Climb Every Mountain

Trip Start Sep 07, 2008

Trip End Oct 10, 2008

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Where I stayed

Hostal Catedral Seville
(aka. Chalet Oberland, Lauterbrunnen)

(Seville hotels)

Flag of Switzerland Lauterbrunnen, Switzerland
Monday, September 22, 2008

One of the things I have always loved about alpine country is sitting down after a hard day's skiing and enjoying a few après ski beverages with friends. I discovered yesterday that you can also do "après hike" beverages. We met up with an English fellow that Matt knew at the local pub, who had also walked the same Murren loop as us yesterday. Needless to say many beers were drunk and many a story was shared. As we dragged our weary legs home a few hours later from the Horner Pub, the Lauterbrunnen ski club were still out in force, drinking and singing loudly in German, obviously having enjoyed quite a few après hike beverages of their own. We weren't feeling too much of the Alpine wellness this morning though as we made a very slow start.

The weather wasn't great this morning so we decided to drive 20km into Interlaken for a look around, as neither of us had ever been there before. The town is named because it sits between two lakes, the Brienz and the Thun

Interlaken

. It has a beautiful azure green river running through the town joining the two lakes. It is quite a pretty town with lots of traditional Swiss houses next to very funky modern buildings. The main street has an amazing number of watch shops and I almost had to put Matt on a leash to stop him adding to his already impressive collection of Swiss watches. There is clearly some money splashed around in this town, as there are quite a few very flash hotels and plenty of flash wheels, second only to the casino car park in Monaco for expensive cars. We counted 3 red Ferraris, 3 Porsches, 1 Corvette, an Audi TTRS, and a BMW M3, all in the space of about 2 blocks.

As we lunched on goulash and bratwurst in the main street of Lauterbrunnen, soaking up the much anticipated sunshine, we had a fabulous view out over the Valley to the little town of Wengen. It is perched high on the hill on the opposite side of the Valley to where we walked yesterday and is the first stop of the cog railway that takes you up to the top of the Jungfraujoch. One of Matt's mates from home, Rusty, also used to live there for a while, so we were keen to visit. We decided today that we should walk up and catch the cog railway back down. The opposite of what we did yesterday. The walk is 1hr 30 mins up very steep trails and after the first few hundred metres my calves were already moaning in protest. Determined to get to the top, as it had been my stupid idea in the first place, we plodded on and managed to get to the top in about the same time as the trail markers suggested

The Road to Wengen

. Talk about hard work as my heart rate sat above 160/min the whole way, and even though it was about 8 degrees outside we had stripped down to t-shirts. The bad weather that had been threatening all day arrived in Wengen about the same time we did and the jumpers very quickly went back on as we made our way down in the cog railway back to Lauterbrunnen. The highlight for Matt wasn't so much the achievement of getting to the top of a hard climb, on uneven paths of rock and loose gravel, but rather the fact that I made it all the way to the top and then tripped over on the edge of the kerb in the main street in town. Yeah, totally hilarious!

The last few days in Lauterbrunnen have been my favourite part of the trip so far. Initially it seemed so quiet that I wondered what we would fill our days with, however now we have run out of time with so many more things I wish we could do before we leave. There are so many hiking trails on all sides of the Valley, mountain bikes to hire, more cable cars to ride. You really could spend more than a week here in summer and have plenty to do. Yet it feels so relaxing at the same time, as the air is so fresh and the scenery is so beautiful. We will definitely be back here again sometime in the future. To those of you reading this that are planning a trip, stay in the Lauterbrunnen Valley or in one of the surrounding villages accessible by cable car

The path just gets steeper

. Interlaken is nice, but is so touristy and doesn't have nearly the Wow factor that you get from driving just 20km further up the Valley.

We are sad to be leaving Switzerland after such a great 3 days here. We love the Swiss especially for the great fun they give us Aussies with the names they call their towns in Swiss German. I know by the age of 30, you shouldn't find it funny to drive through Wankdorf, or to visit Mannlichen. Matt was also perplexed at why there was a ban on duck flatulence as we kept seeing signs saying Durchfarht Verboten in Interlaken. However it was awfully nice of the truck we passed coming into Lauterbrunnen that had signs on the back wishing us Gutte farht and Gutte route. We are such children!!