserauen to Ebenalp with the cable-way. The Edelweiss are in a special garden near the Ebenalp hotel, where they have samples of all our national mountain flowers.

Our destination: Schäfler Hotel, 300 altitude meters. In the background is the observatory / weather station on Mount Säntis, the highest peak in the Alpstein Massif.

A glimpse of the Seealpsee below.

We were pleasantly amused by this little businessman selling milkshakes made from their own fresh cow's or goat's milk. We like to support these initiatives, and purchased a glassful.

VIDEO:
Our little milkshake seller is preparing a coffee milkshake for us!

The mountain farm whose owners tend the cows who provide the milk for the little milkshake stand.

It was a very hot climb in this beautiful karst landscape

Even with the heat, it's a beautiful view from up here.

With this extended heat, water is running low in these mountain hotels and restaurants. Staff told us that there were no more showers allowed, they have to transport the laundry off the mountain for washing, and they don't want you to fill your water bottles from their taps. They are dependent on rainwater and a 90 m3 reservoir that was only half full.

So glad to be able to stop here for something to drink! In this case, a large bottle of the locally-produced Elderberry drink called Flauder. All the drinks are brought up by special cargo cablecars.

The Alpstein Massif as seen from Hotel Schäfler. Interesting note: The hotel is quite exposed up here and when strong winds blow, you can feel the house move.

Looking toward Mount Säntis. On the left is a small collection of houses and a hostel where we overnighted a few years ago after walking up from the lake and crossing the vertical ridge to the right.

Perhaps these are the milkshake cows!

Animals at high elevations

On the way back we returned below the cliffs

Ultimate goal of this hike was to visit the world-renowned Ascher-Wildkirchli Restaurant. One used to be able to overnight here, but the demand has become so high that the owners now restrict their efforts to the restaurant.

We were lucky to have gotten a place to sit inside for lunch. It was very full on this Monday.

Appenzeller specialties we tried: Rösti and Beer/Lemon Panachés at the Wildkirchli Restaurant, Flauder at the Schäfler Restaurant, and Appenzell Beer at our host's the night before.

To get back to the cable-car station is another 20 minutes to walk along the cliff.

In this cave they found remains of prehistoric cave bears and indication (stone-age tools) that prehistoric hunters also lodged here 40,000 years ago.

Pastoral Appenzell landscape below. We headed down by cable-car as well, because we wanted more time to visit the town of Appenzell

This was a "short" hike for us, but seemed long due to the heat and large number of people. Plus we still wanted to visit the town of Appenzell nearby before heading back home.