Indemini
Hiking !
In Switzerland you really have lots of choices to do hiking, as you can see for example from this webpage.
Quite near to our summer house is a place called Indemini, well near if you could fly. Indemini is a small village in the middle of the mountains. Population is something between 30 and 60. Mostly Indemini is abandoned, but some movement you can find in summer time. I heard a wild rumor, that in the old times Indemini was a hiding place for smugglers (?) I don´t know about that.
Easy way to go there is by bus, crazy way is to run or totally insane way is to drive by bicycle. We wanted to take the middle way. at 1395m is Alpe di Neggia, which is a high mountain pass in the Swiss Alps in the canton of Ticino. From the ground level to Alpe di Neggia, we took a bus. The route up to 1395m was already very interesting experience, about one hour driving, tight serpentine road, steep slopes and normal big public transportation bus with a nice view out of the windows.
While we were waiting for the bus, I took some pictures of the Lago Maggiore.
After the head spinning, stomach mixing bus trip, we finally arrived to Alpe di Neggia.
So that was just the first step. Our plan was to do a little bit hiking all the way to Indemini. Sign says that it takes 2 hours 55 minutes. Sounds good, but I´m not that optimistic.
Good hiking shoes: check
Water to drink: check
Food: check
An umbrella: No
Warm clothes: No
Computer: No
Smartphone: Well yes, but only for an emergency situations
No need to go to a toilet: check
Lots of happy feeling and free, open mind: check
Good, we are ready to go. Follow the signs.
After three meters walking in the grass field, I stepped on cow shit, good start :-)
I think that´s the guy behind the shit. He looks so guilty, or she, I don´t know..
But no problem, it´s only grass and water mixed together, so it´s not smelling bad. Lets move on.
In these next three pictures, you can see a world famous dam. The Contra Dam. In the opening scene of GoldenEye, you will see James Bond jumping off the dam. I didn´t know before, that it was filmed in Switzerland.
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| We are still heading to the right direction, says the sign. |
One hour later we were at 1280 meters, about. To this point it was quite easy, after that our path was changing slowly to a little bit more unpleasant.
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| Not so bad location for a bench. |
Half hour later.. Next we were diving in to the forest. In the forest you should be very careful with your legs and ankles, you don´t want to break your leg here. In this route, forest is the most difficult part in my opinion, because of the surface of the path. Lots of rocks, stones and roots. One thing that I will definitely buy for the next time, is the hiking sticks/poles. I´m sure that those would help to keep the balance in a rugged surface. I also heard that some hikers were falling down a long way to the down hill and hurt them self quite badly. So be careful and notice your own limits. Watch your steps.
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| There have to be some ancient story behind that figure. It looks like a mummified evil animal is eating a devil snake. |
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| Indemini 45 minutes |
In the middle of the forest we saw a small building, it was looking like a church, it was a church or some kind of chapel.
Rifugio S.Anna at 1342 meters.
Perfect place to take a break and eat something. Door was open into the house, inside the house there was lots of beds and also blankets. Hikers could actually rest or even sleep over night there. Behind the building was a toilet.
After half hour break we kept on going.
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| In this nice, small restaurant, we drank coffee and ate ice cream. I think that was the only restaurant in Indemini (?) Near to this restaurant, there was also a small shop for normal things, like milk, drinks and bread. |
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| Local gas station wasn´t that impressive :-) |
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| It was about +30 degrees, but I don´t know how much it helps, if only your head is in the shadow. |
That was our hiking day in the mountains. Our day from Lago Maggiore to that small green bug took about 7 hours 30 minutes. Hiking time was approx. 4 hours including our break in the middle. And I have to say that I loved every minute of it. I will definitely do something like that again.
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