Thursday, July 2, 2020

Lauterbrunnen, Switzerland - Day 2

Today was our final full day in Lauterbrunnen.  We got up this morning and decided to take the train to Wengen and the Cable Car to Mannlich for a little hiking and sight seeing. 

I took a picture of this hotel because all along the balconies are geraniums.  Seem to be a very popular flower here in Switzerland - we see them everywhere!
 Starting our ride up the mountain


The train ride to Wengen was taking the same train we took yesterday to go to Junfraujoch - just not as far.  We only had to travel about 15 minutes today to get to this cute little town.  Only accessible by train, it was full of cute shops and houses and beautiful views.

From here we took the cable car to Mannlich.  This is a shot 6 minute ride to the top of a mountain to look down across Wengen, Lauterbrunnen, and even Interlaken.  The views were gorgeous.  We did a short (yet strenuous) hike along the Royal Walkway that ended at a beautiful lookout.  The weather cooperated - it was a little cloudy, but we did get breaks to see the towns below.





 The fog would roll in and out.  I told Mat it reminded me of the movie "The Mist"

 There was a herd of cows below and we could hear their bells clanging at the top of the mountain

 This is looking down into Lauterbrunnen where we were staying.  The rock face on the right there is the area right behind our airbnb.  We discovered that this area was inspriation for Tolkien's Riverdell in Lord of the Rings


 This is looking out toward Interlaken and Lake Thun

 Our buddy Jungfrau makes an appearance between the clouds

 The drop off was incredible

Instead of kid pictures today you get Mat and I.  Celebrating our last days in Switzerland 

 Jungfrau and her sounding Alps are something to witness.  We could not get enough



 You can see the path we took up to our viewing spot
 Here we are at the top!

 Back down in the cable car

We enjoyed our time on Mannlich before returning by cable car back to Wengen to look around at the shops before heading back to Lauterbrunnen on the train.  It was a great few hours this morning.

We returned to the Airbnb for lunch and then headed to the waterfall that sits behind the house we rented.  It is called Staubbach Falls.  There is a strenuous climb to the falls where you can look at the town below.  The climb is short, but tiresome.  And a bit tricky with rock stairs that were wet. 

 View from the top of our climb



 The pathway to the falls

We were hoping the hike would take us BEHIND the falls, but no such luck.  It ends in a weird spot where you cannot even really seem them from the end of the walk.  Ah well.  It was good exercise.

After this, we headed back to Basel.  We were originally going to spend one more night in the Airbnb, but the weather this afternoon was awful and turning worse.  Severe thunderstorms and hail and high winds, and it was to last until Saturday.  All we were going to do was get up tomorrow morning and drive back to Basel, so we decided we have too much to do with moving to wait and left today.

It was a great last trip in Switzerland.  My heart hurt on the way home knowing that we won't be back for awhile.  Glad we got to see another beautiful place before we left for good.


In other news:  Masks are required on Trams and Buses here in Switzerland, so I had these ones made for Mat and I.  A little piece of Basel that we can wear here and take with us to the US.

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