Til The Cows Come Home
Trip Start
Sep 07, 2008
1
13
33
Trip End
Oct 10, 2008
Lauterbrunnen,
Swiss Alps,
Switzerland
Sunday, September 21, 2008
For the bargain price of only 10 CHF each (compared to 167 CHF for the Jungfraujoch) we caught the precariously steep cable car up to Grutschalp, which is directly above Lauterbrunnen at 1486m altitude. We then caught the train across to Murren, a tiny little town perched on a hill, a bit further up the Valley. We had spectacular views of the mountains the whole way on the train as the clouds of this morning had cleared.
The Eiger (Ogre), Monch (Monk) and Jungfrau (Virgin) looked spectacular with the sun bathing the peaks and I'm pretty sure we had the best view in the whole Valley
Not our hire car thank goodness!
. Matt had been up the Jungfrau many times with groups, but even he was gobsmacked by how fabulous the views were from this side of the Valley. Most of the locals, armed with their walking poles, disembarked at Winteregg station, but we continued on to Murren to start the slightly shorter walk back down to Lauterbrunnen. The trail is very well signposted and almost all downhill, which seemed like a good idea at the start, but very quickly became hard on the knees and hips. The path weaves through the town of Murren, continues down through cow paddocks and past waterfalls to the next cute little town of Gimmelwald. We ate our picnic lunch, just past Gimmelwald, perched on a hill overlooking snow capped peaks and the chalets dotted far below us in the Valley. It doesn't get much more beautiful scenery than this. We lost count of the number of waterfalls we saw and eventually descended into the far end of the Lauterbrunnen valley at the town of Stechelberg. The last 6.4km was along the flat floor of the Valley back to Lauterbrunnen and meandered through cow paddocks, alongside a small alpine river the whole way.One of the coolest things about being in Switzerland is the cows. For some reason the Swiss put these huge cow bells around the necks of their cows, and each bell has a different sound depending on its size. It is great to wander through the countryside and hear the sound of cow bells echoing in the Valley. We did feel sorry for one poor cow we saw today, whose bell was almost as big as its own head. No idea why he needed a bell this big, but to add further insult to this poor cow's dignity, he was also wearing a wreath of coloured flowers on his head. Matt tells me that once in year in May, the Swiss have a festival called The Coming Home of The Cows, where they dress up the herd with enormous bells and flower arrangements on their heads and parade them through the streets
Eigre, Monch and Jungfrau
. Talk about embarrassing for the poor cows, but it must be fun to see it in action. That is apparently where the saying "until the cows come home" originates from too. I love travelling and stumbling on these great stories. Our last stop just before we got back to Lauterbrunnen was at the Trummelbach Falls. They are these amazing waterfalls that flow inside a mountain, down from the glaciers on the Jungfrau, Monch and Eiger mountains. You ascend about 100m inside the mountain by lift, and then are able to climb staircases inside the mountain to see the water cascading down through the channels it has carved out of the rock in the past millions of years. Matt absolutely loved roaming around in the dark, wet caves and watching the 20,000L of water cascade by each second. I, on the other hand, was freaking out big time. I keep having visions of the tunnel filling up with a wave of water, with me trying (unsuccessfully) to run away. Like a bad dream but actually possible. I've never been good with enclosed spaces like caves, (remember the glow worm caves in NZ, Bri and Brett!) especially caves with large volumes of water running through them. I raced through, clicked a few photos and waited outside for my husband to hopefully appear. Of course all was fine, and we continued our walk back home along the valley to Lauterbrunnen. Don't get me wrong, the falls are definitely worth a look and even I thought they were amazing despite my minor panic attack. They really are a spectacular display of nature at its best.
Exhausted, yet exhilarated by our long walk, we made it home 4 hours and 47 minutes later. Not the Nordic walking record but we were definitely feeling the Alpine wellness that we had been promised.
