Bachmann's Alphornmacherei Journal
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September 8. Wednesday
Gary
Today we visited Bachmann’s Alphornmacherei in Eggiwil. It is situated up on a high hill south of the main village. Our B&B host was kind enough to drive us there, otherwise there was no way we would have been able to get there on foot, and the nearest bus stop would have still required a steep climb.
The alphorn maker has fixed days and times for tours. We joined a group of at least 10 folks from France. Walter, the 3rd generation alphorn maker, gave a highly informative and entertaining hour long talk (in German, which a leader of the big group translated into French). After the talk I got a chance to play both a 3-section alphorn (like my own), and a 5-section alphorn (which packs up much smaller for easier transport). A recent Ph.D. thesis on the history of the alphorn referred to ones produced by Bachmann as the "Stradivarius" among alphorns, and now I know why.
We did need to walk down after the tour. Walter’s wife showed us the way to a trail that cut through a field and proceeded quite steeply down the hill through the woods. She explained that it was okay to walk through the open pasture among the cows. We didn’t bring our own walking poles, but we were readily able to find natural sticks, which we definitely needed. The oddest thing we encountered at first was having to crawl under the lowest ropes of cow fencing. Fortunately, these were not electrically charged!
We took a bus to the end of the line, and enjoyed a wonderful "daily menu" for lunch. Today was quite warm (80 degrees), and neither of us can tolerate walking very far outdoors in such heat. So we took the bus/train to Langnau, the main regional center of the Emmental, where we enjoyed a strawberry tort in an air-conditioned bakery. It was still quite warm at 5 pm for our mile walk back up to the B&B, where we took a long and much needed rest
Cathy
The tour was wonderful and all that Gary had hoped for. We were able to join a group of 10 from France, who had a man who would translate the high German of Mr. Bachmann into French. That went quite well. Afterward, Gary got to try his mouthpiece on their three-part alphorn and Mr. Bachmann said Gary ought to also try to play their five-part alphorn. Gary noticed a big difference between the two and had a brief chat about that with Mr. Bachmann before a huge tour bus pulled into the small courtyard and he was busy with the next tour.
We began our walk "home", which started at the side of the farmhouse and through the fields on a farm road. The road gave out and we were amid the cows on one side of a fence and a fenced field on the other side - no sign of a trail anywhere. So back to the courtyard we trudged, and waited to ask Mrs. Bachmann for further directions. Thankfully, she had time to accompany us. We went to the very spot where we had stopped and she pointed out the Wanderweg sign at the top of a pole across the field. These are yellow arrows and recognizable as Wanderwege. The field had cows and was at least two fields over. She didn't understand our confusion until I finally asked "How do we get there from here?" It was okay to duck under a fence, just be careful because they might be electric.
Armed with this info, we thanked her and took off, ducking under one non-electric fence and dropping to my knees on the next. Cows are curious and they certainly noticed us, but were not at all aggressive. My main concern was avoiding fresh cow pies. There was a roped exit at the next field which had no cows, and had a gate. The woods were expected, but the trail was steeper and more narrow than we had expected. We found walking sticks right away and managed the descent okay. I was more concerned with the trail landing us on a busy road with no shoulders. Fortunately, traffic wasn't very heavy and the Swiss are careful drivers, and are used to people walking on the roads. It was already a hot day, so we opted to take the bus to Röthenbach, the end of the rural bus line, rather than continue on the trail through the woods, up and over a long stretch of woods to finally descend near the Stöckli Bäckerei in Eggiwil.
There was a lovely little bus Haltestelle where we could sit on a bench in the shade until our bus came. Just before we reached the road, we had to cross a stream via a bridge. There were fish in the pool that formed on our side of the bridge. At the one end of the bridge we could see a simple fish ladder that allowed the fish to circumvent the drop off above the pool. Fun discoveries!
Röthenbach was small but had a nice restaurant. We had their daily special, I the small portion, Gary the large, of fish and chips with soup (Gemüse) and a lovely green salad, very tasty and reasonably priced.
After lunch it was even hotter and neither one of us wanted to return to our B&B and hike up the hill, so we took the bus to the other end of the line, to Signau, then took the train toward Bern, to Langnau. A mother and her two daughters got on the train also. We saw them for the return trip as well.
We were hot, tired and wanted to sit in a cool place, preferably in a Konditorei. After looking around some, we found a bench in the shade, just outside a shop that was closed. In a short time, a young woman came out of the shop and got on her bike near the end of the bench. She chuckled something to us, and it must have been something about how difficult it is to take off on one's bike when it is still locked. We got into a short conversation which began with her asking if we should talk in Swiss or high German. She was able to direct us to a lovely Konditorei a block or so away. We both had a piece of a strawberry quark torte.
The waitress showed us how to get to the town center and shopping area. We found a toy store. It was a lot of fun, well staffed, and we got to observe kids interact with each other and the staff. We've come to love the Swiss children.
There were several things we would have loved to get, such as the whole series of Lieselotte children's picture books. Lieselotte is a cow. There were several books in the Swiss dialect. We left without purchasing and headed to the train station. There we saw the mother and her two girls who recognized us.
Took the train to the bus back to Eggiwil and Stöckli to buy dinner and lunch for Thursday. That trudge up the hill was hot. When we passed the first house, the one with the bird menagerie, and for the first time, neither of the two parrots shrilled a greeting to us. The other birds were either not visible or very lethargic. We took our time climbing the hill.
The local kids often ride up and down on the hill, much like I rode my bike on the gravel roads near my house as a kid. Yesterday we stepped to the side as a motorcycle, a small one, with two figures on it approached. It was two young girls, maybe age 10 to 12!! We've seen young kids flying down the hill on something like a skateboard, but one sits on it, with the legs stretched out in front, and it looked like they might be steering slightly with the soles of their shoes!
By the time we reached our B&B we were hot and spent. We sat on the bench near our entrance. A figure was slowly descending from the hill from the very top of what is visible. This person happened to meet another person at the bend in the road where one makes a choice of two directions just above the B&B. After that conversation, the traveler continued on in our direction and was soon at our place, asking us if we were the owners or guests. She spent the night at the B&B. Gary heard her leave the next moring about 6:30 AM. The B&B is located on the Trans-Swiss Trail.