This photograph of tourists on Mont Blanc, Switzerland, was taken a few years after the Hitchcocks' visit. They were overawed by the Alps, which made the White Mountains of New Hampshire look small. Orra and the other ladies hiked wearing long skirts. Image courtesy of Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division.

After stops in Heidelberg, where Orra was pleased with an English church service and thought an evening prayer meeting at the hotel congenial to her religious tastes, the Hitchcocks arrived in Basel, Switzerland. Orra was amused by the women’s “costume, one headdress with monstrous bows like wings, black. Those at work in the fields have a passion for red, bright red cotton handkerchiefs on their heads & red aprons.” The next day, she was less happy at seeing women at the plough and doing other heavy labor she regarded as “men’s work.” She thought Swiss women and cows badly used.

They spent a few days each in Zurich, Lucerne, Bern, Vevey, and Geneva. They saw fine museums, visited sites related to the Protestant reformers Ulrich Zwingli and John Calvin, met with like-minded religious people, and called in on the exceptional Fellenberg agricultural school at Hofwyl. It was all interesting and gratifying, but they were bowled over by the scenery. Edward always remarked on geological structures, but his recounting of the Alps was sheer rhapsody.

If Orra had expressed a period of world-weariness with travel in Scotland, she was not weary now. She and Edward were enthralled with the Swiss Alps. They saw sparkling glaciers and the marks left by ancient ones, the "Mer de Glace" ("Sea of Ice") on Mont Blanc with people coming down from the summit, and geological views vastly different from anything even remotely familiar. Other landscapes they saw on their tour had counterparts at home, but the Alps were wholly new and awe-inspiring.

Despite his health, a week later Edward and Orra rode 8 hours by mule from Chamonix to Martigny, “through gorges & valleys, over mountains, on precipices hundreds of feet close by the edge of our road. In one place, the road hung over a precipice, another through a gothic arch through a rock of peculiar grandeur overlooking a far valley beneath,” noted Orra. They hiked more than two hours to stay overnight at the Staffel House at the top of Mount Rigi one night at the end of August so they could arise at 4:30 a.m. to see the sunrise. With typical understatement, Orra called it “a genuine uphill walk” to the Kulm, where they stood in the dark and fog with 200 or so others, hoping that the fog would clear. It did clear, and the view was sublime. Orra never again expected to see something so beautiful. Edward felt closer to God.

Listen to what Orra wrote in her travel diary.

Listen to what Edward wrote in his travel diary.

Next chapter: Paris