I set my alarm for 6am so as to be up for the alp horns, but when it went off it was pouring with rain - and as I was sleeping in my last set of dry clothes I decided continuing to sleep was a better option than the 20 minute walk into town in the rain.
This morning has been filled with the usual routine chores when I arrive at a campsite after a few days sleeping by the road - laundry, recharging everything, catching up on emails, processing photos. These chores were made much more pleasurable by the fact that this is the first of all the campsites I've visited with a communal room, complete with kitchenette, TV and large dining table - which means that it's the first time I've really been able to sit around with fellow campers exchanging stories. I've already heard about a fantastic walk I'd like to come back and do some other time - the Alpine Pass Walk, which crosses Switzerland from one end to the other, covering 300+ km and 16 alpine passes.
I wandered into town for a look around and was delighted to find, at the first place I entered, a cheesemaking factory. I stood watching the various stages of cheesemaking for ages - there's something about learning how people make things that fascinates me.
The Benedictine Abbey which is the heart and was the beginning of the town of Engelberg - almost 1,000 years ago.
Cleaning off the molds before putting the cheese in the cellar to cure. The cheesemaking factory is in the abbey pictured above.
Swiss flags everywhere!
I then went for a little walk through the Swiss National Day celebrations - tiny horses giving rides to babies, lots and lots of tents with food and traditional music, and a shooting gallery which people were really getting into (I forgot that everyone here has to to national service when they're young, maybe that accounts for the fascination with guns?). However the main event was to take place in the evening so I went home for a few hours' sleep - and just as well I did. The ecumenical church service which was to kick off the night's proceedings only began at 8pm, and featured yodelling and an alp horn quartet (you can listen to a bit of each below) and was followed by a churchlight procession to a nearby park where we spent ages listening through each part of the welcome and other speeches, repeated over and over in four different languages (German, French, Italian and English). By the time all the speeches were finished (and repeated 3 times over), there wasn't a lot of time left to listen to a bit more traditional music before they finished with the Swiss national anthem at 9.30pm.
Shaded candles stuck in the grass after the candlelight procession.
Alp horn quartet.
It was lovely being out in the evening - usually when I'm travelling alone I'm home well before dark, but I was comfortable with the route back to camp and satisfied that there would be lots of fellow campers wandering it at all hours of this particular night. And what an exciting walk home I had - bonfires had been lit throughout the mountains, and people kept on letting fireworks off all through the valley and in the hamlets up the sides of the mountains. The reports as the fireworks went off were terrific, and the echoes in this confined space went on for ages. To top it all off, the Swiss cross was burning on the side of one of the biggest mountains - and even once I was back at camp and tucked up in bed I was able to look out the window and see it blazing there. It was a magical end to the day.
Just as I got back to camp some fireworks went off from about 30 metres away - I wandered over to find three families happily letting off an assortment of fireworks. The Catherine wheels in particular reminded me of fireworks nights we used to have at home before they were banned.
Multimedia (I know, fancy!):
