Hotel Restaurant Schuetzen Lauterbrunnen

... up early and walked to Stechelberg station (1.5 hrs) as the sun finally rose and the clouds started to clear away, and reveal that precious blue. I ascended to Mt Schilthorn (2970m) which took about 30 minutes via three gondolas at Grimewald, Murren and Birg. I got there at about ten o'clock and stayed for about three hours, while having morning tea and a small lunch. Not very good service but you can't beat the view. There are a couple of hiking trails that you can ...

Unfortunately the weather was terrible. It was raining this morning but I decided to make the most of what I could Mannlichen as I thought I would go on a small hike between there and Kleine Scheidegg. Wengen and Lauterbrunnen are ok in the wet but Mannlichen was not. I suppose it was too high and the weather couldn't hold. It was very windy and I swear the rain was ice flakes. Twenty metres in front of me there was only white. It was quite amazing ...

We let the girls sleep in and then broke the news that we were going to have a quiet day in the hostel because it was raining and that they had to do a few hours of homework. Looking at the screen in the hostel, you could see that it was snowing heavily on the mountains.

By afternoon, the rain had turned to drizzle, so we ...

... the people get off to hike at Klein Scheidegg and the mountains are very well organised for hiking with signposts everywhere with times to walk. The train stopped at Eigergletscher (2865 m) where the train stopped for everyone to get out and look at the glacier very close up. We also stopped at Eismeer (3160 m) before arriving at Jungfraujoch at a height of 3454m.

Our first stop was the dining room as we ...

... true Swiss style, you changed trains on the same platform and everything went like clockwork. The Swiss really know how to organise everything. All stations are announced in plenty of time and in at least 4 languages. Everything in Switzerland is also very clean, we even saw a guy polishing the rubbish bins at a train station. I just wish they had a major anti-smoking campaign.

We arrived in Interlaken to fairly fine weather and ...

Well, surprise, surprise, the church just below the hotel Staubbach rings its bells every 15 minutes, All Night Long! Now that does not make for a good night's sleep. Oh well, charming I suppose.

Having just one electrical outlet (for one plug not two) in the entire room, including the bathroom, is a bit challenging when ...

... Bill said how elated he was with our surroundings, and I can’t disagree either. We were right up close to the three famous mountains of the region (Jungfrau, Monch, and Eiger), Europe’s highest train station, and the place where 007 movie “On Her Majesty’s Secret Service” was filmed. After gradually gaining 1000m in altitude, we found ourselves at the top of a very ...

... again while I hid inside; sneaking in was such a bad idea but we were way past that point already! So the next day when Fred didn’t start, I had to walk around and meet Matt up in the town once the battery was charged :)

Once we were on the road again we drove down a bit further to a town called Stechelberg where we caught a cable car up the Alps to a town called Gimmelwald. After arriving at the top of the town, we walked around and saw a lot of the ...

... unit. At some point Susan had asked the assistant where we might find a grocery store. Thus the assistant handed Susan a Google Maps printout showing the location of the supermarket as well. We thought that this was a pretty shocking high level of service for someone who did not actually try to sell us anything. These people are dedicated. If you ever need vehicle service in northern Switzerland, let me recommend the Fiat/Mercedes ...

... in more countries in the afternoon than they had visited in their entire lives before our trip.

The rain stopped somewhere in Germany. The mountains started to emerge from the mist.

The green of the hills started to become apparent in Austria. They were green and lush, as one might expect after a lot of rain.

Then we crossed into Switzerland. This being a non-EU country, and us being non-EU residents, we were ready for a full ...