SWISS-ITALIA - PART 7 (OCT 2015)

Ok....so life gets in the way of posting trip reports sometimes! The last 6 months have been very busy, but this amazing trip always preoccupies my mind. We left off saying farewell to our daughter in Lugano, Switzerland. The empty train ride to Lucern or Luzern depending where you read it was a somber one starting out. Our daughter would be leaving for Africa soon and we wouldn't see her until Christmas, boo hoo.










The scenery along our 2 hour journey helped raise our spirits. If you haven't been, the countryside is all that we had imagined, lush green fields, livestock wearing bells in the pastures, old church steeples around every bend, rolling hills leading to majestic peaks covered in snow.....The hills are aliiiiiive with the sound of muuuuuusic ...you get the point! Once in Lucern we caught our once again empty and on time connector train without incident heading to Interlaken. Train travel was incredibly easy and enjoyable for us, especially with the snacks and BEER!












The next 2 hour leg of our trip offered the same beautiful vistas as our first leg. Interlaken is set perfectly between two large lakes the Thun and Brienz . After 4 hours of travel we approached Interlaken traveling along the still and surprisingly turquoise waters of Lake Brienz. We were in awe of the amazing landscape including the towering peaks of Jungfrau, Eiger and Monch. Apparently one of us was going stir crazy based on her image I captured in the window below!




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It was a partly cloudy day, If I remember correctly the temps were around 50 degrees in the valley. We had absolutely no idea of what we wanted to do or where we wanted to find a room, we were simply wandering at this point and it felt great, felt like kids again living in the moment . Not knowing where the winds would push us we strapped on our backpacks and rolled our daughters bag, but we should have stored them at the train station lockers while we explored. Interlaken has old world charm and offered many choices of restaurants, hotels and lots of activities on water and land. As a precaution we stopped in one hotel and asked if they had vacancies and they did, so at least we had that to fall back on. We walked around the lovely laid back city for a while taking in the sites and came to the conclusion that we should continue up, up into the mountains for they were calling!


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We mozied back to the train station to look at the maps to "plan" our "wandering". Keep in mind it was after 3pm by this time and we were still in search of lodging. We figured worse comes to worse we would ride the trains for a couple hours and return to the hotel that we knew had vacancies. Included in our Swiss Rail Pass we would be able to ride the narrow gauged railway the Berner Oberland Bahn (BOB) as much as we wanted. By the end of our trip the 1st class rail pass definitely paid for itself and some! The "BOB" is a 19th century railway and it was, like all the others, always on time and had very few riders. The ride was not as smooth as the newer modern trains, but that just added to our experience. The BOB runs from Interlaken to Lauterbrunnen to Grindelwald and a separate even smaller train connects those stops with Murren, Wengen and Jungfrau. The ascent out of Interlaken was slower and you could feel the sway of the train and the crunch of metal on metal as the wheels rolled over the rails, awesome! We enjoyed incredible views as the train followed a raging alpine river, taking deep gulps to help our ears pop along the steep incline. We stopped twice at smaller towns that consisted of mainly the train stations, but once we reached Lauterbrunnen we decided to hop off to see what we would see. Wow, what a great little Alpine village tucked nicely between towering mountains. As we walked up from the station we saw a gondola that takes you to Schilthorn and a narrow road lined with ski shops, restaurants and a few Swiss chalet style hotels, and a huge waterfall, PERFECT ! We poked our heads into the Hotel Oberland and discovered they had vacancies, so we checked in for the night.


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We threw our bags into the nice large comfortable room that included 2 great balconies overlooking the town. From the flower lined balconies we enjoyed views of distant green pastures dotted with quintessential Swiss chalet's and snow capped mountains in the direction of Wengen. It was probably 5pm or so and we had a long day of travel, but our energy levels were high and we quickly hit the trail again. Lauterbrunnen is an incredibly picturesque village topped off by the amazing Staubbach Fall which can be seen from every vantage point including our hotel. We ventured out to the far end of town enjoying the beauty of the countryside, but also enjoying the constant soothing sounds of bells coming from the many sheep in the area. After walking up to the Staubach Fall that offered an incredible view of the town we located a local pub called The Pub! Of course we had to stop!


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After properly lubricated we walked back through town and found ourselves at the train station, "what the heck, let's ride up to Wengen!" It had been overcast most of the afternoon and the sun would be setting soon, but we were able to enjoy a quick walkabout in this tiny ski resort town. This place was a ghost town because the summer season was over and the winter season was still many weeks away. We enjoyed our quiet self guided tour and found a bar that had maybe 3 people in it. As night fell we realized that we better get back to the hotel if we would want a dinner. During the dark train ride back to Lauterbrunnen we could see that they illuminate the Staubbach Fall at night, beautiful. I think dinner was served until 9pm and we made it just in time. Over dinner we decided to stay here one more night. The clerk said we could have the room one additional night, but they were officially closing for the season that weekend as were the majority of businesses, SHEW! We didn't realize this was end of season?? and yes we felt very lucky!! We slept like baby's! Gute Nacht!

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Yea,,, I thought you ended abruptly.
looking forward to your closing

Amazing pictures, as always!! Thanks so much!