Robinson Crans-Montana

... the casualties of the Matterhorn.
Zermatt itself is tiny, with only electric taxis. It is much colder than Lauterbrunnen even though it's on the border of Italy.
Switzerland is strange. It has no language of its own. In Bern, Lauterbrunnen and Zermatt they speak German but in Montreux they speak French, even the train announcements change languages. It gets confusing, so I just stick to greeting people in English most of the time. When I had arrived here I was fuming a bit because I ...

... room, toilets and showers to myself. I rarely saw anyone and reception was really nice. I then headed to Cully to try the famous Lavaux walk but caught a train that didn't make all the stops so I ended up at Lausanne again. I decided to take a bit of a walk, making my way through Pully and then to Letvy where I caught the train to Cully. The view was great but the vineyards that I stumbled across in Letvey were better because there was noone around and you could really smell the wine.

... and beggars, especially here. I have gotten to the point where when I saw the man praying for money I just wanted to kick him. I have been told that there is work in Switzerland if you don't mind the cold and a little hard work.
It has been a while since I have encountered any of them, but it really made me hot under the collar. I have also found that I am much more suspicious of everybody, everytime someone approaches me I am a little more on my guard.
I think I also saw an old ...

... be seen. It was just me and the mountains, it was nice. In the end I was very glad the gondola was delayed because I would have been very disappointed to have missed entering the path down the misty mountain Schilthorn. I found out just now however that the delay was caused by a poor paraglider who was killed after being caught in the cables of the gondolas.
I was very tired by the end. It was 1700. I took a short walk in Murren then left to catch the bus back to Lauderbrunnen.

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 ...

... be a rest. Then I went up the opposite side of the valley to get a good overview of the marathon hike from the first day, see picture included. The views on this side were possibly even more spectacular than on the first day. I was elated.

On my last day I walked around Interlaken for a bit, only convincing myself that I made the right choice by not staying there.

Being from western ...

... OSHA definitely would not have approved of the safety, or should I say the lack of.

Next we hopped back on the bus to take a cable car up to Murren. It was a fun town with a walking path. From there we could see the town that we are staying in, so it was nice to see it from a different perspective. Also, in some of the smaller towns, they have these clean troughs with water running from a spigot to fill your ...

... to wait. in the mean time go to mountainhostel.com and you can get a look. Yesterday i went on hike, well actually more like an expedition, with 2 friends, Deon from Australia and Kanchan from London, we treked from the hostel at 1300m up to the peak of Shilthorn at about 3000m. pretty amazing took us a little over 4 hours to get up the mountain, and the last few hundred meters was treking through about a foot of snow. and steep too. i mean it was tough but so worth it ...

Sunday 16 September 11 hours on a bus!!!! Very very long day. They did put on two movies on though so it passed time a little bit. plus we also stopped at a Perfume factory to see how perfume is made and soaps and stuff. The bad thing is we have to do it again on Friday. Also we came to Lauterbrunnen especially to do the river rafting they have here and its cancelled for the year!!! We arrived in Lauterbrunnen at 1930 and our accomodation is a cute little 4 bed ...

... how tired I was when I saw the view along the way; it was breathtaking: snow-capped mountains, waterfalls, stream, green valleys and mountains. I don't know whether to looked right or left. Both sides has fantastic view. We arrived at Hotel Staubbach around 9AM-9:30AM. Check in time was 3PM and there were still people in the room that was reserved for us. The hotel manager, Doris, let us use there public bathroom and provided us with towels so we can shower. The ...