Hiking to Castle Tarasp and Soaking in the Bogn Engiadina Scuol

On our final day in Scuol, the weather forecast was less than thrilling and we were tired from our long hike across the Fuorcla Champatsch anyway. So we decided to take a walk to the nearby castle Tarasp and then go to the Irish-Roman hot baths. Our impromptu hike turned out to be quite well-designed nevertheless: We walked up the Clemgia river almost to the border of the Swiss national park and then turned around to ascend, through those bright green meadows below fir trees so common in the Engadin valley, to the small lake “Lai Nair” on a high moor plateau.

From there we headed down again to the Lai da Tarasp and the nearby Castle Tarasp.

And after a short bus ride, we jumped into the hot and warm pools of the Bogn Engiadina Scuol, let the jacuzzi massage our tired muscles and fell into that completely relaxed state that you can only achieve through a couple of stints in the sauna.

Hiking instructions with map: Cross the big bridge in Scuol (818362, 186463) to the camping site (818232, 186033). Follow the river in the direction of Plan da Funtanas until the ninth bridge (818023, 184075). Cross it and follow the path back to Avrona (817833, 184915), where you take the path to Lai Nair. Walk past the lake and turn right (at 816585, 184446) towards the Lai da Tarasp.

Protected: Why so serious? Jokes about “the events” (<- UN speak)

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Bad Movie Nights

Staying abroad is an excellent opportunity for cultural exchange – not just with the local people, but also with other foreigners. So that’s how I learnt to make Italian pasta or to appreciate how much you can talk about food .

A venerable tradition

A couple of week ago, I was finally able to return the favour to my Italian friends by introducing them to the tradition of “Bad Movie Nights”.  I had started this (not particularly Swiss) tradition sometime after high school, together with three friends. One of them is an expert on anything medieval – the fact that he spent his spare time fabricating chain mails and actually came to school wearing one of them did nothing to diminish his reputation -  and watching movies with a pseudo-medieval fantasy setting together with him was not just educational but also highly entertaining, as he tended to take any historical inaccuracy pretty personal. The habit of getting together at least once a year to watch a terribly bad (usually fantasy or science fiction) movie was somehow sustained through the next decade.

Germans behaving badly

As movies shown here tend to be in Russian, Federica, Giulio and I decided that we had to arrange our own cinema. And after I had stumbled over a cheap copy of “10’000 B.C.” by Roland Emmerich I suggested a “Bad Movie Night”. It was a full success and I am quite sure that the ridiculously rendered giant turkey chasing the hero through the 500m Jungle strip between the Arctic and a Stargate-style Egypt (don’t ask) had absolutely nothing to do with that.

I thus suggested a movie by another German director: Uwe Boll – infamous for turning bad video games into even worse movies that never make any money while still managing to hire some at least B-list actors. And he challenges his critics to boxing matches (don’t ask – check the Wikipedia article).

Anyway, we got hold of a copy of “In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale.” Hilarity ensued. I could of course try to explain what was so terribly bad and funny about that movie, but there are people on the net who are far better qualified, so I leave it to the masters Sobczynski and Will Helm with his “scene by scene comment”. Seriously, if you have a bad mood, just watch the movie – or read the reviews. I haven’t had that much fun for while.

Snow!

And for something completely unrelated: Yesterday evening it started snowing! Hurray! (Of course it starts snowing the very moment I bought the lights for my bike… But at least I can use my super-warm coat now)