Basel & Kandersteg, Switzerland

February 2023

First Thoughts

Kandersteg in Switzerland was my second foreign trip with SAGGA (Scouts and Guides Graduates Association), my first being my trip to Iceland. This time it was a long-delayed group trip to Kandersteg International Scout Centre, the World Scout Organisation’s activity centre, in the town of Kandersteg, which nestles in a valley basin within the Swiss Alps. Flying barely five weeks after getting back from Berlin, I looked forward to ticking another country that I’d long wanted to visit off my list.

I also knew that this one would again be something a little different. Due to the group flight going out from London Gatwick, at the opposite end of England, I opted to fly on my own from the much nearer Manchester Airport. Then, due to a flight cancellation, I had to take a much earlier flight, meaning I’d arrive in Switzerland two days before everyone else, giving me a full ten days in total. Therefore I decided that as well as eight days in Kandersteg, I could also spend a day and a half in Basel, the city where the plane landed, and turn it into a two-part trip.

Day one

The first day of this adventure began with a sleepy start, setting off from my local train station up to Manchester Airport. This time in my casual clothes and donning a Scouts hoodie, I arrived at the airport three and half hours before my flight, dropped my baggage and went through security…to sit in the duty-free for three hours, wondering why I’d rushed so much. Despite my initial nerves, I felt a rush of adrenaline from flying on my own, only having to worry about me, myself and I. My excitement must have been obvious, as I stepped out of the plane at Basel, a couple of teenage girls watching from the airport terminal windows started laughing at the huge cheshire cat grin on my face taking in the French air.

Once out of Basel Europort, I consulted my ticket, bought through Switzerland’s extremely efficient and up-to-date transport system Swiss SBB, to get a train into the city centre, to a station called Basel SBB. After a walk up and down the airport, I found that my train was in fact a bus, and SBB gave information and tickets for every kind of public transport, not just trains. Taking the bus into Basel city centre, I walked through the enormous Bahnhof station to my accommodation for the evening, something called a ‘Capsule Hotel’. For slightly more money than the city's hostels, you can book yourself into a ‘Capsule’, or large cupboard drawer, with just enough room for yourself and your immediate belongings. I thought it was fantastic.

In the evening I was keen to do something with my time, given that there was a chance I’d never come back to Basel, and headed out into the city centre on my own to see what I could find. After a slightly dodgy dinner in a Vietnamese bar, I took a walk along the River Rhine, and using my powers of Natural History Museum detection, came across Basel’s own Natural History Museum. That night, the museum was hosting an ‘evening social night’ where anyone could come in for free, buy a glass of wine, socialise, and wander the museum as they wished. I used the opportunity to visit the museum’s Nature Photographer of Year Exhibition, where upon asking for an exhibition guidebook in English, the Maltese man working on the door said, “the exhibition is all in English…so just use your eyeballs”. Within the exhibition, I was amazed by the vivid and diverse display of wildlife photos, some of which my new Maltese friend explained were taken by a local Basel photographer who was well-known to the Museum staff.

Images

- Top left: Wing of my plane from Manchester to Basel.
- Top right: Capsule in the Hyve Capsule Hotel, Basel.

- Bottom left: Display from the Natural History Museum of Basel

- Bottom right: Winning photograph from the nature photographer of the year exhibition in the Natural History Museum of Basel

Day two

The sleep within the capsule was fantastic if a little disorientating, being within a sound-proof, light-proof box. Once breakfasted and checked out, I headed out to the main attraction that I’d booked to keep myself entertained whilst in Basel, The Kunstmuseum. The Kunstmuseum was Basel's, and Switzerland’s largest and most varied art museum. Upon arriving at the Kunstmuseum, I found that it was not just one museum, but effectively three museums attached by underground walkways; a modern art museum, a classical art museum and a feminist art museum. Despite working my way around the exhibits that my standard ticket would allow, I only managed to get around one and a half of the three enormous buildings in the two and half hours I gave myself.

Moving on from the Kunstmuseum, I swung by a posh bookseller in Basel called Bider & Tanner, on the way back to the Bahnhof station. I was surprised to find a ‘British things’ stall in the shops' upstairs, which included baked beans, porridge oats and Yorkshire Tea, which is based in Harrogate, only 30 miles from where I grew up. Once I was over the excitement of finding things in Switzerland that I see all the time back home, I headed on to a Swiss McDonald’s for lunch. Swiss Maccies have some things the same and some things different to back home, and the latter includes different coffees, more dipping sauces, and potato wedges, as an alternative to chips.

I then boarded a train from Basel to Kandersteg, which ran through the capital city Bern and past Thunersee Lake. I arrived at Kandersteg after two trains and a bus and took in the fantastic sights. Kandersteg village, and the valley that it lay in, resembled a fantastic painting of the Alps rather than a place that you thought could exist. I checked into my room at Kandersteg International Scout Activity Centre (KISC), which lay on the outside of the touristy village, and after dinner took a walk up further into the valley, with the mountain Gallihorn looming over me in the moonlight. I swung by a small pub restaurant on the way back, called the Gemmi Taverne, where I had the place to myself, apart from the two bar staff, before heading back to the Centre. I clambered into bed, tired from the day’s travelling, and thought about how I would fill my time before the rest of the group arrived the following evening.

Images

- Top left: City of Basel skyscraper
- Top right: Kunstmuseum in Basel

- Bottom left: Yorkshire Tea in the British Things stall in Bider & Tanner, Basel

- Bottom right: Kandersteg valley cliff views

Day three

Day three began, and having breakfasted and showered, I packed my bag for a day’s walking, and picked up the centre’s guide leaflet for an activity called ‘The Blausee Hike’. I then followed my phone and the guide northwards, past Kandersteg village and up towards Lake Blausee Nature Park. During this wander, I was stunned by the wooden Swiss houses, snow-covered fields and even a frozen waterfall which in the summer would create a stream running into the valley basin. Following the River Kander for a couple of hours, the paths finally brought me out on the main road, right next to the Nature Reserve.

The Nature Reserve is a pristinely maintained, pay-to-enter park, with a small but very beautiful lake inside it. Inside this lake is several Trout, which behind the scenes of this Nature Park are farmed and then served up as the local delicacy of ‘Blausee Trout’. These Trout occasionally leapt out of the water, creating fantastic photo opportunities, which of course I missed. Accompanying the fish farm is a 3-star hotel and spa, restaurant, bistro and a lakeside café, the last of which I had a nice lunch in, before embarking on the bus back to KISC. After spending 40 minutes waiting for a bus that I was certain would arrive according to the SBB app, it dawned on me that I was now in Switzerland, and the bus I wanted had come 40 minutes ago, stopping at the stop on the opposite side of the road.

I returned to KISC and moved from my initial accommodation in the main building, called ‘The Chalet’, over to the most southern accommodation building onsite, called ‘The Tower’. Our trip leader, the same one as the Iceland trip, talked us through our week’s itinerary before we decided to take an early night to bed, ready for the first full day of group activities. Despite this launch talk marking the start of the formal trip, I was on day three of ten and was looking forward to the remainder of the trip.

Images

- Top left: Forest cabin in Kander valley
- Top right: Frozen waterfall in Kander valley

- Bottom left: Lake Blausee

- Bottom right: Myself in front of Lake Blausee

Day four

On the first full day of the programme, I took part in the ‘Oeschinsee Snowshoe and Tour’ activity. This required us to get up and fit snowshoes; which were a cross between crampons and tennis rackets, to our feet. I wondered what kind of terrain would require such cumbersome aids. Before long we took the hourly bus from KISC into Kandersteg village, and I found out. Getting off the bus, we headed through the village and towards the Westerly edge of the valley basin, where we boarded a Gondola which took us up into the mountains, to a small Gondola station called Oeschinen. My dislike of heights kicked in slightly on the ascent; at KISC we were already at 1,200 metres above sea level, and the Gondola had taken us to over 1,600 metres up.

We began by fitting the snowshoes and then started walking, getting used to the tennis racket-sized objects on our feet, crossing through forests and various alpine ski pistes as we headed onto the Oeschinsee Lake, which at this time of year was completely frozen over. We headed out onto the Lake, and I took a full circular route around it, making the most of the incredible views. Despite it being the most overcast day during our time there, we still managed to get some good views, and after a short break for lunch, headed back up to the forest to our starting point. Once back at Oeschinen, the weather had begun to clear and we used the opportunity to grab some fantastic photographs overlooking the Kander valley basin behind us.

Once we were back down in the valley basin, I and a few others went into the village to find food for that evening’s dinner, splitting our time between the Co-operative, clearly catered for KISC staff and visitors, as well as all manner of tourists who were visiting the area to ski, hike and snowboard, and Volg, which was the local’s mini-supermarket. Back at The Tower, I took the lead in cooking dinner, before learning how to play Carcassonne for the first time as we went into the evening.

Images

- Top left: Forest walk towards Lake Oeschinsee
- Top right: Forest walk away from Lake Oeschinsee

- Bottom left: Myself near the Oeschinen Gondola station

- Bottom right: View from the Oeschinen Gondola

Day five

Day five marked the halfway point for my trip and the second full day of group activities. This time, we were doing the ‘Hike N Sled’ activity, and this time were accompanied by instructors from KISC, as this activity was significantly more dangerous. Having coped with the mountain heights from the day before, I went into the Hike N Sled with uncharacteristic confidence, having sledged before a couple of times, when I was about seven or eight years old. We’d collected helmets from a sports shop in the village the afternoon before, and took out a set of large wooden sledges from KISC itself, before walking up the road southwards from KISC to another ski lift at the very most southern point of Kandersteg, this one a mountain cable car, large enough to fit our entire group in at once.

We took the cable car up, far higher than the day before to Sunnbuel Cable Car station, at roughly 1,930 metres above sea level. We then began our walk through the Spittelmatte area towards our ultimate destination, Hotel Schwarenbach, dragging the sledges behind us. Following the well-maintained and wide piste for a few minutes, we came to our first descent. Our instructors gave a quick demonstration of how to ride the sledge, and then we took turns to descend, with one person losing their sledge over the edge as it kept going once they fell off. Our instructor leapt into action, quite literally, jumping from the path into the snowbank, and allowing himself to sink downwards into the snow until he found the missing sledge.

I quickly got the grips with the method of control, slowing down and speeding up, and happy to have found a snowsport that I was actually good at, I got stuck in at every opportunity. After a little while, we came across a stone that read ‘hotel and restaurant 35 minutes’. Although that didn’t sound too bad initially, we quickly realised that this meant 35 minutes of pure uphill. Once we arrived at the top, we found a marvellous site; the fully-functioning Schwarenbach hotel and restaurant buried in the snow, overlooking the Daubensee Lake, which, like Oeschinsee, was frozen over. We stopped, and consumed some of the hotel’s surprisingly reasonably priced food and drink, before taking our sledges back down the huge descent, leading to the most fun experience of the whole trip.

We made our way back up the earlier descents, before we all jumped back on the Cable Car, back to KISC. Had we carried on on our journey, we would have arrived at the Gemmipass, a well-known mountain pass, which in the summer would be used by walkers to get between the taller peaks from Switzerland to Italy or vice versa. In the evening, we had hired out KISC’s Sauna, another brand new experience for me, which felt weird played off against the snowy outside of the lodge, but I enjoyed it very much either way.

Images

- Top left: The entrance sign to KISC
- Top right: Myself on the Hike N Sled activity

- Bottom left: Sign for the Hotel Schwarenbach

- Bottom right: Hotel and Restuarant Schwarenbach

Day six

Day six had been marked out by me as somewhat of a rest day. The day began with a tour of KISC’s main building, The Chalet, by an ex-colleague of mine who had now come to KISC to volunteer for the winter season. The short-term volunteers at KISC come from all over the world, and apply as part of an international volunteer scheme, and given their pink uniform are called ‘Pinkies’ colloquially. The history of KISC as a ‘permanent mini jamboree' set up by Lord Baden-Powell was both impressive and fascinating, and the records of people who had volunteered at KISC over the years to keep Baden-Powell’s idea alive were also incredible.

We followed the tour up with a short opportunity to do some work experience as a pinkie. This meant completing random jobs around the centre’s behind-the-scenes areas as best we could, overseen by the actual Pinkies. As one man on the trip remarked “I’ve just realised that I’ve come on holiday to clean someone else’s laundrette” Moving on from the Pinkie experience, I decided to catch up with emails and messages, before heading out on my own into Kandersteg village to catch up on some shopping for the remainder of the trip, and to chuck all my clothes into the laundrette, so that I had underwear to last until day ten.

In the evening I caught up with a couple of ex-colleagues who had come to KISC to volunteer over the winter season. They took me into the village to the Hotel Des Alps, a little bar beneath a hotel which had an ongoing partnership with the management of KISC, and was one of the local hangouts for the Pinkies. We caught up and chewed the fat before I headed back to KISC, bumping into some other people from my group, who were making the most of the lower light pollution and taking some excellent sky at-night photographs.

Images

- Top left: The Chalet tour at KISC

- Top right: The British Room at The Chalet

- Bottom left: View from The Chalet

- Bottom right: View of The Bire from Kandersteg village

Day seven

Day seven was a weird one, originally it has been a tour of the Cheese and Cholocate Factories nearby via coach, but there was now no plan. I decided the evening before to make a plan that I would pitch the rest of the group. The day began with myself and two others taking a walk up to Hohwald, a hill that sat within the valley basin, overlooking Kandersteg village but not tall enough to be comparable to the mountains of the area. The hike was more an ‘amble’, with the three of us following a series of well-kept forest tracks, winding slowly up the hill until we reached a viewpoint that overlooked all of Kandersteg.

From there we headed down into the village and met up with a couple of the others to eat lunch at one of the best eateries we’d found; the village bakery. After the bakery, we walked to the village’s most northern point, to visit the House of Museums or Haus der Museums. Inside the Museum, a large building on the village outskirts was not one museum, but three small museums under one roof. The local museum discussed Kandersteg’s history, culture, geology and geography was the first, the highlight of which was a huge map on the floor showing the Kandersteg municipality, and I picked out Blausee, Oeschinsee and the Spittelmatte, which we’d already visited on the trip.

Inside the bottom floor of the museum was also The Scout Museum, which gave similar information to what we’d learnt during The Chalet tour the previous morning, as well as some info on the Our Chalet World Guide Centre, which was to be found in the neighbouring town Adelboden. Both these museums were well-laid out and interesting, if in need of an update (one exhibition labelled a future project as to be going ahead from 2019 to 2022). We then headed upstairs to The Seilbahn Museum, which covered the history of the cable car lift in Switzerland. After we’d finished at the museums, we made our way back to KISC in time for the Winter Olympics evening activity run by KISC instructors, which was a set of games similar to a wide games activity.

Images

- Top left: Approach to Hohwald Viewpoint
- Top right: Myself at Hohwald Viepoint

- Bottom left: The Scout Museum

- Bottom right: The Seilbahn Museum

Day eight

Day eight came around, and I was feeling truly in love with Kandersteg. By this point, I felt very uncertain that I wanted to return to England after all. Maybe there was some work in a visitor centre in the Swiss Alps that I could take? Maybe I could just stay at KISC forever?

After sleeping through my alarm, and rushing to fit one hour of my morning routine and preparation into twenty minutes, we took a very expensive bus from Kandersteg village to Adelboden, a town nestling in the next valley to our west, to visit Our Chalet. Our Chalet is one of five World Guide centres, the Girl Guiding equivalent to KISC. Adelboden, unlike Kandersteg village, is situated within a valley rather than a valley basin, with steep inclines and declines to walk from anywhere to anywhere else. Our first walk was up the sides of the valley to Our Chalet, which is made up of a set of fantastic Swiss buildings, overlooking Adelboden beyond.

Our time at Our Chalet began with a pinning ceremony, which involved everyone calmly singing a song (not something you’d experience often in Scouting). During this ceremony, each of our group received an Our Chalet Pin, something you could only receive had you been to the chalet. Naturally, I gave mine away to my mum when I returned to the UK. Following this, one of our group, who had been a volunteer at Our Chalet, gave us a tour of the buildings, showing us the displays of the international community of Guides, with a board full of group badges from Guides who had come from all over the world. Of course, being in another country hundreds of miles from home, I managed to find a badge from Beverly, East Yorkshire, another town less than 30 miles from where I had grown up.

From the chalet, we headed down into Adelboden town centre to buy ourselves an ice cream in the snow, while waiting for the next bus back to Kandersteg. We reflected on our time in Switzerland together, and how it would soon come to an end. Despite all of us having our lives to get back to, I’m sure all of us were slowly falling in love with the country. We returned to KISC for our last evening meal in the accommodation, before I learnt how to play Monopoly Deal, a crossover of Monopoly and Poker.

Images

- Top left: The walk to Our Chalet
- Top right: Our Chalet World Guide Centre

- Bottom left: View of the valley from Adellboden

- Bottom right: Ice cream in Adelboden

Day nine

Day Nine began in high spirits; as a group, we headed to Kandersteg village to hire our skis, ski shoes and ski poles for the ‘Cross-country ski’ activity, once again joined by instructors from KISC. The sports shop only allowed four at a time from our group of thirty into the shop, which meant that the intricate fitting of the ski shoes took some time. Once we were underway, our instructors taught us how to move forward in the skis, and I expected skiing to be a case of ‘lean and go’, but I was wrong. I, amongst others, found myself falling on my arse more often than I’d have liked to, and by the time I followed the ski piste back to KISC, I’d had enough, and retired to The Tower for lunch.

Coming onto the trip as a complete ski novice, I’m still happy to have given it a go, despite finding that skiing, at least cross-country, was not for me. What did surprise me, however, was the culture around skiing; Kandersteg had dedicated pistes, the name for ski ‘paths’ or ‘roads’ as an alternative route to get from anywhere in the village to anywhere else, instead of walking or driving. As well as this, people could be seen using these pistes in the evening hours to ski quite quickly around the local area, following only the light of their head torches. We came to the conclusion that during the winter months, this skiing replaces going for an evening run or bike ride when it is simply too icy to safely exercise that way.

The ninth day ended with our last trip to Kandersteg village, where everyone in our group ate out at the Schweizerhof Kandersteg, a posh restaurant right in the village’s centre. I decided to take the opportunity to eat something that I could only find in Switzerland, and with many Swiss Frances (CHFs or Chuffs, as we called them) in cash left, I ordered the speciality; Blausee Trout. The trout did not come as one whole fish, instead, it was served in a series of parcels, along with slices of pumpkin, brussel sprouts and broccoli. An odd collection of vegetables, but I didn’t mind, as it was absolutely delicious.

Images

- Top left: View from Grossensport towards Bire
- Top right: Cross Country Ski activity break time next to KISC

- Bottom left: Farewell with my friends in The Chalet

- Bottom right: Blausee Trout at Schweizerhof Kandersteg

Day ten

After cleaning and tidying The Tower within an inch of its life, we departed from KISC at roughly 10.30 am. From here, our large group of roughly thirty went their separate ways, some leaving early to go interrailing for the next week, some staying at KISC longer, some going into Kandersteg to revisit the fantastic bakery, and some, including myself, decided it was time to get on the train and go home. Joined by a couple of others from the trip, we took the train back to Basel, changing at Spiez, where we visited Basel’s city centre Maccies once again.

After our pit stop in the city centre, we went on to Basel Euroairport via the bus, and in typical fashion, everyone’s flights back to the UK were delayed, giving a nice long sit and chat in the airport’s duty-free, again with coffee. Eventually, one by one, we departed for our delayed flights as they were called out, and I boarded my plane to Manchester, once again on my own, and took an evening flight back to Manchester. Landing back in the UK, I decided to touch base by grabbing a Gregg’s for dinner, before taking a late evening train back home.

Images

- Top left: Farewell from KISC
- Top right: Kandersteg Train Station

- Bottom left: Basel Bahnhof Bus station

- Bottom right: Airoplane from Basel to Manchester

Final Thoughts

Switzerland, as a country, is very interesting. While not within the European Union, is an enormously ‘European’ country, home to the HQ of the United Nations, over in the city of Geneva. I had been warned that it was expensive, and it was, but not ridiculously so. One of the guys in the group I travelled with had joked “Switzerland build a tunnel through a mountain to be better connected and then seem to spend the next fifty years paying for it”. What I’d seen of Switzerland, it was an affluent country, but well-connected, clean and had a vast culture and history for a country that is geographically, quite small.

Basel had been an interesting mini-city break, being the fourth largest city in Switzerland, about the same size as York or Oxford. It did, luckily, have as many interesting things to see and do as those cities do too. My first time in Kandersteg was very memorable, and the entire place had an atmosphere slightly unlike anywhere else I’d been. I’d heard of KISC through Scouting circles, and I knew of its significance, but I found it to be more real and straightforward than what I imagined, the volunteers are involved with every part of the centre’s life, and in a way, the guests are too. I hope that one day, maybe in the summer season, perhaps to return and summit some of the larger peaks around that area. Until then, onto adventures elsewhere.

Useful Links

www.kisc.ch/ - Kandersteg International Scout Centre homepage
https://kandersteg.ch/en/ - Kandersteg village's official visitor information website

www.sbb.ch/en/ - SBB Website for Switzerland's public transport services

www.basel.com/en - Basel's official visitor information website

www.myswitzerland.com/en - Switzerland's official tourism website
www.gov.uk/foreign-travel-advice/switzerland - Travel advice for going to Switzerland

https://www.capsulehotel.ch/standorte/hyve-basel/ - Hyve Capsule Hotel website