Alpenpanoramaweg - Cryptocurrencies and the saving the World

Old hotels are like history books.

Even more than those in the big cities, it is the small country inns in whose rooms you smell the scent of times gone by. The wood is breathing, the floor is creaking, sometimes you might hear a groan in the walls as if little goblins were trapped inside.

The rooms have experienced many things, seen many things. Guests in transit, sales representatives, tourists, chauffeurs, at times sober or drunk, at times tired or mourning, partying or lonely, perhaps celebrating wedding nights or experiencing the aftermath of lavish parties.

The Rote Thurm (not a typo) in Signau meets precisely these ideas. There is neither TV nor a decent shower, but the WiFi is not surprisingly top-notch. The technical affinity of our Bitcoin fan seems to have played a role.

The walls, the cupboards, the floor, even the bed are made of wood, dark curtains are hanging over an old-fashioned window, as they used to be as standard. But I feel very comfortable right away and would never want to exchange it for the overpriced rooms on Lüdernalp.

The landlord and his family have moved out of his apartment to some of the hotel rooms due to Corona, but the reason for this is a mystery to me. He seems to be a pretty weird guy, someone you would hardly expect to find in a village like Signau.

But it all fits in, including his euphorically delivered eulogy about the future of cryptocurrencies (and thus about the fate of the world). And so I become the involuntary witness of family disputes and conversations in the wonderful singsong of the Bernese German.

 

 

Leaving the familiar world behind

At breakfast, the landlord once again bombards me with his hypotheses about Bitcoin, most of which I don't understand, and frankly, I don't want to understand. In any case, he hands me a business card with a promise to help me with cryptocurrencies if I ever feel the need.

So another goodbye, and like every morning, I leave something familiar behind.

Signau is not necessarily a place worth seeing, but it illustrates how Switzerland lives and works outside the big glamorous centers. Here, time seems to have a different rhythm, perhaps it sometimes stands still, pausing for a few days, weeks, years, until it picks up speed again and is amazed to notice that during these intervals the world has changed.

And yet these small sleepy villages have their own charm. Sometimes you miss the people, the life that has crept away unnoticed, because all of these places are suffering from emigration, and as a result wonderful old inns stand empty, closed for a long time, exuding their own kind of sadness for all that has been lost.

But that is the way of the world. The only constant is change, and it always prevails everywhere. The older you get, the more painful these changes become. You try to resist them, without success, of course, because that's also the way of the world, that the old always has to make room for the new. Even if it is sometimes painful.

 

Rather flat, rather simple

Originally I should be on the way from Moosegg over the Blasenfluh, but once again I'm a bit lost without my 3 signposts and don't really know what to expect today.

The indications in the guidebook are clear:

The villages get bigger, the hills rounder and lower, but the view remains. After a short ascent to the Blasenfluh, the continuation of the path is almost only a leisurely descent to the wide Aare valley near Münsingen.

You can see on the map where my alternative route passes through. Instead of the Blasenfluh, the route goes through Oberhofen and Zätziwil, a fairly flat and easy section until Grosshöchstetten, where I will rejoin the Panorama Trail.

Once again it takes a while to find the way, but who would have guessed that there is a magnificent hiking trail off the road here. If there's one thing you can rely on, it's the fact that contrary to what Google Maps says, which is often wrong, there are almost always hiking trails, even if they're not marked.

 

I have learned to love these flat broad paths in the meantime. You feel somehow weightless, it's like a long jog when the endorphin kicks in and you want to keep running forever.

The look turns left and right, the admiration remains, even if it is just ordinary hills, some of them wooded, others green and yellow. Farms with the typical roofs here are saluting from afar, they seem to have been there for centuries, and with luck they will outlast other ages.

And so I continue walking, as in the past two weeks, putting one foot in front of the other, my head full or empty, my thoughts jumping like wild monkeys from one topic to another, unorganized, unplanned. On the other hand, I would like to practice mindfulness, not thinking anything, just walking and nothing else.

As always, an almost unsolvable problem.

 

 

Encounters

It is hard to believe, but in Oberhofen a woman says hello to me, and indeed, it is one of the women with dog that I met yesterday along the river. We are almost old acquaintances, she asks how I am, I ask how she is, and then we part ways again, probably forever.

I follow the signposts leading me somewhere, just not where I want to go. The forest path becomes steeper, I finally realize that I have been fooled and turn back. How I miss my panorama signposts. Off the beaten path, you can't be sure that the direction is always the right one.

In Zäziwil (another one of those names), more by chance than anything else, I stumble upon a wonderful garden restaurant, old men with dogs (everyone seems to have one in this area) sitting relaxed at their table, laughing, smoking, discussing, I could listen to them for hours.

 

Tired and hungry

It has once again become oppressively hot, even my iron-hard resistance to heat seems to come to its limits. In Grosshöchstetten I meet my beloved Panorama signposts, from then on I follow the standard route again.

The flat paths are history, now it is up and down the hills again, forests bring some shade, thus providing some relief from the heat.

 

And then, on a not particularly steep climb, I feel what the Tour-de-France racers fear like the devil fears holy water - a tangible hunger attack.

Apparently I haven't eaten enough (probably also lost some weight), in any case my legs suddenly feel like rubber, I have to take a deep breath and sit down for a few minutes.

Or is it simply a message from my battered body that enough is enough? My heart rate monitor announces every single day that I've overexerted myself and that I must not make any further effort for at least three days. Which, of course, I couldn't care less about.

Fortunately, at the edge of the forest appears exactly what I need now, a bench with a view. The view is pretty irrelevant to me at the moment, the food content of my backpack interests me a lot more.

And whoops, after a few minutes and a few hundred more calories in my stomach, I feel ten years younger again (which is still quite old, though).

 

Long paths and a field of poppies

And then I am definitely out of the forest, long meadows with seemingly endless fields are lining the hiking trail on the left and right. There are moments when for once I can recognize only the path as the only sign of civilization. No house, no farm, no road, only meadows and hills and sky and clouds and me.

 

But then I stand in front of a wheat field full of poppies, oh, what am I saying field, it is an ocean of hundreds, thousands of red spots bending in the wind. I don't know how the wheat harvest is going to work when there are so many uninvited guests in the field.

So much beauty and still doomed in such a short time.

 

 

Münsingen and a strange place to spend the night

I reach the Aare valley, Bern is only a stone's throw away. And Münsingen is getting closer, slower than desired, it looks like an evening thunderstorm again.

 

The place to stay, Bio-Schwand, is located a bit outside the city, so once again a few extra kilometers over long dirt roads. When I reach the Bio-Schwand complex, I am irritated, don't really know what this is all about.

 

It is not that easy to find my way around. However, I don't know where the Wöschhüsli is, the landlady tells me on the phone, so I need help. The whole complex is quite extensive, one can quickly get lost.

Anyway, eventually I find the building where the rooms are located. They remind of the army, barracks, camps, school vacations, but all seems very sympathetic.

I need to check the web to see where I have ended up here. Apparently, there is quite a diverse offer. There is an organic farm, an organic apiary, an organic nursery, a horse therapy farm and also a large and varied range of training and education in the field of organic and regenerative agriculture.

All in all, therefore a center built on a biological philosophy for a diverse nature and its preservation.

I like it.

 

And there they are, my hiking buddies

Tonight my solo hiking will come to a temporary end, because the next 5 days I will be accompanied by my long-time hiking squad, i.e. brother Walti and cousin Fridli. The fourth in the gang, John, is virtually accompanying us from Somerset and will as always guide us with help and advice.

We're a sworn little gang, hiking together every year since 1997.

We have hiked around Mont Blanc, got lost in Wales, traversed the wonderful Maira Valley, crossed Corsica, walked from Piemont to Nice, followed the South West Coast Trail and successfully completed many more trails in Italy and France and England and Switzerland and Austria.

 

And so the meeting in the pizzeria at Münsingen train station is a happy reunion.

We look forward to the next few days.

 

Matching Song:   Congo Natty - Get ready

And here the trip continues ... to Riggisberg