Day 23: Lauterbrunnen

We woke this morning to the sound of rain. Real rain, none of this light drizzle stuff. I knew that there was a reason that the countryside looked so green.

Kathy and I had a nice breakfast and then went upstairs to our room. Kathy spent the morning reading and looking out the window, while I finally got my journal up-to-date. Then, around 11:30, we headed in to town to the Internet Cafe to answer some emails, thinking that if the rain let up, we'd head up to the higher elevations. That didn't look very promising, though. I went ahead and updated yesterday's blog and then around 1:00 we walked over to the Oberland Hotel across the street for lunch. Since it was still cold and rainy, both of us settled on hot soup and bread, which made us feel a little better.

Since it was raining so hard, we planned at lunch to do a little shopping when the supermarket opened at 2:00. When we got out of the restaurant, though, surprise!, the rain had stopped. Rather than sitting around all afternoon, we decided to redeem the time and head for the hills after all. We first stopped by the hotel so Kathy could change into her boots and then we headed for the gondola lift up to the town of Grutschalp. Lauterbrunnen, where our hotel is located, is on the valley floor at about 2,600 feet. The lift takes you up to a little over 4,800 feet.

At the top of the lift there's a whole other world lying above the high cliffs that surround the valley. Along the cliff there's a panormaic train that takes you through the village of Winteregg (which has a restraunt and little else) and Murren. Murren is not accessible by regular car; all of the vehickles in the town are kind of like the little Cushman carts that the maintenance folks drive around OCC.

Murren does have a lot of hotels and restaurants, though, because the view of the Eiger, Monch and Jungfrau is just spectacular.



Here's a picture from the Web showing the dramatic view from the village on a sunny day. I'll upload my own (less dramatic, I'm afraid) pictures when we are able. From Murren there are hiking trails going en every direction, designed for every level of ability from children to senior citizens. (They're not that attractive when wet, though.)

There's also a lift up to the Schilthorn at about 10,000 feet, which is the highest lift on this side of the valley. We briefly considered taking the gondola up (it's the spot that James Bond escaped from Telly Savalas in the 1969 film,On Her Majesty's Secret Service).

We really weren't sure how the weather would hold, and, even though it's 5,000 feet higher than Murren, it's hard to see how the view could be more awe-inspiring. Instead, we spend about an hour and a half walking through Murren, which is apparently quite a winter sports center. We didn't see any USA-style ski runs, so perhaps all of the skiing in the area is cross-country alpine instead of downhill.

Around 4:00 we headed bak to the train station, rode the little alpine train back to the gondola lift and grabbed the gondola back to the valley floor. On the way back to the hotel we stopped by the store and picked up some necessities (chocolate, fruit, cheese and chips) for our trip tommorrow, and then stopped by the hotel for a quick cup of coffee before heading out on a walk up the valley floor beside the river.

The rain continued to hold off as we walked for about an hour, up and back. Finally, we finished off the evening with some Swiss food back at the Oberland Hotel. This time I had the "farmer's" Rosti. Rosti is basically hash browns, prepared with different toppings. The farmer's Rosti was topped with Swiss cheese on one half and mushrooms and onions on the other. It was pretty good. You never know how you'll like an unfamiliar dish, though, so Kathy got Fish & Chips in case my dinner turned out terrible, and then we each took turns sharing.

After dinner, we hit the Internet Cafe one last time to get the blog up-to-date and check our email one last time before heading back to Germany in the morning.