Picture Perfect Switzerland

  Lauterbrunnen, Switzerland
Tuesday, July 10, 2007

We woke up in our little guest house in Lauterbrunnen to the beautiful view of the waterfall outside of our room, and the sound of church bells tolling from the chapel across the stream.  The sun was just rising over the mountains, and everything was as beautiful as a postcard, right down to the wooden chalets with painted shutters and window boxes full of bright geraniums.

Lovely Lauterbrunnen

We checked the weather, which although sunny and bright at that moment was supposed to pack in over the next few days, and decided to make the most of the sun while it lasted and do a hike up in the mountains behind the town.

Marla led us out on an epic hike over seven and a bit hours, through several huge climbs up and scrambles back down.  Despite the on and off rain, the views were spectacular, and we could see for miles across alpine valleys and snow-capped peaks, thundering waterfalls, fields of wildflowers in brilliant pinks, yellows, whites, oranges and purples, and cows with gently pealing cowbells wandering on hillsides dotted with ancient wooden barns - basically, just like every stereotype of Switzerland we had, all if needed was a milkmaid with braids and an embroidered apron to complete the picture!

Alpine Wandering

At the top of the second peak we stopped for a break at a little restaurant, where the enterprising owner refused to provide even tapwater to tired hikers, instead charging exorbitant sums for a bottle of water.  We stayed for tea and cake, then headed back down the hills to Lauterbrunnen, where we collapsed.

The next day brought the predicted bad weather, so we spent the day touring around Interlaken, the main tourist town near Lauterbrunnen, and the pretty alpine town of Grindewald, mostly window shopping for Swiss Army knives, and walking very slowly due to our aching muscles from the hike the day before!  We stopped for a while to watch some Swiss kids playing ice hockey in Grindewald, and did our best to avoid the hordes of American kids on 'holiday camps'.

Marla and her Nordic Sticks

By today, the rain had mostly disappeared again, and we went for a walk up behind the waterfall above Lauterbrunnen, through a pretty, flower-filled cemetary.  The walk was great, but very wet when you actually got behind the falls.  In the afternoon, Mike, Marla, Kat and the two of us decided to take the cable car up to the dizzingly high alpine village of Gimmewald, and from there walked to the even higher village of Murren, with spectacular views down the valley and around the mountain peaks that surround Lauterbrunnen.  The villages were (of course) beautiful, all wooden chalets with window boxes full of flowers and perfect rows of vegetables in the gardens - by this point, it was slightly surreal how beautiful and perfect everything was!  We decided to walk back down to Lauterbrunnen, and stopped in a tiny village called Winteregg to spend our return cable car fare on coffee and wildberry kuchen (cake) with fresh berries from the mountainsides....mmmmmmmm......

Cable Car View

At one point on the track back down the mountain, we came across a chamois, a type of mountain goat, that looked at us fairly unafraid, then jumped vertically up a retaining wall wandered off into the bush.  Dan gave chase with his camera, and managed to track two of them through the woods for a while until they bounded off to do their woodland creature thing.  

Chamios on the Tracks

Since Jeff and Kat were leaving the next day to go back home to Jena, Germany, we all went out for a proper Swiss meal tonight, which turned out to be rostis (like huge potato hash browns topped with meat, cheese and/or egg), pots of rich, creamy cheese fondue to dip chunks of bread and potato in, and Toblerone mousse for dessert.  It was a FANTASTIC meal, and we waddled home planning how we would have to get ourselves a fondue pot one of these days.

Cheesy Grin

All our best from Switzerland

Dan and Gabrielle