Lake Thun and Oberhofen Castle

Thursday is another moving day. We have to check out of our hotel this morning, and we get the hotel electric cart to ferry our luggage (and me) up to the train station. The station isn't far, but its steeply uphill, and we aren't going to be able to drag our bags up there.

We jump on the train down to Lauterbrunnen for the last time. Then we catch the very brief train to Interlaken Ost.  On arrival in Interlaken, we find the luggage lockers and stash our bags for the day. We wait about 20 minutes and then catch a train to the small town of Thun on the lake of the same name.  Here, we cross the street from train station to boat station and get on a boat headed towards Oberhofen.

This is a particularly nice, and very large boat. Its got three levels, the upper 2 are both for first class ticket holders. We go up to the middle level, so Todd can settle down under cover and order coffee. I head out to the deck in the bow with my camera at the ready. I understand the approach to Schloss Oberhofen by water is quite photogenic. This is the view from the ship while leaving Thun.

And a view of Schloss Schadau which we pass along the way. I'm told this is a gourmet restaurant...if I'd known we might have gone, its so lovely:

Its a fairly short sail to Oberhofen...only about 20 minutes. It's overcast and a little drizzly. But the castle is still very impressive

And a view from the land side:

 Inside the castle has some furnishings and decor, its intended to give an idea of the various different generations that lived there from the 16th to the 19th century.  The keep you see in the center was probably built in the 13th century, then it belonged to the Hapsburgs in the 14th. After that it was a Bernese Bailiwick run by several different bailiffs for several hundred years. Ultimately, it was bought by an American lawyer in the 1940s and opened as a museum in the 50s. Its got some interesting displays inside of furnished rooms, and an armory.  Here's a sample room.

After a couple hours wandering around, we are ready to move on. We hop on the 2PM boat, and take the somewhat longer sail all the way back to Interlaken West across the lake.

Hanging out in Wengen

After all the train riding and sightseeing of the last few days, we decided we needed a down day. The weather isn't so great today anyways, and we're both feeling a bit tired. So we decided to just hang out in Wengen. It's really not necessary to go anywhere to find beautiful views. We hang out on our balcony for a bit. Then we took a nice walk on the small road that rings the town. It's peaceful, and the views across the valley, and of the snowcapped peaks are incredible.

We had lunch in town at a pizzeria called Da Sina. Why can't we get pizza like this at home? I love the hand tossed, very thin crust, crispy pizza that we've found in Italy and here in Switzerland. It's delicious.


It's a quiet day, topped off with dinner in our hotel restaurant and a lovely bottle of Swiss wine. The Swiss do make some very fine wines, a white grape called chasselas and a red called cornalin. We have had excellent bottles of both. Sadly, they don't export much of it.

I think this is the only day of the trip when we don't ride any kind of mass transit.


Some pictures from around Wengen:

This is a viewpoint just down hill from our hotel:

Looking back at Wengen:

A view across the valley towards Murren:

 

A small cascade on the road outside of town

Trummelbach Falls

Instead of walking back across Murren on our way down, we jumped from cable car to another cable car, heading straight down into the valley below, into the town of Stechelburg. This was one of the most interesting cable car rides because it runs right along the cliff face with several waterfalls visible. Also, this is a popular jumping off spot for base jumpers, so we could see several parachuters sailing around over our heads.

Looking at the valley from the cable car:

A base jumper sailing around the mountains:

Looking down the cliff into the Lauterbrunnen Valley from the final cable car:

At the bottom there is a Post Bus waiting, so we get on and ride just a little ways down the valley to Trummelbach Falls.
Walking from the gate to the entrance to the Falls is a riot of wildflowers:

Trummelbach falls is an amazing sight. It's a series of cascading waterfalls inside the cliff. We take an elevator most of the way to the top then climb up some steps inside tunnels that were cut inside the cliff. At various spots along the way there are overlooks where we can see the water running out of the rock, spilling down into chasms. It's amazing.

It's also very damp, and involves climbing a fair number of steps. When we finished, we stopped at the cafe for a coffee. It was our intention to walk back along the valley to Lauterbrunnen, but the steps were tough, and it's now raining, so we hope on the post bus, and then the train to make our way back to Wengen for the evening.

Here are a few shots of the falls. It's dark inside, and hard to get a good photo angle, but I hope this will convey the flavor of what we are seeing.

The Schilthorn was a bit of a dud, but Trummelbach saved the day.

Bond, James Bond

What does James Bond have to do with Switzerland? Hang on a sec and I'll tell you.

So, Monday morning the skies seemed pretty clear, although there were some ominous clouds in the distance. We thought we'd try for our fourth mountain top in four days. So we set off to make the trek to the top of the Schilthorn.

It's a fairly long and somewhat complicated trip. First we take the cog rail from Wengen down into the valley to Lauterbrunnen. Then we walk across the street to get on the cable car up to Grutshalp. From there we get another train which takes us to the tiny town of Murren. We have to walk across town, which is very pleasant, as this town, like Wengen, has no cars so it's incredibly quiet. At the other side of Murren is another cable car which will take is to Schilthorn in two stages.

Here's the cable car at the station in Murren.

 

 

Looking out from the cable car:

When we get on the cable car, they start playing the 007 them music. Why? Well, at the top of this mountain is the revolving restaurant, Piz Gloria. The restaurant was in the process of being built in 1969 but was in financial difficulty. Then the James Bond production team came along and decided it was the perfect location for Blofeld's lair in the next Bond movie...it was "On Her Majesty's Secret Service", the original one with the awful George Lazenby as Bond, Diana Rigg as the future Mrs Bond and, yes, Telly Savalas as Blofeld. Worst Bond movie ever....but a most excellent location.

Unfortunately the clouds rolled in about the time we were walking across Murren. By the time we reached the peak, it was completely encased in fog, with visibility about 8 feet. We stayed and had lunch at the restaurant, it revolved, but one couldn't really tell since the view stayed uniformly white. We visited the James Bond exhibit, which was actually kind of fun, and we hoped the cloud cover would blow over, but it would not cooperate. We finally headed down the cable cars back into the now grey and overcast day.

The "viewing platform" at Piz Gloria:

Okay, so I'm several days behind here....

As so often happens, I have gotten behind. It's a combination if some technical difficulties, and very bad internet connection at our last stop. Okay, plus a dose of laziness that always happens on vacation.

I will try to write about the remaining parts of our trip, but will most likely add the pictures later. We're in Zurich now, with one day left, tomorrow we fly home. I was sad to say goodbye to those glorious mountains!

Top of the world

I know I posted a quick picture earlier when we were actually at the top of Europe, up in the mountains. Here is a bit more.

Sunday was a gorgeous morning, and even though we had just seen the Matterhorn the previous day, we decided we had to take advantage of the weather and make the trip up the Jungfrau to the so-called "Top of Europe". It's the highest railway station in Europe at 3500 meters up. As a point for comparison, Mt Washington in New Hampshire is around 1900 meters high. Wengen, where we are staying is at 1300 meters. The top of the Gornergrat rail where we saw the Matterhorn is at 3100 meters.

So from Wengen, first we have to catch the cog rail up to Kleine Scheidigg. There we change to the Jungfraubahn which winds it's way through a number of tunnels, up and up, until it ends inside the mountain. You walk through a tunnel, then take lift up to the Sphinx observatory where you finally step out onto the mountains, with views of the Jungrau, Monch, and maybe the Eiger peeking through the clouds. There are glaciers all around. It's about 20 degrees Fahrenheit here today, which is actually pretty balmy. It's frankly amazing.

This is the view looking back at Wengen from the train



This is Kleine Scheidigg. As you can see, the clouds are pretty low up here.





Looking up, ahead of the train:



And here we are at the top.








There's also a part of the complex which winds through the glacier itself. They have dug out an "ice palace", and filled it with ice sculptures. Here' style rather cool entrance






See the small building in the center of this photo, on the ridge? that's where we were!

Location:Jungfraujoch

Arriving in Wengen

It's a long, somewhat complicated trip from Zermatt to Wengen. First, after taking the train down from Gornergrat, we then get our bags from the lockers and hop the train back to Visp. In Visp we have 10 minutes to catch a train to,Spiez, a trip of about 35 minutes. Then we have 6 minutes to catch a train to Interlaken Ost. In Interlaken we change to a train for the short hop to Lauterbrunnen. Then one more change to the cog rail for the ride uphill to wengen. Finally, we have to drag our things downhill to our hotel, the Hotel Baren. It's about 6PM by this point, and there is no one at the front desk of our small hotel. But a key is on the counter with a checkin note for me, so we grab it and head up to our room. At last, we can rest. And we've booked this hotel with half board, so we can stroll down to dinner whenever we feel like it.

This is the view from our balcony

Location:Senggasse,Wengen,Switzerland