SWISS-ITALIA CONCLUSION (Sorry for dragging this out!)

This would be our last full day in Switzerland and it would include packing up our bags, a wonderful morning hike through the alpine countryside and train travel. A personal observation...it seems.... for us anyways, that the final day of any getaway always comes with perfect weather, this final day was no different, beautiful blue skies.

We woke up early and asked the owner of the hotel if we could secure our backpacks with her until we returned from our hike, she also owns the coffee shop next door and she said they would store our bags since the hotel was ready to lock up for the season, nice.








We fueled up on the last great breakfast the hotel prepared including homemade preserves! Once our bags were secured with the very nice staff at the coffee shop we headed up to Murren. We enjoyed our previous brief visit to Murren and Gimmelwald the day prior and decided to hike the distance between them. The scenery in and around these alpine villages is truly beyond words really.








During our walk we built up a thirst, my wife really enjoyed her hot chocolate the previous day at the Mountain Hostel so we went back for seconds! Our daughter still talks of how much she enjoyed staying in a couple hostels and more budget conscious lodging during her euro trip. The hostel accommodations were pretty bare bones, but my wife and I can see the allure of hopping around Europe staying in the right hostels. Oh to be in our twenties again!!! Instead of me rambling on, how about a bunch of photos?!






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We reallllly enjoyed the picturesque Swiss Alps and all it had to offer, but most importantly we found the people to be incredibly polite, friendly and helpful. For instance, on our final train ride out of Murren the conductor invited us to sit with him at the controls and allowed us to open the window to take photos, awesome young man! Once back in Lauterbrunnen we returned to the equally awesome staff in the coffee shop to fill up on the best burger we have ever had! perhaps it was just the atmosphere? Nah, it was really an outstanding burger!! Unfortunately it was time to bid farewell to beautiful Lauterbrunnen and we gathered our bags and headed to the train to Interlaken.


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Once in Interlaken we had a little extra time, so we decided to once again follow our daughters footsteps to find Balmer's Hostel where she stayed just a few weeks prior. What a fun looking destination for backpackers!! We walked all over Interlaken proudly carrying our backpacks as if we were 20'something's! We spent our time window shopping, admiring the architecture and of course enjoying a little Swiss chocolate along the way!


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Our train was entering the station so we called it quits on sightseeing by foot, boo! We would once again have an entire train car to ourselves on the way to Bern. Sightseeing from our comfy private seats was nice, but it just wasn't the same without the smell of fresh air and the sounds of bells in the distance. In Bern we masterfully hopped onto yet another empty train to Zurich for the final leg of our journey, train travel was very enjoyable for us. We stayed the last night in the Apart-Hotel operated by Hilton and it was small but nice. We were not ready for the trip to end, especially knowing that we would have to wait until Christmas time to see our daughters beautiful smile again. It would have been so easy to say the heck with work, strap on the backpack and hop a train!

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We are so proud of our daughter for being the adventurous spirit that she is as well as being an outstanding student and all around great person! because you see.... without her we would not have wandered down these incredible paths. Our eyes are much more open now and our desire to experience new places has grown incredibly. Once we were home my wife started painting more signs to add to our cedar pole at our cabin in West Virginia, where we hope one day we'll have many new poles loaded with signs to bring back the memories of these amazing places and times! Thanks for reading!

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