We woke up in our dormitory filled with what appeared to be some additional people sleeping across the floor. They must have snuck their way in late at night and known where the spare mattresses are kept. All in all, it was actually quite a good sleep. The beds were very comfortable, if not a bit rickety, and the pillows were very satisfactory.
There was however a lack of sitting area in this hostel. The ones that I have been to previously usually have a large common room that is large enough to fit almost everyone. This hostel however was just beds and showers. There was one small table with about five chairs per floor but that was insufficient. We therefore went to find a coffee. At a dignified coffee shop to start the day.
In the morning, I was seriously considering a day trip to Zürich. It would’ve been an hour and a half on the train and then back again. I considered this option carefully though. I ultimately decided I wanted to explore Chur. After all, we were only here for one day but having been in the same area for a time I knew the main activity was mountain walks.
Mitchell and I thoroughly agreed that two mountain climbs in two days was quite enough. Although given I had decided to stay, what else could we do? I floated some ideas of doing a school style project on the history of Chur, or maybe a school biology project on the native plants in the hills. We could post this on the blog.
Mitchell knew that he needed to do some planning for the days ahead and so did I. I wasn’t sure if I had announced this before now but in seven days time Mitchell and I plan on seeing different things. Friday the 18 July will be our last day together. I plan to fly home a bit early as I do not have as long in annual leave. I fly home on 24 July. Mitchell flies home 1 August.
Therefore, we climbed a hill today which was just around the edge of town. We did not go to the top. That was far too much.
To get there, we passed a few noteworthy places along our AllTrails track. One was the Antistitium, a building of noteworthy political interest in the 1400s which prompted me to read a bit more about the Grey League, and the formation of the Three Leagues. And how the Covenant of Gods House, being the government of Chur at the time, formed the Three Leagues with the Grey League in 1471. This building also survived two city fires.
We also passed the Chur Cathedral and we listened to the churches compete with one another on who can play bells the longest before it gets a bit much. We love the sound of the bells, but for some reason, today on Friday 11 July at 11am, there was reasons for synchronised competition between the church’s. We wondered if the ministers were sending messages to one another.
We sat on a bench for possibly an hour and a half and did some planning of our trip over the next week. Mitchell planned some walks he would like to do. I did some accommodation booking for the next stage of my journey which will be to Munich on 18 July.
We got to a scenic spot that overlooked the city of Chur. Below is the scenery that we had to enjoy while we did this booking.
Once we were back down, we decided we needed lunch. We visited a supermarket which impressed us greatly. We were overwhelmed with single meal choices available in this Co-Op supermarket. They had quite the range of selections.
I made my choice for lunch. I couldn’t resist trying one of their desserts. I don’t normally do cold porridge but it looked far too good. We sat in an athletic field while we ate.
We wondered if perhaps we should try another hill before finalising the day. I actually looked up at a hill and considered trying to sit below a gondola. I thought it would be a nice view to see the gondolas going overhead.
We made this track up the mountain. It was not a small mountain. What was a rest day had turned into another adventure up a small hill. It was only 2.5 km but the elevation gain was 480m. We didn’t pass anyone on our trip up this hill. Largely similar to our walk this morning there are very few mountain climbers in this area. I ate a few raspberries while I waited for Mitchell. He was getting slower day after day.
As we passed the halfway point I was about to find myself alone. Mitchell announced that he would meet me at a restaurant below. I acknowledged his decision and appreciated that it was probably a sound decision.
I reached my destination. I wanted a photo of a piece of engineering, in this case a chairlift that overlooks a town. A large power transmission tower would have sufficed, but my immediate availability was a chairlift.
We met back up at a restaurant below. Ended the day at about 8pm after walking around town since around 9:30am.
Tomorrow is a travel day.