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The Olympic Studies Center

We left my in-laws in one hotel and hopped a train to Lucerne, two hours away. We had a meeting. Or, as I explained it to them, “When they heard your daughter was coming to Switzerland, they cleared their schedules and we’re meeting with some serious higher ups. She’s a big deal is what I’m saying.”

Because she is. This is how you know.

We went to the Olympic Studies Center today. They’ve got signs and everything. We met with two librarians and archivists. And then we met with a grants specialist.

They explained their impressive library, signed us up for their newsletter and gave us remote access to their online catalogs. (Which are incredibly extensive. I have so much new information to write about now.)

Being the official archive collector of the Olympic Games, they’ve got, well, everything. Books you can’t find online. (I’ve been looking after drooling over some of what we saw today.) There are proposal reports from every city that has bid to host the Games. Research from every corner of the world. And, as they say in French, Bien plus encore.

I wrote pages and pages of notes. I also took a lot of photos of books I want to find and read. There were two whole shelves of books I want to find, so I just shot video of those.

I’m not an Olympic scholar — my lovely bride is a globally renowned Olympic scholar — but they are making it easy, and tempting, to give it a try.

We took our meetings just casually sitting by the torch from the 2024 Paris Games. I was sitting three feet from this.

I could have written more notes in the meetings, but my mind did wander and wonder: how much does that torch weigh?

The library closed at 5 p.m., and the people there couldn’t have been more charming. We’ll be back. (If we can convince the dean this is a business trip, we’ll be back often!)

There’s a museum next to the Studies Center, but the museum was closed today. On this beautiful — and extremely warm! — day today, though, we enjoyed the sculptures and displays on the grounds. Here’s one of my obvious favorites.

There’s also an Olympic-caliber track, which was installed by the people who actually supply the Olympic track. They had a 100-meter straightaway.

If you can see those little lights on the left (the ones on the right are just regular lights) they are synched up to Usain Bolt’s world record at Berlin in 2009. Each lighting at his pace, so you can see how suck you are compared to God’s greased lightning.

His world best is 9.58 seconds. The lights are synched to that. You do OK on that first light. Probably because you initiate the thing while he had to react to the starter. It’s over at the second light. It’s LAUGHABLE at the third. (Seriously; I was laughing.)

Anyway, we did a few starts, and then the Yankee decided to do the whole 100 and I timed it. So I had to do the whole thing too, and she timed it. I’m happy to say that Bolt, the fastest human ever, at his peak form at 23 years of age, with the finest tech of the day, is less than twice as fast as me, a currently untrained, non-sprinter, wearing linen slacks, a billowy polo and high tops.

About three-quarters of the way down, the thought occurred to me: You’re 48!

Literally in the next heartbeat my left hamstring said: I’m 48!

So now I’m limping.

I did it in 17.4, though, having pulled up in those last few strides. It might have otherwise been 16+, at this age and in those conditions with no training and casual street wear. I’ll take it.

(You also start under a pole vault display, which shows the Olympic and World Records for the men and the women. They get really, really high.)

Anyway, now I am going to do some Olympic writing … writing about previous Olympics, more precisely. It’ll be great fun, just like today

adventures / Monday / photo / Switzerland / video — Comments Off
23
Jun 25

Views from Jungfraujoch — “the top of Europe”

Today we hopped a train and then a gondola and then another train to the top of Europe. Jungfraujoch is the highest train station in Europe and … well, just listen to the narration in these two captivating videos.

Whoever that guy is, he can lay down a VO.

Seriously, you just don’t get quality voiceovers like that everywhere. We’re pretty lucky to have stumbled upon something of that stature for the site.

Here’s another thing about Jungraujoch. Two-plus miles of elevation is a lot of elevation. A lot, a lot. The highest elevation I’ve ever lived at is about 804 feet. Depending on the source, we currently live at 43 feet or 48 feet. (And those five feet are important, right? That’s almost a 12 percent increase.)

But up there, on Jungfraujoch, anything more than walking around can make you feel a little lightheaded. Your lips will go purple. You will measure your steps. You’ll occasionally lean on a wall. But it’s all worth it for these views.

And I could write more about the views. I could write hundreds of words. I could torture us both with poetry about them. But, instead, here are 15 photos. Enjoy.

Those views are pretty great, no? The next post will show the scenery from our way down the mountain.

adventures / cycling / photo / Switzerland / weekend — Comments Off
22
Jun 25

Cycling in Switzerland

Our starting view for the morning — at least after a one-stop train ride.

Click to embiggen.

That’s Interlaken, which is where we rented bikes today. We ditched the in-laws — leaving them sitting happily by a lake from their balcony view — and rode all over Switzerland. Including by the same lake.

We took a wrong turn, because we don’t know the roads here, of course. And so that added a climb we weren’t anticipating. We don’t climb a lot at home anymore, living just 43 feet above sea level and all. But we found a lot of barns. Here are a few.

It looks like a livestock area, but we didn’t see too many animals.

Here’s one that looks abandoned. Or close to it?

OK, last barn, a closeup.

Look at this beautiful waterfall!

Those photos were all from this beautiful valley.

We’re riding rented gravel bikes — for some reason — on a single track there. We’d started with e-bikes, but those weren’t going to get the job done for the course we’d planned. And the guys didn’t offer us roadies. Maybe he didn’t have any, I’m not sure. Anyway, gravel bikes, for the uninitiated, have a similar geometry to road bikes. They’re slightly heavier, offer a bigger tire for gravel and such. The difference is the difference. You notice it. It behaves fine, just not quite like what you’re used to. And that’s the story I’m sticking with throughout the day, on both downtown roads, the highway, and these single track paths.

The next time we go through a valley like this, I realized, I am going to have to ride ahead for photos like this. But these are good too.

At the foot of the day’s big climb, I did something I’ve never done before: I broke the chain on my rental bike. I tried to switch into the smaller gear on the front and suddenly found myself freewheeling and fighting to get unclipped before I fell over. When I stopped, the chain was behind me. Behind me came a Frenchman, and I asked him if he would share this news with my lovely bride, who was a bit ahead of me — no phones! — and he did. After a time, she came back for me, and we found a train station and rode back to the town where the bike shop was. I freewheeled the thing, like a balance bike, back to the shop. They repaired it with no fuss, but the delays ruined our intended plans. So our second ride was called Plan B.

Also, it was 90 degrees today, and we didn’t have enough water. Fortunately, we ran into a couple of public fountains. Public fountains are awesome. Douse your head. Slam a lot down into your belly, then have some more, because you’re a rule breaker. And then fill up your bottles, hoping the next fountain isn’t too far away. Because public fountains are awesome.

Not that we were staring at the lakes and waterfalls and making ourselves thirstier or anything.

It’s a beautiful area to ride in, even on this made up route that we improvised. And the drivers here are much, much more respectful here than what you get in most any place in the U.S. Plus, the color of this water …

We just got to ride alongside that lake for a good long while.

Totally worth it, she said.

And, look! Proof I saw it all, too!

Too bad I ruined the intended ride. Then again, who can climb big climbs anymore? Maybe I did us a favor?

Tomorrow: We go to Jungfraujoch!

adventures / photo / Switzerland / video / weekend — Comments Off
21
Jun 25

The mountain massif, Pilatus

We got in one of these things today. Gondolas are amazing. But let me back up.

We took a train, and then had a short walk. And then there was the meeting with a tour guide, Rolf. A curly coiffed man of chiseled stature that should have landed him on stage. Perhaps it did! But now he is here, leading this most isolated life. Meeting people for a few minutes, giving them a sticker, telling them which bus to get on, doing 11 minutes of patter on the bus, which includes several reminders to not leave things on the bus, because we aren’t returning, and then dealing with the lady who left a diaper bag on the bus. And then he directs us to those red gondolas. And then to another, larger cableway lift. At the top of the tour, he says, in his pleasant, practiced, kindly authoritative way, “We will be meeting here at 3:30 to depart at 3:45. If you have any questions I will be in the cafeteria for about half an hour.”

You wonder what he’s eating there. He brought a sack lunch. What’s he reading? Or does he just stare out the window, dreaming of after shave smells gone by?

That’s what he looks like. He looks like a man who enjoyed splashing on that smell every day. His skin looks like it looked forward to it. There’s just no other way to say it. He would have been the 45-year-old who would have been unironically cast in the part of a 30-year-old in a 1974 movie. A bit too handsome and mature for the part. And a Hai Karate aficionado. Old Spice for the really big days.

Anyway, a few of the views going up to the top of Pilatus.

The four of us walked around up there. My bride and I went on two of the outdoor walks. Her parents appreciated the views from indoors. It’s full of rich views. As rich as the lines now gaining way onto Rolf’s face, rugged and firm as the mountains themselves. Have a look.

Pilatus’ highest peak is a modest 6,983 feet, but everything up there offers commanding views of Lucerne, below.

The descent from Pilatus involves the Pilatus Railway, named the world’s steepest cogwheel railway. We did it in 2022 and, honestly, it was better. The cogwheel had older cars, which made the gradient — at one point, 48 percent! — feel much more adventurous.
The cars were steam until the 1930s. What we rode a few years ago was from the 1970s. They were hyping the new cars on our first trip here, and something has been lost with the upgrades. It’s just another closed-air thing you can do. Then it felt — there’s not a word here, thinner, smaller, less substantial, shabbier, none of these work — like the ride itself and the machine you were on, were full of character. Now the steepness is the only character, and even that visceral feeling is mitigated by modern glass.

At the end of the cogwheel ride the lady caught up to her diaper bag. Rolf was the hero he’d always been meant to be. So was Eddie, the plucky young bus driver with the hip hair who should probably be on a beach and not a bus. We never saw him again. With Rolf, though, and that diaper bag, we all crossed the street from the cogwheel station at the base of the mountain and walked over to a boat. Here, we enjoyed a nice, quiet boat ride that completes what they call “The Golden Round Trip.” It’s a nice boat ride. The views are scenic.

But it does feel a bit tacked on to the rest of the experience.

I spent much of the time trying to stay out of the sun, and enjoying the breeze.

We had dinner at a lakeside cafe. I had some German-inspired currywurst. Quite tasty.

And then we caught the train back to our hotel. Whereby I marveled, as I do, at the everyday beauty of this place.

What must it be like to wake up each morning and see a waterfall out your back windows? Or be surrounded by these lake and mountain views each time you come home?

The human mind has a weird capacity for adaptation, but how long would it take to get used to something like this? “Ho hum. Again. Yes, yes. It’s hilly and mountainous and rugged. But I’d enjoy a change of pace. I could sure use some flat.”

I wonder if that every enters into the minds of the locals. It will surely come to my mind tomorrow. We’re riding bikes!

adventures / family / Friday / maps / photo / Switzerland — Comments Off
20
Jun 25

On the rail again

Up early this morning for a small Italian breakfast, then a short walk to an Italian train station — most of Italy’s transit workers are on strike, we found out two or three days ago and got lucky with a backup plan. Our route looked like this.

We arrived in Interlaken, as planned, in what is almost the center of Switzerland. Definitely it is one of the tourist centers. And who could blame the tourists for coming to places with views like this?

And that’s just on the way there.

After a quick bus ride we arrived at our hotel — a small little place run by a kind, small man and his family, with Swiss efficiency. There are maybe 16 rooms. This is the balcony view we’ll enjoy (but not slow down enough to see often) for the next few days. That view is not bad.

Click to embiggen.

If you just look down at the water, it is awfully inviting in the middle of this heat wave.

We took a ride back into Interlaken for dinner. And by “we,” I mean my lovely bride and her parents. This is an in-laws trip, which I don’t think I’ve mentioned. Here they all are after dinner.

A few years back, 2019 in fact, we decided we should take a trip, and this year we were able to do it. And now here we are, in beautiful Switzerland.

Tomorrow, we go up a mountain.