The Grey NATO – 284 – A Last Minute Mountain Adventure In Switzerland

Published on Thu, 16 May 2024 06:00:00 -0400

Synopsis

This episode covers James' solo adventure day in Switzerland while on a press trip for Victorinox. Since his original plans fell through, he took trains and boats to explore the Bernese Alps region. He started in Grindelwald, taking a gondola up to hike among the towering peaks like the Eiger and Fiescherhorn. He then took a scenic boat tour across Lake Brienz, getting views of the famous Giessbach Falls hotel used in filming Band of Brothers.

The episode also provides updates on the upcoming Windup Watch Fair in Chicago. James and Jason reveal that their Graynado meetup will be a Sunday morning brunch before the show floor opens, rather than the evening event of previous years. This allows attendees to get exclusive previews and behind-the-scenes access while avoiding conflicts with other activities that weekend.

Transcript

Speaker
James Stacey Hello and welcome to another episode of the Graynado, a loose discussion of travel, adventure, diving, driving gear, and most certainly watches. This is episode 284 and it's proudly brought to you by the always growing TGN supporter crew. We thank you all so much for your continued support and if you're listening and would like to support the show, please visit thegraynado.com for more details. My name is James Stacy and I'm joined as ever by my friend and co-host Jason Heaton, Although the distance between us is a little more than it normally is. And we normally operate about 16 hours apart. So that's by, by, uh, by car, I suppose. And right now we're about what, 10 hours by plane, something like that.
Jason Heaton Yeah. Yeah, definitely. Yeah. I kind of like these field recordings. We haven't done one in a long time. I think, uh, might've been like a bone air trip or Sri Lanka or something, but, uh, yeah, it's kind of fun. It's fun to, fun to, uh, check in with you while you're abroad. Um, and, and that's kind of the topic of the episode. You're, you're in Switzerland right now.
James Stacey Yep. I'm recording live. That's if the audio sounds a little iffy, I'm doing my best, but I'm recording live from my hotel room in downtown Zurich. I had a busy day yesterday, which is going to inform kind of the main topic for the show. We'd originally planned to do a guest episode with a certain buddy of ours who's been on many episodes and now lives in Switzerland. He sadly was busy. And, uh, and so we're pivoting and I had sort of a solo adventure day yesterday and we'll get into that certainly. But, uh, I don't know, Jason, where do you want to kick it off? We had a, we had an early meeting for wind up Chicago and have some kind of preliminary plans we can share, I guess.
Jason Heaton Yeah. People have been asking about that on Slack. You know, we have the meetups group and then there's even a, a wind up watch fair channel on Slack and people are getting excited because I heard San Francisco is a great show and we've got Chicago coming in almost exactly two months. So yeah, we've, we've got a little bit of preliminary news. We talked it over with our, our friends at citizen. and are, and from worn and wound and we're, we're getting close to firming up some details. And I think we have a little bit of a wrinkle this year in that, um, you know, last year we had done like a Saturday evening get together at a, like a brew pub nearby. And due to some timing constraints revolving around some, some diving that's happening on Saturday afternoon, we're actually moving our TGN meetup with citizen to Sunday morning. Um, it'll be roughly around, uh, kind of a preview event of the windup fair, uh, before the show officially opens that day. Uh, and we'll be doing some sort of like a TGN brunch. Again, these are all very preliminary kind of facts or details, um, as we're still working it out. But in terms of kind of saving the date, uh, if you're interested in getting together in Chicago with us and, and fellow TGNers, uh, just put that on your calendar, pencil it in for kind of that Sunday morning of, of the windup show.
James Stacey Yeah. I think, I think if you're, if you're coming to do TGN sort of stuff, along with all the other great things that they do, maybe consider a plane flight that doesn't leave before like two or three.
Unknown Yeah.
James Stacey That way you could probably still do this. You'll get a chance to get some inside access to the show. That's what we're kind of working on still. And then like with a lesser crowd or essentially no crowd. And then you'd be able to, cause like Jason and I will leave that afternoon, that evening as well to get back to our respective homes. Yeah. Um, but yeah, whereas last year was a Saturday night thing. Now it's going to be like a fun brunch breakfast sort of thing. So probably less beer, but, uh, I'm sure we'll survive. It'll be good.
Jason Heaton Yeah. And, and we promise we'll have some interesting swag, uh, as usual, but yeah, so that's, that's kind of where we're at with that. Stay tuned. Of course, we will continue to talk this up in, in future episodes as we lead into July and wind up Chicago.
James Stacey Yeah. And other than that, I haven't, I haven't like necessarily been up to a ton since we recorded the last episode. A lot of it was prep for, this week in Switzerland, uh, including episode plans and some camera plans and the rest of it. Uh, so some of that worked out, some of it didn't, I am in Switzerland, as I mentioned. So most, mostly it did work out. I tried to get my hands on a new camera bag. Um, and, and you know, it just, it just didn't, it just didn't work out. And I, I really don't, I, years ago I told myself I had to stop like going on Instagram and complaining about UPS.
Unknown Oh, yeah.
James Stacey And the fact that they just they tell you, you can let go to UPS and have a label made where they're like, it'll absolutely be there at this certain time. That's the time we guarantee it. And then they just do whatever they want. I bought a camera bag from a guy on the slack named Adam. So I put a Adam, I don't know if you want your last name on so I'm going to omit it. But the whole idea was I wanted to check out a sling style bag that could hold the new camera and the new lens, which is quite a bit bigger. And I didn't really have a bag that could do that nicely for a day of touring around in the hills in Switzerland. Yeah. So I ended up dropping a note asking about this bag by a company called WANDRD. I don't have any relationship with WANDRD. I don't, um, I've never like borrowed any product. I don't know them at all, but I've been served their Instagram ad many times. And I really kind of like the midsize sling. It looks like it will fit the camera and a bunch of other stuff. And it has some, some kind of thoughtful, interesting ways of putting all that together into a useful bag. And, uh, I dropped it into the chat just saying, you know, anybody have or experienced one of these, what are your thoughts? And Adam, a few people replied, but Adam replied like, Oh, I got one in like a deal and haven't really used it, uh, yours if you want it. So made an offer, sorted out the details. The main part of that detail, kind of the crux of the detail, not even remotely Adam's fault was that I would have the bag by Thursday. And I, you know, I was leaving Sunday, so I thought I was beating the UPS system by saying Thursday instead of Friday. Turns out UPS now Thursday means Monday as in 48 hours after I left. Wow. Right. Or 24 hours after I left, maybe a little bit more than that. So, uh, the bag is sitting at home. Sarah just sent me a photo of it. Um, yeah, hopefully she's got a big heavy camera to lug around or something or gardening tools, but, uh, Yeah, the camera bag didn't work out, but that's the WANDRD 6 liter. I'll throw it in the show notes. I can't tell you if it's good or bad. It reviews very well, but most of those reviews are sponsored by WANDRD, which isn't that rare of a thing for people to do in this space. I think WANDRD sort of started with like the Kickstarter thing and went from there. Yeah. But I wanted to get my hands on it. It looks pretty good. So that's waiting at home and a huge shout out to Adam for hooking me up with the bag and a huge anti shout out to UPS for making sure I didn't get it in time. always go with any other option. I don't care what the other option is, just as long as it's not UPS.
Unknown Yeah.
James Stacey Yeah. But other than that, man, I haven't, I haven't like gotten up to a ton. I, you know, a lot, a lot of just kind of like prep work for this and getting things together and then already looking forward to getting back. I get back just in time for the Canadian long weekend, the Victoria day long weekend, AKA 924. Um, so I'll probably land in shortly thereafter, head up to the cottage with, uh, with the girls and, and spend a weekend, you know, not thinking about watches or, or much else other than, you know, splashing around in the lake.
Jason Heaton Yeah. You can, you can carry your snorkeling gear in your new sling bag.
James Stacey I suppose so. Yeah. Carry something. I'll need a camera. I'll take my camera. Yeah. Right. Right. Yeah. So how about you? Have you been up too much?
Jason Heaton Yeah. You know, you, you, your posts about building planter boxes sort of inspired me to get out with some tools this past weekend. I, I have this weird, um, I'm not going to call it a fetish cause that's a little strange, but, um, interest, let's call it in old pallets. I love the idea of pallets to me, like a wooden pallet, uh, represents so much potential. Like I, when I see a pallet, I think of like a hundred things you could do with it. And, but what happens is I get them home and they like lean against a fence for six months and I don't do anything. So. Uh, I always had this idea of building some kind of, uh, something, you know, like a planter box or a small shed or, or little table or something. And I've done that over the years with, with other pallets. And I had some really good pallets that, that a friend dropped off. And, uh, that was several months ago. And so I just started ripping them apart, you know, cutting, cutting them into pieces and building various things. So I built a couple of like, um, hanging planter, uh, boxes, kind of narrow ones that, that looked pretty good. And then I had a lot of the leftover wood, so I made, kind of a new like raised bed to sit at the garden that we're going to grow some spinach and radish and stuff in. So I'm definitely not at your level of craftsmanship.
James Stacey And I always tell people, do not look closely at my work because it's, it's pretty, pretty bad, but I'm not posting macro photos. It's just, I'll tell you it's squares about as good as I'm doing these days.
Jason Heaton Right. Yeah. But yeah, we've been, we've been hitting the garden like crazy. You know, I was telling Ghoshani this morning that, that the season here is so short, like in four months, I hate to say it, it's going to be like over, you know, like in, in mid, mid to late September, everything starts to shrivel up and, and we've got everything in the ground. I mean, we put in tomatoes and peppers and beans and onions and all this and flowers everywhere. And I love how around here, and I'm sure where you are in Toronto, it's like, because the growing season is so short, I feel like the plants just take advantage of like every minute of sunlight. They're, places just busting open. And of course the weeds too. So I spent, I spent a lot of yesterday like on my hands and knees, just like yanking up a weird Eastern something leaf, water leaf or some strange thing that's taken over a corner of the yard. But, uh, yeah, other than that, I've just been training for the, the fan dance. You know, it's, it's exactly a month away when this episode goes up on Thursday.
James Stacey And so that's exciting. I'm pumped for you.
Jason Heaton I'm kind of at the, I'm kind of at the point where I don't think I can build that much more in a month. So I've got my endurance base from, you know, six months of running a lot. And then I went out to a local ski Hill here last Friday with a backpack full of 25 pounds of dive weights and some water. And I just did a bunch of repeats up and down the ski Hill, um, trying to get in as much kind of elevation gain as I could. Man, my hip flexors are still sore. I mean, I'm, I'm booked in for a massage tomorrow. I really need it. I'm, I'm still feeling it. So it's, uh, it was a wake up call, but I'll, I'll kind of build on that for the next couple of weeks and then, and then just rest and hope for the best.
James Stacey So that's, well, that's great. Yeah. I mean, when, when it comes to, uh, what, what was the term you didn't want to use fetish, uh, interest, I guess we'll split the difference. We'll call it proclivity. Yeah. Uh, I have, I have something of a proclivity for, uh, for pallets as well. There's a great YouTube video, which I'll put in the notes of, I think we've talked about it in the past, but a guy that made like a cabin out of pallets.
Unknown Oh man.
James Stacey Yeah. In the woods. Yeah. The pallet cabin. So I'll put that in there as well. But the, the, the gardening thing is a great hobby. It's not one that I would say I come to naturally. I'm doing it in support of my wife who really genuinely loves it. Yeah. Yeah. I love the ability to do some woodworking. That's great. You know, got some new tools for it. That's also awesome. Yeah. It takes a lot of forth out because of how short that season is.
Unknown Yeah. Yeah.
James Stacey where Sarah started planting stuff in February, just in the house, right on a rack of lamps and stuff.
Unknown Yeah.
James Stacey And so some of that is, can be like easily transferred, whereas some of it's kind of starting fresh today. And I get, I'm getting little daily text messages in the morning, like garden updates as to what's working, what isn't. But yeah, we've been deep into the gardening thing at the moment as well. And, uh, it's certainly a nice hobby for the season, even if, if the season does prove to be a little short. Yeah.
Jason Heaton Yeah. You know, tell you what, before we jump into risk check and the main topic here, um, a watch popped up on my feed and you know, a couple of episodes ago, we talked about our visits to, the watch shows in Geneva, um, back in April and, and one of the brands, of course we visited at time to watches was Zen and they showed us, you know, the new you 50 hydros, et cetera. The watch they didn't show, uh, what was one that popped up yesterday that is just, I think a spectacular release for them. And it's their new version of what they call the nine Oh three, which is the navigation chronograph. They, you know, back in the, I believe it was the eighties, um, Zen acquired some of the tooling and kind of the watch parts and things for from Breitling when Breitling had a dark period during the courts crisis and they were building kind of a basically a Navitimer clone. But what Zinn had always done with the 903 was instead of the slide rule being on that external bezel, they had it under the glass and, and it used a, um, like a separate crown at the 10 o'clock spot to, to manipulate that inner slide rule. Well, they discontinued that a couple of years ago and people were wondering what became of it. Well, now they've released this 903, the new one. And. It's a, it's pretty amazing because they got rid of that extra crown and the internal rotating bezel and they've moved it to kind of where, you know, the traditional Breitling position of turning the outer bezel to, to manipulate the slide rule. But whereas Breitling has always kind of struggled to, to give you more than, you know, 30 meters of, of water resistance. This ZIN, this new 903, has 200 meters of water resistance with this external rotating bezel. And it's automatic winding. They're using a Lejoux-Perret column wheel movement. It's just a beautiful watch. It comes in a blue or a black dial. And then they're using, I couldn't quite understand it, but they're sort of blending in the luminescent material with ceramic to make the lume blocks for the dial markers in the hands. And it just looks great. Um, Matt Ludvigson has the old version of the nine Oh three. And I was pretty smitten with that when he wore it on a trip that he and I did, uh, last fall. Okay. Um, but these, these just look amazing. And for 3,700 bucks or thereabouts on watch buys, it's, it's hard to beat. I mean, Zen just keeps delivering. It's such a cool watch. I just thought I'd mentioned that because it's a, it's a new watch that kind of popped up out of nowhere.
James Stacey Totally. Yeah. And I think it's a good one to mention because of your background with the series from Breitling and also like you mentioned Matt's, uh, Zen as well. Like we have some reference points for these. What I think is remarkable here is the price point.
Unknown Yeah.
James Stacey Because I feel like they could have gone a lot closer to Breitling's price points. Like $3,700 is nothing to shake a stick at. That's an expensive watch for sure. Yeah. But if you, if you stack up everything that you're getting automatic column wheel, LJP movement, you know, the modern, all the modern Zen-ness of it all, Kind of feels like a lot of watch for about the same money as a, you know, a Pelagos, less than a Pelagos in some cases, right?
Jason Heaton Yeah. Yeah. That was impressed.
James Stacey Yeah. Good on Zinn. Looking forward to seeing that in the future if we get a chance.
Jason Heaton But, uh, I don't think either of us are wearing Zinns today. What do you have on over there in Switzerland?
James Stacey Yeah, well here for a Victorinox press trip. So they loaned me a watch, which is the, I got to pick from a list of watches, which one I'd like to check out for the few days that we're here. And that is the Victorinox Dive Pro Quartz. Uh, so in many ways this feels and looks like it's born in the Inox world, but it's like adjacent to Inox. Yeah. It's a 43 millimeter titanium dive watch, 300 meters of water resistance. This one uses a quartz. They make a mechanical version. It's just under a thousand euros, 945 euros. Uh, it's 14 millimeters thick, 21 millimeter lugs comes on a yellow vented rubber style strap has good loom. It's kind of a cool bezel design. It's like kind of core Victorinox. I'd love to see the same thing in 38 millimeters, 39, even 40. Yeah. Like we've been saying about a lot of their watches for a lot of time, but being titanium, if you want that sort of big watch vibe that we sometimes talk about, I actually think this is like on the smaller edge of the big watch. Yeah. But it wears really nicely. It feels really chunky and like exceedingly like intentionally tool-ish. It's not a svelte sort of vintage inspired watch design. This is very modern, very much sort of in the range of like if Victorinox made something like a standard Pelagos for $1,000. Yeah. You know, it doesn't have some of the Pelagos extras and add-ons and all that kind of stuff. And certainly a lesser water resistance, for example. But I think for a lot of the, the kind of lower level points, it has them all kind of checked, which is nice.
Jason Heaton Yeah. This is handsome. And it definitely does look like the Inox. I remember trying one of the, I don't remember what they even called it. You know, the Inox diver that, that they made for a while. Yeah.
James Stacey These are cool.
Jason Heaton I mean, you know, it's a brand that, We don't talk about a ton, but we have in the past. And it is, it does fit very much in kind of our world. I think, you know, we love the kind of thousand dollar, even, you know, the quartz is right up our alley and titanium and a cool strap. And yeah, this looks great.
James Stacey I think that Victorinox continues to make a great product. They just don't always know how to share it with watch enthusiasts. Yeah. Um, and so sometimes really great watches kind of fly under the radar. Other ones just missed the mark by one or two sort of specs that they missed or something like that. And I think this is solid. It's a nice watch. I think it would be for today's sort of like the meta of today's watch considerations. 43 is a big watch, which of course, like say 2010, it just wasn't. Yeah. So I think there's, there's, there's kind of some elements like that still at play here, but it is super comfortable. The titanium is put to nice use, nicely made all that kind of stuff.
Unknown Yeah.
James Stacey Kudos to a Victorinox and the dive pro courts. What have you got on this week?
Jason Heaton Yeah, I'm back to my Pelagos FXD. I haven't worn it in a while. I was kind of in that Blancpain mode for a couple of weeks when I went on that expedition and I was wearing that for a while and I've just been wearing my Garmin a ton because I've been doing so much training. But as I mentioned in my final note, I think last week, I picked up this Garmin UltraFit kind of pass-through Velcro strap and I ordered the 22mm thinking it would work well on this watch. And it certainly does. It arrived after we recorded last week and I'm wearing it right now. And, you know, a few people have commented on it. I put a post up on Instagram and of course on Slack and people have found kind of affordable alternatives. And it's just wonderful. It's super soft, infinitely adjustable, looks good with the watch.
James Stacey People have found options that are more affordable than the Garmin?
Jason Heaton Than $39. Yeah. I think someone found a $14 one on Amazon.
James Stacey Isn't it like $40? Yeah. Oh, well, fair enough.
Jason Heaton Yeah. I mean, I'm, I'm happy with $39 and I think, I think it'll hold up well and it's, it's super soft and it just, it looks good.
James Stacey Yeah.
Jason Heaton Yeah.
James Stacey I'm, I'm always a fan of, uh, of the cheaper, cheapest version of a strap. Uh, you know, whatever you could find online is great as long as it works and lasts and that kind of thing. But at 40 bucks, I think I'd probably go with the Garmin. They just, I've never been let down by one of their straps.
Unknown They make such a nice product. Yeah. Yeah.
James Stacey Yeah. Cool stuff. Cause that's a cool pairing too. I like that as well. If they made a 21, I would certainly sneak it onto the, uh, under the 39.
Jason Heaton I bet 22 would work actually.
James Stacey Yeah, it might be able to get in there just because it's kind of a squishy strap.
Jason Heaton Yeah, exactly. All right. Well, we have no time to waste because you are, uh, you, you've got a dinner coming up here and, uh, and we're talking over a questionable, uh, connection, which is so far cooperated, but, uh, let's, let's dig into a little bit of, of what you've been up to the past couple of days.
James Stacey Absolutely. So the interesting thing is there's, there's actually a little bit of pre context for this, that some folks will find kind of, fun. Just a little while ago we did one of our Slack Q&As or Q&A. I actually don't remember which one because we did them kind of right next to each other and I don't remember which one had this question. I do think it was an audio question so I think it was the normal Slack Q&A which would have been for March as we now need to record April early next week. But for the March Q&A someone, I didn't go back and check I apologize, but someone wrote in with a question and said you know what's all of the like non-watch work things you recommend doing in Switzerland? What would you go see? Where have you been? That's amazing. And reading that question was a little bit heartbreaking for me because I had spent no time really exploring this country. Yeah. It's probably the, the number two country in my life. Well, the States, I guess at this point, but it's definitely in the running outside of Canada for a country I've spent the most time, but haven't lived.
Unknown Yeah.
James Stacey And, uh, and I think I've been there, you know, commonly probably almost every quarter for the better part of a decade. Yeah. Something like that as many times, but always to Zurich, always to Basel, always to Geneva, and always with a full slate of like somebody else's itinerary to do your press trips or watch shows, that sort of thing. So weirdly, shortly after we recorded that, I was offered this trip with a Victorinox. And when we were going through the kind of deliberations over what flights to go where I was trying to go direct so that I didn't have a problem of losing a day in Frankfurt, that sort of thing. So due to the flight timing, I ended up with about 30 hours of extra time at the front. So yesterday for this trip, I arrived like 6.30 in the morning local. So I got like 40 minutes of sleep. And the plan had been to connect with, to jump a train to Geneva, connect with Cole Pennington, who we've had on the show several times before, a good buddy, and probably go to Chamonix and just kind of bop around for like a day, maybe stay over if we feel like it, maybe not. And then eventually take a train back to Zurich for this dinner this evening. And those plans fell through. Cole had something else that came up that he couldn't get out of, and that happens. That's life. So I kind of got to Switzerland with like a few different plans that all kind of dominoed into each other, depending on what the weather was. You know, how far I was going to go, how much into the mountains I wanted to go, if I wasn't going to be able to see the mountains, all those sorts of things. So landed at 6.30, was at the hotel by probably 7.30. Weather was looking pretty good for the day. So I figured I would try and make my first stop Interlaken. which is kind of, they claim, or at least a website I was reading claimed that it's like the home of extreme sports in, in Switzerland. Um, so jumped on a train, it's about a two hour train, one transfer and burn to get to Interlaken. I get to Interlaken and the weather's still looking good. And Interlaken is what gives you access to spots like Grindelwald. And if you have a really nice day, if it had been like a blue sky, like genuine blue sky clear day, I would have tried to go to the top of Europe. Jungfraujoch. Uh, also I'm going to announce, I'm going to pronounce many Swiss elements in the next 20 minutes. My apologies. I did go and watch some pronunciation videos, all that kind of stuff. I will do my best. Uh, so I didn't, it didn't look like the sort of day, uh, where you could go all the way to the top and necessarily get like a really good view unless you had the entire day to sit and wait for the clouds to move around. So I made the very, I'd like two minutes between trains. So I made the quick choice to get to Grindelwald. Yeah. And I jumped on about a 40 minute train from Interlochen to Grindelwald and got to Grindelwald. And it's just like, it's jaw dropping. It's like, I've been to so many mountain towns. I had a brother that lived in Squamish. I've spent a ton of time in Whistler. And even like the only thing that could be close in my mind is Zell. And even Zell, there's way more space before the mountains. This is just a town right between a couple mountains in the Bernese Alps. You're already at a pretty good elevation. And then once you're there, I got there, it was still sunny and nice. I'm like, all right, we're going up. I don't know how yet, but I'll figure that part out. So I had a few minutes while I was having a coffee and I realized that just behind where I was having coffee was this was a, uh, essentially a gondola called, uh, Grindelwald Fierst or just spelled like first. And the gondola has three stops and basically you pay a rate and you can kind of just bop around between the two stops. And it's a loop, you know, like a round ticket to bring you back down to town. So I very quickly bought that you can do all of this on your phone. So buying stuff is very easy. You don't have to have conversations in different languages. You get the QR code, you scan it. I didn't talk to anyone for this whole process, nor with the train, to be fair. Um, I get on the, on the gondola and as I'm going up, the weather's just getting better. We're getting, I've got sun on the mountains. I can see a couple of the peaks, a couple are still behind the cloud. And you go to the first stop and it's like an Alpine playground. And this is also where you can like sign up to ride one of these like tricycles all the way down like a footpath.
Unknown Yeah.
James Stacey Got up there, just kind of walked around, hung out, took a bunch of pictures, went up to the second stop. The very top, top one didn't, it was kind of like the launching point for a bunch of these other activities. And it had more of like a weight. So it was easier to move between like positions two and three is like the bot and whatever the second one was called.
Unknown Yeah.
James Stacey And so I was bouncing around between those. And then finally I was like, all right, I think I've seen it. I've got all my pictures, that sort of thing. So, and then I walked down back to town, which is probably like 45 minutes, but it's like 45 minutes of like a fairly steep incline downhill. So definitely feeling it in my, um, in my quads today, which is nice. Uh, as I, as I got up and like moved around my hotel room, I was like, Oh, I can actually feel the fact that I went and kicked around for the day yesterday, which is nice. Yeah. And yeah, that was really lovely. Grindelwald's just jaw-dropping. It's just a postcard. There's just a huge mountain wall on three sides. Very impressive. Yeah. Very easy to get there. Maybe, I don't know, maybe like 150 bucks in train tickets. Canadians, so like $100, $110. I also guarantee, I did not do any of the forework because I was trusting that Cole would have a leg up being a local. Right. I also guarantee there's probably some way where I could have bought a pass, which would have been cheaper than single tickets. for most of the transit that I'm describing for this. But so I just, I just kept moving. I didn't, I did not do the proper amount of research. If you're going to come here and you use the train a bunch, you should try and get some of the fare reducers. Um, and there's lots of guides and that kind of stuff online to it. So after that, after the walk down, as I was walking down, the weather was very much on my side today. So as I was walking down, it starts to rain. So it's like, all right, time to leave Grindelwald. And I get back just in time to jump on a train back down to Interlochen with really no concrete plans. One of the things that Cole had recommended checking out was this, um, the grand hotel Geesbach or Geisbach, not super sure. Um, which is a, like a old world hotel that's on Lake Breens, but like up on a cliff it's serviced by like a funicular, like a trolley. And, um, and the only reason I knew it when he brought it up is because they used it as a filming location in Band of Brothers. So if you remember the, maybe the last episode, or maybe an element of episode nine. And then episode 10, they're at this hotel in Zell, in Zell and Say. That's supposed to be the grand hotel of Zell, which I've seen from the outside, but they filmed everything on Lake Brenton. So where he, where, where Winters is jumping into the water, he's jumping into an unbelievably cold Lake, like cold year round, no way to not be freezing cold, no idea how you'd still be an actor at that temperature. I get to interlocking and on the train trip down, I'm kind of Googling around trying to see like, how do I get from, you know, it's maybe a 25 minute drive by car to the hotel. Yeah. But I don't have a car. There's no Uber. I hadn't quite figured out taxis yet. If I wanted to take like buses, it was maybe two buses to get around to Breen's and then another one to, or maybe you had to walk like the last 20 minutes to get to the hotel, something like that. But I got off the train and then right across from the train tracks, like in a way that could only be Switzerland, there's a boat. A beautiful boat. And there's people lining up to get on it. And I walk over to the lady, I go, where's this boat going? She goes, Oh, it goes like kind of zigzags across Lake greens and stops at all the major hotels on the Lake to pick up and move people around.
Unknown Oh man.
James Stacey And I was like, Oh, if I don't, if I don't need to go to a hotel, can I just ride it? She's like, yeah, you can do a round trip. It takes about three hours and it's really beautiful. You can have a drink. You can have, they have a full, they had like a proper restaurant.
Unknown Yeah.
James Stacey And so I was like, all right, let's do it. It was, um, just for reference, it was 66 Swiss francs for second class or a hundred or 99, uh, Swiss francs for first, which allowed you to sit on the top of the boat. Obviously I paid the extra go to the top of the boat. Yeah. Uh, so I got on the boat, got myself a beer, went and sat on the side on the bow and just kind of watched this beautiful Lake. It's very kind of like Lake Como, but in a, in a more Swiss way. Beautiful, you know, blue water. And, um, and then you eventually, yeah, you kind of zigzag back and forth across the lake. Not a lot of traffic on the lake either. Um, kayakers, a few fishermen, that sort of thing. And then you get to the hotel, this main hotel, Geesbach, uh, where there's a huge, um, waterfall that like fuels or feeds the hotel, maybe gave it its name, something like that. They were talking about it, but in the wrong language. So I only got bits and pieces. It's a very cool hotel. It's definitely one where like, if I'd had way more time, Cause with a three hour tour, this was going to have me back in circuit about 10 PM. Oh, sure. But you have to keep in mind that at this by 10 PM, I will have been awake like 32 hours. Yeah. Like I think I slept about 45 minutes on the plane. So you can give me my 45, I guess. And then I was so scared of, of being left on the, on the train at a stop.
Jason Heaton Yeah. He didn't want to fall asleep.
James Stacey I wouldn't fall asleep. Cause I don't know him all my stops. I'm doing this with my phone and I'm not with someone where I'm like, can you wake me up when we get the burn? Like normal, normal train stuff. Yeah. So I didn't sleep on the trains and coming back, I was like a bit of a zombie. Uh, but the, the boat ride, yeah, it was like a full three hours. And then they, you know, it's Switzerland, everything's time to work. So we get back in the train to take us to, I mean, for the one to take me to burn, which I then very quickly switched and get to Zurich, which is right there.
Unknown Yeah.
James Stacey We had four minutes to get on and buy our ticket and everything worked. I had a delicious beer and some paprika chips on the boat and took a bunch of photos and got to see the hotel from the water. If I, you know, if I'm ever there again with a bunch more time, I'd love to kick around the grounds and maybe stay a night, that sort of thing. I think it'd be very, very cool to do that, but it's nice. I've got yet another sort of Band of Brothers location checked off the list. I've seen the hotel in Zell. I've seen this. I've seen the Eagle's Nest in Bavaria and slowly just seeing where they shot this great show. So that's kind of fun. And then, uh, I mean, the end is pretty anticlimactic aside from some really good donair. Um, I, I jumped back on the train and just fought to stay awake, made my transfer and, uh, and then got back to Zurich. It was pretty lazy for like nine 30 and all I wanted. It's my favorite food when I'm in Europe and I'm spending my own money is donair. And I was able to find a place called, I'll give them a full on shout out because I've been back once already. It's called Zuri Bistro.
Unknown Huh?
James Stacey It's right by the train station. So if you go to, if you go to Zurich HB, the main train station, and you love donair, go into the mall underground next to the train station, basically cross the street to the McDonald's and go down.
Unknown Yeah.
James Stacey And these guys are down there. They're super friendly. The food is crazy. Good. I bought one last night. It was a big mistake not to buy two. And when I woke up this morning and got moving, I went and bought two. So, I've got about a half here that I can snack on if I want, but I'm going to get my fill. You can't quite get it like this back home. You can do pretty well for Donair to be fair in Toronto. Yeah. Um, but it's a slightly different version of what they have in Switzerland and Austria. And I've come to really prefer the Swiss and Austrian take it's great. Um, so I'm, my belly's very full of, uh, of meat that was spinning on a cone and then covered in garlic sauce. Oh man. But luckily no burps on Mike, which is always good. And that was the whole night. I made it back and then I got up today and wrote the story for those new Seikos. Wow. The SPB 453 and 451. And then I'm going to crank out this episode and go to dinner. So if you wanted to do two adventures of some sort in Switzerland, it's definitely within the realm of possibility. I think, you know, I definitely think you could spend three or four days easily in Grindelwald, especially if you like to ski or climb. Want to do some backpack touring, that sort of thing. Um, and then I think you could spend a ton of time on greens. Gorgeous. Just a bit like a Lake Como, that sort of scenario. Cool boats, you know, huge mountains, houses right on the water. Things here aren't cheap, but they all, everything just kind of works.
Jason Heaton Yeah. I would, I would contend that Switzerland is, is, is one of the probably handful of countries where you can do so much in a single day because of the compact size of the country, but also in the, obviously the jaw dropping scenery. But, Also the efficiency with which everything works. Like, like you've said, I mean, you, you get your train pass on your phone and you can go anywhere in the country. It's just this web of connected train systems and boats and, and, and cable cars and funiculars and things that you can go up and down mountains. And even the trails, I mean, you know, I'm sure you saw too, like incredible when you go up above in fierce there, it's like the signage is great and they don't even do it in mileage. They do it in time, like walking time. Like if you want to go from fierce to interlock and it'll take you, six hours and 15 minutes or something. It's like, okay, I will walk to interlock and you know, it's amazing.
James Stacey It's just really, really forgiving for English speakers with limited French or German.
Unknown Yeah.
James Stacey So yeah, it's a very easy country to get around. Uh, I think had I done more planning or if the plan with Cole had, had worked out differently, um, I would have had an entirely different sort of day. But if you want a case point, if you want like a case study on, Very little planning. You've got some money so you can pay for the trains and you just basically start. I could have technically easily started this trip from the airport because I could have left my bag in a locker and got on the same train system that goes right through Zurich and on the, on the way to burn. Right. Uh, so I didn't, you could go, you could easily do this from an airport. I also think if you didn't need to do a three hour boat ride, which like I didn't need to, but I wanted to, but you could also have done this within a 12 hour window. Sure. Yeah. Uh, like leaving Zurich, making it to Grindelwald, enjoying the sites of Grindelwald, maybe not a bunch of activities that might have lineups and that kind of thing. And then making it all the way back to Zurich. Um, you know, it's a lot of time on trains, but it ain't that bad. Not, not considering how far I went and how deep into the Alps I went on a train.
Jason Heaton Yeah. I remember when I did that, that trip after Basel to Murren, I did, it was a similar kind of timetable as you, because I left in the wee hours of the morning, from Basel train station and made it to, um, to Murren and then, and then, which is not far down the Valley there from Grindelwald. And I was back at my hotel in the evening by probably 10 PM. I mean, it was, it was a full day and I felt like, man, I wish I had one extra day. But on the other hand, like I was able to see an awful lot of Switzerland in whatever it was, 15 hours or whatever. So yeah, you're right. It's, it's, it's amazing.
James Stacey Yeah, for sure. And for those of you who maybe started this episode and thought like, Oh, James is lying. This is just set dressing. He's sitting at home in Toronto. I don't know if I'd be able, I don't think Jason, I have the budget to fake the ambulance sound that just went by. Cause that is not a North American ambulance.
Jason Heaton You should have gotten some ambient, like a cowbell, cowbell noise.
James Stacey Yeah, dude. I couldn't believe it. I was so funny. You bring that up. I was walking downhill from fierce and I'd passed the last stop. So I was, I was committed. I was walking all the way down. And as I started to get lower, there was an insane amount of noise. Oh yeah. Like, I love that. And I thought, man, am I, am I like walking up on a wind chime farm?
Unknown Yeah. Yeah.
James Stacey Like, am I going to turn the corner and there's going to be like 70 wind chimes or something in the air? No, it's just like 25 cows and their bells are so loud. Yeah. Don't get me wrong. I understand why a cow has a cow bell. It makes sense. They need to be loud. I've just never heard a bunch of them at the same time. Yeah. I mean, very Swiss to be walking downhill, green pastures, old cabins. Yeah. cows in the field and just gnarly mountains on three sides. Yeah. But yeah, it doesn't need, it doesn't need to be longer than that. That was, that was the trip. It was great. I've got another couple of days here of doing the more conventional stuff for, for guys like Jason and I in Switzerland. But I do feel like I've proven something to myself now where like, if I'm going to come all the way to this lovely country for four or five days, take an extra day on it, put a day on it and find coal, put a day on it and just do something on my, on my own. I would say the only thing I didn't love about yesterday was not having someone to share it with. Yeah. Like either Sarah or you or Cole, just like, it's weird to do some really cool stuff and then just have your phone to be like, I know, Hey, I hope your work day is going well. Look at me at the top of a mountain. Yeah. Right. Or look at this cool cow I met. Right. Like it's all stuff that like it'd be a little sweeter. It's like weirdly isolating to be doing something like that alone. Um, but I mean, that just speaks to having good people in your life that you want to spend time with. But, uh, We should do, you and I should definitely get, get Cole out and go on a proper adventure out here. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think, I think there's also an overnight ferry to Tunisia, which sounds like a good time. I looked into that very briefly.
Jason Heaton Yeah. I mean, it's, uh, it's, it sounds amazing. And I remember, you know, you mentioned taking the train from the airport and that's about 10 years ago, Ghoshani and I actually went to Fierst and, and we took the train from Zurich. We were there for this mountain sports photography workshop that was held in Fierst. Oh yeah. And we stayed at the ski hostel up there at the top of the, of the, uh, cable car stop. And, um, yeah, it was spectacular. And I remember, I mean, I, we have one of the photos that Kashani took, uh, framed in our house in, in, in a big size. And it's, it's looking across the Valley from up there around Fierst and you get these mountains, you've got the Vetterhorn and you've got the Eiger and you've got the Monk and then you've got the Jungfrau. They're all like right across the Valley, like in a tableau, like a painting, like, like you said, I mean, it's like when you're in Grindelwald, you're in the shadow, like it's actually cold in the shadow because you're getting this like cold wind blowing off these icy mountains. I mean, it really is evocative of all the great books, all the books and the white spider and all this kind of stuff. I mean, it's just, it's just like, you get the sense of history there.
James Stacey Yeah. It has, it has that, it has that, um, James Bond Alpine feel. Like it's a proper Alpine town, not a ski town. It is a ski town, but you, if I think, you know what I mean, especially if you're like a North American skier, there's ski towns, Whistler, Aspen, Park Slope, and then there's Alpine towns and like, yeah, Alpine towns are pretty rare in North America. Not obviously less rare out here, but yeah, it's, you get, you get a bit of that James Bond feel to it. Um, the, yeah, the mountains, I can't even imagine what the hiking must be like if you had like actual time to invest into the area and maybe find a guide, maybe find a local or a buddy or, or just take to the maps or, or, uh, you know, a wealth, well-kitted out tablet or something. But yeah, it's, it's, uh, it's really, really, really, really beautiful here. Um, and I eventually I would like to do like the, so that the Jungfraujoch, uh, has like a base at the top. They wouldn't call it a base, but it looks like something right out of a James Bond. Yeah. Yeah. And certainly that's the UNESCO world heritage site and all that kind of thing. So, Someday I'll get back there, but that's, that's the kind of thing, like I didn't mind leaving that on the list with the idea that, um, you know, like that I could, uh, do it with, with Sarah, with the family at some point in the future. So yeah, that's okay.
Jason Heaton Well, you, you talked about a shared adventure and I think, you know, one thing we should put on our longterm wishlist would be go back to that area and, um, with a few days and hire a guide and you know, you can, you can hike up the back of the Eiger to the top. I mean, I used to think like, you know, you always hear about the North face, you know, the North face of the Iger people dying and hanging by ropes and, you know, freezing to death and all this kind of stuff. Yeah. Like you can, you can climb. I mean, it's a, it's a, it's a serious climb, but like you climb up the backside of it, which is far more forgiving than, you know, a sheer face. But it's always something that I had the seed in the back of my brain. It was like one day, just to say you've been to the top of the Iger would be pretty, pretty amazing.
James Stacey So I think so. Yeah. No, I don't disagree, but yeah, look, I, I took a bunch of pictures as you can imagine. So I will figure out what sub stack does for like galleries. Oh yeah. And I'll probably try and put a gallery of photos in the show notes. If they're not there, I'll find some other place to put them. So check the show notes. Maybe it'll be a pixie set or, or whatever. I shared some stuff into the Slack. If you have any questions, if there's anything I can help with, if you're planning on going to, uh, to Switzerland and my one day adventure might lead some, might, uh, you know, allow for some context, feel free to reach out the great NATO gmail.com or hit me up on the Slack. I had a great bunch of feedback. I gave two hours notice or something to the Slack crew just saying like, Hey, my plans fell through in Switzerland. What do you recommend? And I said, I was probably considering this kind of thing. And they said, yeah, you know, think about it this way. And there's lots of options. And they, they also provided a handful of options that like, if the weather had been terrible, the cloud cover had been very low. That still would have given me some stuff to do. James Bond museum and some cool stuff like that.
Unknown Nice.
James Stacey Yeah. Awesome. Yeah.
Jason Heaton It was a good time. That's great. That's great. And then next week we'll, we'll get to hear a little more about your, uh, your Victorinox trip, or at least maybe that'll pop up in an article in the future. But, uh, yeah, your, your time isn't done there yet.
James Stacey Yeah. Arguably just starting at about an hour and a half, but, uh, I haven't done, I don't know what the article will be, whether it'll be like a tour of their facilities. The five-year-old also 38 year old inside me is really excited because I'm going to go to where they make the knives. Oh yeah. Nice. That's been an obsession since I was a very little kid. My grandmother worked in the black forest in Germany for several years. And when she would come back, she would always bring us a gift from that area. And one year we all got, you know, like the standard, there's probably like a 15 or 16 tool knife with our names engraved in it. And look, did I lose mine in less than a year? Probably somewhere in the field of the cottage. You bet. But did I, did I use it every single day? Oh yeah. So it's, it's, it's a very cool thing for me. I've been a big fan of Victorinox as a product for a really long time. Yeah. Uh, you know, over 30 years and to be able to go, like I probably have one of those knives everywhere I sit in my house. Sure. Yeah. Hodinkee makes like signed black ones, which are pretty rad. Yeah. I've got it. I bought it, bought those by the 10 for a little while. They make great gifts and cooler than a business card too. If you want someone to actually remember.
Jason Heaton Yeah, that's true. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, that's great. Just put it in your checked luggage on the way back. If you buy something.
James Stacey Yeah. I'm going to ship everything back. I'm not, I'm not, I didn't check a bag. Um, I guess I could, I mean, I could check the bag that I brought if I need to, but it's very simple to, to be able to ship them. Sure. But yeah, that was it. Uh, that's, that's about all I've got to report on. Definitely. We'll have more next week for two 85, possibly that's the one with our guest. We're still working on that timing, but stay tuned.
Unknown Yeah.
James Stacey Uh, pretty, pretty special guests we're working on, but I'm sure I'll have a download from that trip as well. But look, before this gets so long that I don't have time to edit it before Thursday morning. How about some final notes?
Jason Heaton Yeah, let's do it. Um, I've got a fun one this week. So when I was in, in the UK back in, uh, whatever month that was May, April, March or April. Um, and I went to a get together in Soho in London. Uh, I met Darren from Zulu Alpha straps, um, who who's become kind of a chum of mine, at least, uh, at least over social media. And it was fun to finally meet him. He makes some pretty cool watch straps, but he's kind of branched out into kind of new product lines. And a while back on a final notes, I talked about the wool beanies that he's selling and he's got something really cool now that he gave me at that event and said, look, I'm not expecting anything from you out of this, but you know, I just wanted you to have this. And I was like, I was really touched. It's a really cool thing. And I'm going to talk about it. So Darren, even though you said I don't have to, no, I'm glad you did.
James Stacey I wrote you as soon as you, I'm glad you wanted to talk about it. Cause I wrote you as soon as you put a picture up. It's very cool. Sorry. I stepped on you. Give it a new intro.
Jason Heaton No, no, that's, that's, that's fine. I mean, it's a, this is a cool, this is a cool thing. It's, it's the Connery belt. So as the name suggests, this is a woven nylon belt, like, you know, hold your pants up kind of belt. Um, with, with bridal leather and kind of a polished, you know, steel buckle, um, that is really well made. And the, the, the, the woven nylon is actually in the bond NATO stripes, like the official kind of version of the stripes that came out after people discovered blu-ray and, and paused their DVDs of, of course, sugar and zoomed in on, on the stripes on his watch strap. Um, and, uh, And it's just really awesome. So the belt is the part where the buckle is attached and kind of where the holes are is this beautiful black bridal leather with a really heavy polished metal buckle. But then the majority of the belt is this woven nylon with the stripes. And the woven part actually has an adjustment slider that you can actually increase or decrease the length of the belt if you need to. So in addition to the the holes, there's also this adjustable slider.
James Stacey So you can adjust the length of it. You don't end up with a huge tail or something. Exactly. Or no tail.
Jason Heaton Yeah. And, and I just love it. And, and I think it's one of those, like, I'm not much for like really on the nose kind of watch reference apparel, you know, whether it's a t-shirt or a cap or whatever. I just don't like to walk around with that sort of thing. So this is like this super insider kind of wink, wink, nod thing that, that if you know, you know, and you're, and you're wearing this belt, like, People are going to recognize that stripe pattern and know exactly what it is. And, um, even though I don't rock the, the bond NATO strap, I've got a couple of these in this pattern. I've just, they've never lasted long on a watch for some reason. That's just too much color and stripes for me, but on the belt, it's just awesome. And it looks good with a pair of khaki pants or jeans or shorts or whatever you want to wear it with, but hats off to Darren. Um, he's selling these for, uh, he had them in pounds, 165 pounds, which translates to about today, like around 210 bucks. Um, entirely reasonable for what it is. It's really well crafted. He's working with a, uh, a well-known leather craftsman, uh, in England and these are made in the UK. So, um, yeah, I'm super happy with it and it's just fun. So if you're, if you're looking for something, watch adjacent that, that, you know, kind of ties in with your love of, of bond and that whole thing, uh, check it out. It's called the Connery belt and it goes on sale the day after this episode goes up. So. Darren told me it'll be available this coming Friday, which is the 17th, I believe. So check it out.
James Stacey Yeah. I think it looks great. Uh, I also have never been able to put that strap on a watch and feel like it worked.
Unknown Yeah.
James Stacey Maybe I need the same watch that Connery was wearing. I'm not sure. I think I've lamented that I just, I can't, I feel like I can't pull off striped NATOs. I do think that stripe specifically like gets its own purview versus any other striped NATO. Um, but I, I do, I do dig it. It's, uh, it's pretty cool to see it as a belt. That's smart. I had a, an old like D ring style belt. Oh, sure. I think you had it too. You must have at one point with the Tudor heritage blue colors on it. Do you remember that from years ago?
Jason Heaton I do remember that. Yes, yes. Wow.
James Stacey So it's the same idea, much lower end sort of, I have a couple of them, so I may end up, may have ended up with one of yours because you send me clothes every now and then whole different echelon lower than what Zulu Alpha is up to. But it was a simple D ring style belt, but it had the blue, white, orange stripe. And I wore that for a while until sort of my preppy phase closed up entirely. And now they just sit in my, uh, they just sit in my, my closet.
Jason Heaton Yeah. Yeah. Oh, that's great. All right. What do you have?
James Stacey Yeah. For mine this week, I've got a video, a new video from Henry and Haggerty. Uh, it's, it's hard to hate this one. We've, we've definitely talked about other ones featuring this mark of car in the past. Henry's done some amazing previous videos with the Aston Martin Vantage, but we now have a brand new one for the brand new generation with its crazy high horsepower, 650 plus horsepower. I think it's the best looking Vantage since the 2005 gen. I just think it's gorgeous. I still think the older ones are cooler, but I'm definitely clouded by the fact that the older ones had a manual and I've driven one and it was awesome. Like just a little muscle car, British muscle car. But this new one looks so good. And, uh, they had one of the earliest videos up. So like when nowadays, when like, uh, you know, an embargo, a press embargo for a car kind of wraps up or like opens up and everybody can start publishing. I pretty much just wait for Henry if he's done one or throttle house. Yeah. And, uh, and when I loaded up YouTube, this one was lower on, on the subscription page. So it was a little fresher and I watched it this morning and I just loved it. Um, a great video kind of well-told from both the road and track elements. And, you know, it's our, our guy, Henry doing his thing. Uh, we'll definitely have Henry on in the next few months as well. Uh, cause I saw him at ice race and we had a really nice time, but it's a, it's a great video. If you're into the car thing, if you're into the Henry thing, as I think you should be, uh, get in there. Uh, he's rocking a Braymont in this one, I believe. And, uh, the car looks absolutely perfect.
Jason Heaton Oh, super cool. I'm going to watch it right after we hang up here. Cause I think, uh, that's, that's one that I saw him post on Instagram and I was like, yep, gotta, gotta watch that. So. At some point when we have more time, I'm going to need a bit of a primer from you on, on Aston Martin, the range, like where the Vantage fits in with, with their other stuff. I've never been quite clear on kind of their, their naming.
James Stacey The nice thing about Aston Martin is I don't even have to waste a lot of tape doing it. They have a very simple range. It's the Vantage is the start. It's their V8 model. Okay. You know, it used to be called a V8 Vantage specifically. They've made 12 cylinder versions, which we've talked about in the past, but at its core, it's their 911 fighter. and it's their entry-level vehicle. Above that, you have the DB12. DB12 succeeds into the DBS. And then beyond that, you have the legit special projects. That could be anything from a 177 to a Valkyrie to a Vulcan. They do custom one-off stuff. Not that long ago when I was in Geneva, I was actually sitting with Kenneth From Arkin, we saw an exceedingly rare Roadster. So I think one of 77 or one of 60, something like that. Like a modern V8 Vantage, but with no roof at all. And just like these little plexi windows. Oh yeah, nice. Oh man. Very, very cool looking thing to see. Very Geneva, I suppose. Geneva in the sun and this guy doesn't even have the hopes of a roof. Weirdly pulled up without a friend in the second seat, but you know, that's his business, I suppose. Anyways. Oh, and then they have the DBX, which is the SUV. Oh, sure.
Jason Heaton Yeah. Yeah. Cool. I'll check that out.
James Stacey Anyways, I think that's an episode. I think you're right. From Switzerland.
Jason Heaton Yeah. Yeah. Well, enjoy the rest of your trip. Of course, yeah. And as always, thanks to everyone for listening. If you want to subscribe to the show notes, get into the comments for each episode, or consider supporting the show directly, and maybe even grab a new TGN signed NATO, and get into the slack, please visit thegraynado.com.
James Stacey And we leave you with this quote from Mark Twain, or at least a quote attributed to Mark Twain, who said,