Swiss You Were Here (Part 2)

We slept in since we were so exhausted from getting to Wengen. Thankfully, we were pretty acclimated to our new time zone when we woke up. At first, the day looked cloudy and we questioned if we should do our planned hikes and trip to Jungfraujoch, but it cleared up by 11, so we decided to go for it! We took the cable car up to Männlichen. The views were amazing! (Excuse any glare in the pics... we were in a cable car after all! And you can click any picture to make it larger.)

We explored a bit (though there isn't much to explore at Männlichen), then began our hike to Kleine Scheidegg. 

 

We were told that most of it was open, but there was a slight detour because of a rock slide. We even hiked over snow! It was a little cloudy, which blocked some of the view. We were thankful for the clouds though because that meant 1) the trail wouldn't be too crowded 2) it wouldn't be so hot hiking! So off we went, enjoying the beautiful views.

View from where we ate lunch

We stopped along the way and ate lunch (sandwiches from grocery store) enjoying the view. Everywhere you turned there was another amazing view! After lunch, we quickly came upon the detour.

Yellow shows original, closed path. Green is the detour.

The detour was a lot harder than we thought it was going to be when we first heard about it! It was doable, but we were definitely struggling through part of it! It was narrow, steep, and slick from snow. We made it though! We bought our tickets for Jungfraujoch and waited for the train.

Snacking while waiting on the train

We boarded the train and headed for Jungfraujoch! The train goes through the mountain. There were two stops where we could get out and look. The first one was covered in clouds, so there wasn't much of a view. The second stop, at Eismeer, had a beautiful view.

We continued on our way to the top! We explored the Sphinx, the Ice Palace, and the Plateau.

We took the train back down to Kleine Scheidegg, and even though we were tired, we decided to hike to Wengen. It was a great choice! The views were incredible. It was steep and downhill, but it was worth it.

We we so tired from all the hiking, so we ate at a little cafe in Wengen. They only had ham and cheese sandwiches. No chips. No turkey. Nothing. It was still good and a nice change from cold sandwiches. We also had Ovalmaltine (like Ovaltine). It is HUGE in Switzerland. 

By the time we got back to the condo, we were already sore... a good night's sleep was on the books.

to be continued....

Swiss You Were Here (Part 1)

After a long, pretty much sleepless flight, we arrived in Zurich. The airport was pretty much empty since it wasn't even 7 a.m. yet. Everything there was super efficient and easy to follow. We found the train station, validated our passes, and were waiting on our train by 7:30!

Exhausted!

The trains were easy to navigate, and we were in Interlaken by 10! We went to Coop to buy lunch so we could get change for the luggage locker. We put our suitcases in the lockers and took off to Thun. The train ride was beautiful!

Excuse the glare... taken from inside a moving train :)

We arrived in Thun just in time to catch the bus to Schloss (Castle) Oberhofen.  We explored the gardens around the castle. There weren't any other people there, so it was nice having it to ourselves.

We got back on the bus to head to St. Beatus-Höhlen. The bus announced each stop, so we didn't have to worry about missing our stop. We got to our stop and began the hike up to the caves. Once there, we decided not to go in since it would be a 1.5 hour wait for the English tour and we were exhausted.

J and his friend, Gnome

We caught the bus to Interlaken and explored there before getting our luggage and heading to Wengen. While in Interlaken, we saw lots of paragliders, which made us so excited to do it during our trip!

J's favorite store!

We caught the train to Lauterbrunnen, then changed trains to Wengen. I am not sure we were ready for what we saw next. The scenery was just unbelievable! I just about fell on the train getting to the windows! :)

After arriving in Wengen, we checked in and made our way to the condo. Wengen is a (somewhat) car free town, so we mad to walk. The condo was much nicer than we thought, and the view was amazing!

We enjoyed many hours sitting outside on our balcony. :) After unpacking, we headed to the local Coop to pick up some groceries. J LOVED looking at all the different products. We picked up all sorts of food and went back to the condo to eat a pizza we just bought. We made ourselves stay up some to try to get acclimated, but went to bed early excited about what we were going to do the next day. :)

to be continued....

Coming to a blog near you soon...

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SWITZERLAND 2012

Until then, watch this: