Trekking Poles Optional

Recently I speculated that my morning uphill walk through the woods is excellent exercise for me but not really worth mentioning as exercise for the average Swiss person. Well, I am here to report that this theory has now been unequivocally confirmed. Just this morning as I was out walking, I ran into a lady I know from long hours spent suffering together by the side of a hot and stuffy indoor pool while our children had swimming lessons. It was a fine day and we both had the time, so we continued our walk together. I had been going uphill and she down, but she gamely offered to turn around and go back up with me. "Great," I thought, "this is a nice chance to catch up after not suffering together at all during the summer break."

The moment she started walking, however, it became painfully apparent that talking and walking straight uphill was going to be a much different communicative experience than perching lethargically on beach towels at the side of a smelly indoor pool. Clack, clack, clack, my friend's state-of-the-art trekking poles hit the forest floor with breathtaking force as she propelled herself clear up the mountainside. Panting along beside her, I was desperate to appear relaxed, nonchalant even, while I secretly marveled at the lightening speed with which she tackled her morning walk.

In retrospect, my friend's athleticism should not have been surprising. I have known for a while now that the Swiss, though not imposing in stature, take their physical fitness very seriously. The not-so-flat (despite what you may have heard) streets of Solothurn are filled with bike riders in even the worst of the winter weather, and through institutions such as the Pedibus, children are expected from a  young age to walk to school, no matter the distance or the shortness of their legs.

Nowhere was this deeply ingrained athleticism so visible to me, however, as when I first scoped the area out for a yoga studio. We had been living here a few months already, and the children were off of school for the winter break.  As it happens, my children, during this particular vacation, were watching cartoons and sprawling on the blue-leather sofa at their grandparent's house while their Swiss comrades were busy donning layers of expensive clothing and schlepping tons of even more expensive equipment up every available mountainside. But I digress. One of the yoga classes I ended up in that week was a fast-paced evening class in an old warehouse with creaky wooden floors, big windows and candle light. I was at the back of the crowded room so instead of watching the instructor, I focused my eyes on the tall, blond woman directly in front of me. Her ponytail swung jauntily to the rhythm of the new-aged music and gave me something to hang on to, so to speak, as I struggled to keep up with one of the more intense flow classes I have ever attended.

Imagine, then, my surprise, when, at the end of ninety hot and sweaty minutes, we all emerged into the well-lit lobby, and I determined that the woman I had been striving to keep up with on the mat was, in fact, extremely pregnant. I am sure I stared with my mouth wide open at the enormous baby bump bulging unexpectedly from underneath her yoga clothes, and then I watched in even more amazement as she proceeded to strap on a helmet and head off into the dark, snowy night -- by bike.

Since that winter's night,  I have had many an opportunity to observe Swiss physical prowess.  One friend told me when we first got to know each other that she was not especially athletic compared to her husband. It turns out he had in his youth almost joined the Swiss Olympic rowing team. And speaking of the Olympics, our neighbors down the street are members of the national archery team. The mother of a little girl in Wolfi's class is a mountain marathoner, whatever that is, while both of Leo's teachers introduced themselves on the first day of school as avid hikers. One of them, incidentally, was just back from a summer spent hiking -- in the deserts of Mongolia.

Still more shockingly, even the musicians here are athletic. The choir I joined for one season included a piano accompanist whose stomach muscles practically ripped his ribbed shirt in two as he tinkled away docilely at the keyboard. Meanwhile, the choir director herself employed a wide array of hiking metaphors to explain to us how to sustain the high notes. "Stay up!" she admonished the sopranos. "There's no gondola down!" Then there is the stunning example of Wolfi's own choir director, a wiry, muscular triathlete who prefers to ride his bike on choir road trips rather than join the boys with their salami sandwiches and sour gummy worms on the bus.

My husband Marc's coworkers are a similar case in point. Truly there is not a slack-stomached employee among the whole cubicled lot of them. Many times in the summer months, they have asked Marc if he would like to come along for a small evening hike and an after-work beer. That all sounded pleasant enough until Marc determined that the beer would be waiting for him at the top of a 4,577 foot mountain peak. Needless to say, whenever he is invited along on one of these outings, Marc is always -- it is really such a shame -- previously engaged.

No, our version of hiking said 4,577 foot mountain is to drive up to the top and then stroll along the relatively flat ridge. On our way up, we gawk from the car windows in fascination at the mountain bikers we pass along the way, their solid calf muscles throbbing, their trim bellies and neat arm muscles clearly defined as they progress tortuously up the mountainside. Having left them behind, we pull our comfortable station wagon into the parking lot and walk about five minutes to the first of many vantage points from which we can gaze at the Alps to the south or just make out the lakes of Switzerland in the haze to the west. From there, it is another forty-minute walk or so to the true goal of the day's outing: a guesthouse serving a selection of warm cakes with puffs of cool whipped cream, made from the milk of the cows grazing peacefully in the surrounding meadows. At this highly scientific altitude, we rest our not-so-weary legs and discuss our many pet theories about life among the Swiss. Among those that we can confirm unequivocally is the fact that nothing tastes better than warm chocolate cake eaten outside on the top of a Swiss mountain, trekking poles optional.