in which we negotiate the Alps yet again, and a Naked Man is espied.
Monday 13 July 1998 - Altenrhein, Switzerland
We take off from Klagenfurt into some pretty thick clouds (big surprise) but they disperse once we get out of this valley. It's crystal clear all the way across the Alps, and I am entranced.
I've always loved mountains. My grandma lived in the shadow of Pike's Peak, and I've seen every major mountain range in North America .... but there's something about these mountains that draws me in. Maybe it's the sense of overwhelming age .... maybe it's the stunning range of greys in the rocks .... maybe it's the amazingly azure lakes nestled in protected valleys .... maybe it's the primal granite pushing upward, eschewing the even trees to embrace the sky. I don't know. All I do know is I've snapped off a whole of film & we're nowhere near Switzerland yet.
In response to requests from the towers, we buzz the fields at Innsbruck and Salzburg, rattling the windows of the towns with the low roar of the Connie's engines.
A couple hundred miles out of Altenrhein, we pick up a chase plane -- some press guys determined to get some air-to-air shots of our plane. We circle around green valleys and broken crags for half an hour, followed spiritedly by a tiny single-engine Piper. Then we leave this mountain range for a broad valley half-filled with a blue-green lake -- the Bodensee -- which borders Austria, Germany and Switzerland. Indescribable. We circle this for twenty minutes, picking up two escorts: an old Stearman and smaller, blue biplane. You can kinda see the beige Stearman in the pic below. Eventually we get clearance to land at St.-Gallen-Altenrhein airport, a tiny, single-runway strip on the very edge of the Bodensee. Roger lines up for approach and drops down to about apple-picking altitude, and it is then that Karen and I, peering out different portholes, see the naked guy.
He's standing in a clearing, next to his car, with some other (clothed) guy next to him. He's just staring up at the plane, not doing anything (thank the gods!) I couldn't tell you if this is par for Altenrhein -- maybe it's some bizarre tradition. Sadly, Karen and I let leak the naked-guy story and had to put up with 'How big was it?'[1] questions for days.
So we spend a night in Switzerland in a lovely, huge old house that's been converted into a guesthouse, eating some absolutely faboo food. It's also the biggest room I've had since I joined the plane, with a blue velvet couch & everything. And there's a wash cloth in the bathroom. That's something that's been missing from every room I've had. Most odd.
Sadly, this is where Alastair and Andréa leave us. They're headed back to Manchester, but not without more warnings to watch out for the evil string ;) We also lose Roger, who's a Concorde pilot with British Airways. We will be sadly lacking in filthy jokes from here on out.
[1] We were going about 100 knots. You try to get detail at that speed.
