Foreign Parts
Simplon to Strasbourg

Foreign Parts.

From the Foot of the Simplon, down the Rhône Valley to Geneva, along the Geneva and Neuenburg Lakes, through the Jura Mountains, to Basel (Switzerland) and down the Rhine, across the Black Forrest and the Vagesr Mountains, to Strassburg on Bicycles.

By H. and F. Rieck.

From the eternal snow and ice-capped heights of the Simplon Pass, from the Hospice of the good Bernhardine Monks, downwards to the town Brig, on the Upper Rhone River, we whirled on our bikes, as we described in our last letter, in a remarkably short time, and when we now remember the immense height of 7000 feet we came down on sometimes rather steep roads, it makes us shudder. In Brig we met three gentlemen from Munich, also members of the same Bike Club as ourselves. They crossed the Alps by another Pass (the Furca Pass), and, like us, were full of glorious experiences in the Alpine regions, which laid now behind us.

Down the beautiful valley of the Upper Rhone River, after a hearty meal, we all five started, but in the first village on the road to the town of Martinau (French Martigug), in the little village of Visp, our three companions had to stay to get one of their wheels mended by the local locksmith. Triumphantly we two wheeled along; but, after about 10 miles ride, Mrs. R’s. wheel got a puncture, and as also the sky looked like rain, we pulled up at a charmingly situated small mountain village, called Romanul. In spite of this Romish sounding name, the inhabitants are German-speaking good Switzer people, and we were in the very rustic but utmost clean inn, treated as if we were at home.

When we, on the next morning, stepped with our mended wheels to the main road, we perceived three fresh wheel tracks, and knew that our three Munich companions were ahead of us again.

The following day brought us lovely weather, and we passed on a middling road, gently slooping towards west, through a valley along the wild rushing Rhone, of a loveliness scarcely met with. The scenery is not unlike that of the Rhine between Mainz and Coblenz, but the climate and vegetation is—like the character of the population and the taste of the wine—more of a southern tinge. We passed the town of Sion, which is renowned for its beautiful situation, between wine and fruit clad and castle and cloister ruin-topped hills.

Shortly before reaching the town of Martinau, the pneumatic of one of our wheels got cut again on the sharp gravel of the miserable Switzer roads, and when we, walking, wheels in hand, made our entry into the streets of this fine little town, we found our three club mates just sitting under the verandah of a handy inn, after also finishing their wheel repairs, and after a night’s stay, ready for a start.

These constant repairings of the pneumatic tyres speak for the miserable state the roads, even on flat lands, in Switzerland are in. This land and people, boasting in a peacock-fashion before the world with their old-style “William Tell” democracy, appear in many ways lately to lag far behind other European nations, upon whom they got accustomed to look down on.

Before reaching Geneva, skimming now along the south side of the grand Geneva Lake, and having towards the south in the pure atmosphere the eminence of the ice-crowned Alpine heights, we passed through 80 kilometers of French territory, bordering here the lake: the department of Upper Savoy. Staying here at a place called Dauvaine for dinner, we were surprised to notice that the people drank nothing but spirits of a green colour, called absinthe, mixed with water and sugar, while they have such good pure wine close by growing in abundance. On inquiry, we were told that in olden times of “glory,” at the time of the first Bonaparte, the French people drank their own good wine and no distilled liquor; but since the French nation fell into the habit of drinking the enervating absinthe, cognac, and other strong alcoholic drinks, this nation went down.

On our arrival at the city of Geneva we found many temperance institutions hard at work against the intrigues of rich millionaires (distillers, publicans, etc.) in the Gov-ment of republican Switzerland. There are a great many cheap and good restaurants, created by these well-meaning temperance societies, where no alcoholic drinks are served, but splendid tea and coffee sold for 10 cents (100 cents=1 franc=8d Engl.). We patronized such a pretty, clean, decent place, and we were astonished to find how cheap and good people can live in this, for its high beauty, healthfulness and superior institutions, world-renowned city of Geneva. We lived in Geneva for one week, and have not stayed much at home by daytime, as the weather was fine, and in town and country so much for us to admire that we always started very early in the morning and arrived home late at supper time, climbing up very tired the many stairs leading to our rooms in the fifth storey of the Rue de la Croix D’or.

Geneva is really one of the most beautiful, if not the most beautiful, of the Queen Cities of Europe, and perhaps the whole world. It is situated in a fine healthy climate, on a lovely large lake, in view of the chain of the majestic Alps. The Rhone river runs here through the lake into France. The view is of an undescribable charm when the moon shines over the lake above the white caps of Mt. Blanc, which winks in enormous distance far above the other grim horns, glaciers, and the green forest covered hills close by; and when the heavenly lights serenely look down upon the crowds of gay people promenading along the broad boulevards on the lake under the glare of thousands of gas and electric lamps, listening to the concerts from the verandahs and balconies of the many princely hotels on both sides of the lake.

The lake and river are brilliant with little boats and gondolas, ornamented by Chinese lanterns, flowers and streamers; and small passenger gondolas, driven by electricity, rush like lightning in every direction.

On the eastern side of the lake and the northern side of the lower Rhone River runs along the most magnificent hotels, a very broad promenade called Quay de Mont Blanc. Here is situated a strange monument, erected in an utmost gaudy style by the democratic town of Geneva in honour of a late Duke of Brunswick, an aristocrat without valour and without dignity, who bequeathed his many millions, reaped in the Dukedom of Brunswick, to the already rich town treasury of Geneva.

Far out, along this side of the lake, is a lovely shady public garden, called Mon Repos; and further on through a park, where are many kinds of pretty deer, roes and antelopes, and on an eminence, is situated a museum, which is open at certain hours for the public. In front of this museum is a big very curiously ornamented ancient and Chinese bell, full of strange inscriptions and ornaments.

The river Rhone, as it runs very broad out of the lake towards France, is in Geneva covered by seven splendid bridges, and along the river on both sides are broad streets and boulevards. One of these bridges is connected with the Rousseau Island, whereon is the monument of this celebrated French sage, amongst seats for the public, under splendid old green trees. The Ethnologic and Zoologic Museum of Geneva is without doubt the best kept and most complete of the whole world, and a great treasure for students of these branches. Also the picture gallery, called Musée Rath, near the University, is remarkably fine.

The language in and around Geneva is all French; only a few of the shops and restaurants have placarded up: “English spoken here,” and “Man spricht Deutsch.” The French accent in the town (the country people speak German) is soft and with a certain high and tender flourish at the end of sentences, similar to the style of English spoken by the better classes of coloured people in Ceylon, and sounds very melodious in a singing-like intonation.

All our tours in and about towns we make walking and leave our machines at home in our furnished rooms; but our journeys we do only on bikes, never using the railways, etc. On the 21st of June, our week in Geneva being at an end, we set out on that day after dinner, and reached Lausanne at 8 o’clock p.m., doing a distance of 62 miles, of which the last two were very steep up hill, so that we had to walk and push our wheels.

Lausanne is situated very high, and ought to be a place very agreeable to live in, as the air and water are very pure, and the people friendly, jolly and decent. We went over the market, where abundance of all possible products are brought by the producers, and bought direct by the consumers. Even the most dignified looking people—ladies and gentlemen, young and old—we saw bartering, purchasing, and carrying about fish, fowls, vegetables, etc., quite sans gene. Also, clothes, boots, etc., are sold by the tradesmen on the markets at very reasonable prices; also fruit, especially cherries, are plentiful and cheap, the latter 10 to 15 cents per lb.; same for strawberries.

We started after dinner next day for Basel, but had ridden about 10 minutes when we had two punctures in our pneumatic tyres on these horrible Swiss roads. After mending them there on the open roadside, we got as far as Yverdon, on the Neuenburg Lake, a fine little town renowned by the great pedagogue Pestalozzi, who lived and worked there, and whose splendid monument is to be seen on the main square at Yverdon. Here we took refreshments, and had then a splendid run all along the Neuenburg lake. The panorama of the Switzer Alps has now vanished out of sight entirely, but towards the west slope down gently into fine level country the green heights of the Jura Mountain from the near French boundary. We passed through the wide modern streets of the town of Neuenburg, after running through lovely, shady, majestic oak and beach forests. In Neuenburg (French Neufchatel) in a grand public park a brass band played, and, as it was Sunday, an elegant crowd was moving about. So we jumped off our wheels, had a rest, drink and lunch, and enjoyed the music also.

After dinner we reached the town of Biel, and had then a very stiff climb through a beautiful gorge in the Jura Mountains. There was a regular pass to climb up to a considerable height, along rushing streams and through wet tunnels. Hereabouts are numerous watch factories (Geneva watches), the works being driven by waterfalls or power. We reached, at a great height, the village of Sonzeboz, where we stayed for the night.

Next day (Monday) we had 98 miles to go to reach the big Switzer town Basel. It had rained heavily during the night, but after a stiff climb of 6 or 8 miles we had such a sharp decline before us that at 4 o’clock we found ourselves 9 miles from Basel, and as it began to rain again heavily we stayed for the night at the village of Aesch, close to a grand old ruined tower, an interesting relic of the middle ages, swarming with rooks. Early on the following morning we reached Basel, where we took quarters again for a week.

The fine old Swiss town of Basle is situated on the Upper Rhine River, and close to the German as well as to the French boundary. Therefore both languages are spoken here, but the German is prevalent, also spoken in an almost unintelligible accent. The French here is also a strange patois. Life here is very busy; there are many manufactories. The surrounding country district (being quite flat and utmost fertile) is very productive; and as just at the time of our presence a great national festivity was in preparation, all the streets and public places were thickly swarming with humanity. The inhabitants of the town of Basle were going to celebrate the 400 years anniversary of this then free and fortified town joining the confederation of Switzerland.

The principal event is to be a grand procession of all natives of this town, in costumes exactly as worn 400 years ago, with special songs and music. All born Baslers will partake, some on horseback, in decorated carriages, and on foot. There will be knights; lauzknechts with spears, crossbows, two-handed swords, antique arquebusses; men in steel helmets and iron armours out of the museum; there will be robbers, hangmen, judges, councillors, grand dames, and trade, market and farmer men and women of all ages in correct costumes of the 15th and 16th century. Also pages and steet urchins, maidens with and without dolls, all clad in the different colours of the rainbow, especially the young men in tight trousers of different gay colours, one leg black and the other yellow, and so on. The women and girls also are attired in many different ancient dresses, mostly very full over the hips, and with extremely different, often enormously high, head-dresses, and very full skirts. Boys and girls also ran about in wigs of long flaxen curls, and in many-coloured tight clothing. They all, young and old, male and female, were walking and running about the streets in this attire many days before the real possession, often times with savage sounding music and wild drum-beating; so that it appeared to us that the population of the town got tired of the whole expensive affair before the real day of the performance began. We left a few days before the great day came off, having had enough of it in the 12 days of our presence in this nevertheless very interesting ancient town.

On the day before our departure from Basle we by accident got in a quiet broad, lofty suburban street within a dense throng of foot passengers, which landed us in the wide park-like gardens of the celebrated Basler Mission House. We stood screwed in with a dense crowd of very earnest, respectable and dependent people of all classes, from Alsace, Baden, out of many cantons of Switzerland, as well as towns. It was a quiet Protestant meeting, and after divine service, conducted in a very impressive and eloquent way to this very numerous congregation under the open sky, a report was rendered about the mission work of this independent Swiss Christian Mission Institution of Basle. We stayed during the whole proceeding, and felt hearty sympathy with the endeavours of all these brave, noble-hearted and “entirely uninterested” free people.

On the market place of Basle a great new Town Hall is just finished. It is built in a very comical ancient style, which looks to us quite out of place and time to the very earnest, serious and busy life of the present day. The building is bright red, with scarlet, black green and bright yellow roof, gables and towers. The walls are painted outside with what looks to us like clowns, devils, and wonderful funny figures. The face of the clock shines out like the rising sun; and many carved figures are caricatures with outstretched tongues, like we saw some years ago on the Indian temples at Auaraduapura (Ceylon) out of a time about 4000 years ago.

Basle has also many highly beautiful buildings, bridges, monuments, and a museum full of very valuable and interesting antiquities, also a splendid zoological garden, and an abundance of fine ornamental pleasure gardens and public parks.

The greatest decoration of Basle is the beautiful, broad, swift-flowing Rhine River, and it is a pity that not all along its shores broad public roads and streets run, like along the Lower Rhone in Geneva. A narrow-minded, selfish, Philistine spirit of the Baslers has on many places blocked up the river frontages close to the river banks; and on the loveliest sites there is no public thoroughfare, private dwellings occupying the most charming views of river and opposite situated mountains of the Black Forest for the few, and squeezing the whole public back into narrow lanes.

We left Basle on the 15th July and went on the right (German) side of the Rhine, on a beautiful level broad main road, close along this noble river upwards to the jolly little town of Säckingen, where we had a magnificent liter of local grown wine with our dinner in an inn with a shady green arbour in front, called “Zum Trompeter von Säckingen.” In the best of spirits we ran farther along the rushing Rhine stream up to the ancient pretty town of Lauffenburg, where the landscape was very pretty. So we pushed on to Waldshut, which town has the sensible peculiarity to possess one long and extraordinary broad and well-paved street.

This stretch of country on the German side of the Rhine, sheltered on the north by the covered hills (with pine trees) of the Black Forest (Schwarzwald), grows a very fine wine, as it has a very mild climate. Life is here very much cheaper than in the lands of the other side of the Rhine, which is overrun by swarms of tourists. The roads for bikes are here very much better than in Switzerland, and the Schwarzwald people are civil, honest and upright.

From Waldshut we went straight up-hill into the Black Forest, the country, where, as many of our readers know, the celebrated Cuckoo-Clocks were made in olden times of wood-work, carved out by the Schwäbisch farmers in their homes at winter-time. This style of fabrication is at an end, although Cuckoo-Clocks are still manufactured in these countries in large factories driven by the water power of the mountain torrents, and are finished in a quite modern up-to-date style.

We had to leave here the young loud roaring Rhine River, and we went north from Waldshut to Neustadt and Freiburg (in Baden), and down in a north-westerly wide arch a long stretching decline, through a wild and rocky part of this mountain, in wide zig-zags, through a valley called Höllenthal down to a charmingly beautiful plain on the Rhine, called Himmebreich.

Soon we reached the ancient fortification of Beisadi, on the Rhine, which is very similarly situated to Bergamo in Italy. Here we crossed the river by a long pontoon bridge into Elsass (French Alsace), one of the old German lands, regained in the year 1870-71 by the German Empire from the French. The roads, like on the right side of the Rhine in Baden, were also here in a splendid state. There were not sharp pieces of metal carelessly and unrolled strewn about; but all was flat and smooth like a table, and wherever worn-away parts were renewed, the layers of fine metal were covered with sand and flattened down by heavy steam rollers, quite unlike to Switzerland, where rolling of roads seems only to be executed in towns. In the country, at least along the Upper Rhone, the rolling of the roughly scattered about metal is left to the farmer-waggons and other wheel people. We went to the town of Colmar, and thence up into the Vogese Mountains, situated between Germany and France, the top of the range, running from north to south, being the boundary between these two Empires.

The villages and small rustic towns of these lands Alsace and Lorraine, whose country population since hundreds of years speak the German language (only in big towns the French language is sometimes heard), are very prettily situated amongst forests, vineyards, orchards and splendid vegetable gardens behind green low fence-hedges, and the friendly population living here have, during the summer months, crowds of town-people from far and near for recreation, and the many large castle-like establishments, very expensively furnished, harbour numerous wealthy and sometimes fashionable guests. So is the grand place Kaizersberg (also Rappoldsweiler, Kestenholz, and many hitherto quiet unknown rustic places in the Alsatian Mountains) on the high road to become fashionable Kurorts, like Baden-Baden, Ems, etc. In fact, in some of these in French times unknown and rather unkempt peasant-home (for instance, Rappoldsweiler) speculative Germans have discovered in the mountains springs with waters of peculiar taste, said to contain microbes possessing healing propensities, and in consequence of these facts the places swarm with wealthy English, French, Russians, etc., with real and imaginary ailings, and truly these lovely mountain forests in manifold changing sceneries, sloping down towards the morning sun eastwards to the immensely fertile flats along the Rhine, are more fit for human kind to live in than the over-crowded large European towns.

That there is an enormous difference in the salubrity of the air in higher elevated mountain regions and that of low fertile river flats one need not travel from the North Coast of New South Wales to the border of the Rhine to find out. We have been able for a long time to compare the striking difference of the air in the mountains near Coff’s Harbour, near the ocean, covered with indigenous jungle and eucalyptus forest, with that portion of alluvial river flat where the “City of Grafton” is situated. Not to mention the fumes of a dusty ill-drained town community, we soon feel that the air in low flats is heavy, like a weighty burden to carry, while the atmosphere on mountains rests light upon humankind, and makes us all feel free and happy.

We also on our travels here felt again the great change in our temper, when we, gradually, wheeled the splendid broad even highway down to the Rhine River again—we went via Schlettstadt to Strasburg, to live a few weeks in this celebrated beautiful world-renowned old city. Soon after arrival here we made a very lucky hit again, and procured a very comfortable furnished room on the 20th July, 1901.