The Swiss Alps

From tropical Spain to wintry mountains – what better way to cure a pesky cough than some fresh alpine air?

Our next stop after Cordoba was Grindelwald in Switzerland, which meant a weekend composed almost entirely of travelling. Never fear – that's what we have Kindles for, to alleviate the tedium of two long days! I pulled it out on the first morning and discovered it was broken. Again. My new Kindle, only bought a few weeks ago!! Am I the Kindle-breaker? Or could it be my Kindle cover wrecking the Kindles it contains, bitter because this was not the career it had envisaged for itself? We are still not sure.

Speaking of tedium, though – back to the blog post. We saved some money by booking a slow train back up to Barcelona, one which stopped at every town on the way up (it seemed) and took ten hours in total. The next day it was an early start to catch a 7.20am train to Lyon. After an anxiety-inducing hour-long delay at Perpignan, we somehow managed to arrive right on time at our destination, where we caught a train to Geneva, then one to Bern, then one to Interlaken Ost, and then one to Grindelwald, arriving at 9.30pm. We were thankful we didn't have any issues with all those connections!

Upon our arrival in the small town of Grindelwald, we discovered that our accommodation, Mountain Hostel, was not 100m from the main train station, as we had thought, but a very dark and steep half hour walk away, 100m from a different, cogwheel train station. Again, we were glad it was downhill, and that even at a dark 10pm it was totally safe to be walking around a mostly deserted township.

(NB: If anybody is wanting to follow in our footsteps and stay here at some point, also note that the Mountain Hostel in Gimmelwald is not the same as the Mountain Hostel in Grindelwald. This is a helpful distinction to make.)

Grindelwald. All the lovely chalets!

Our accommodation in Grindelwald turned out to be a very comfortable place to stay, with a helpful receptionist who supplied us with an adaptor plug for the silly Swiss sockets. It would seem the Swiss feel the need to be unique; not content with being more expensive than all the places around them, they also need to have their own currency and their own power sockets.

To their credit, however, they do have beautiful scenery and nice people in the mountains. On our first proper day there, there happened to be a market on! We love markets, so we checked it out, quickly realizing that this would be a window shopping experience, so to speak, given the hefty prices.

We hadn't travelled to the Swiss Alps for shopping, though, but to appreciate the alpine countryside by going for some walks. After our brief survey of the market, we set off on our first attempt. It turned out to be sharply uphill. Moreover, the sun had become unexpectedly hot, making us uncomfortable in our long pants, socks and sneakers. I felt slightly weak, too, with my cough persisting from our time in Spain. After about ten minutes, we did the sensible thing and came back down, and paid for the gondola up to our destination instead. We then enjoyed a nice walk going downhill.

view from the gondola

scene from our first day's walk

Our walks in the Alps stimulated all our senses. Our eyes feasted on lovely scenery. It often smelled of the country (not necessarily in a good way). We could always hear a faint tinkling sound from the bells tied around the necks of cows, goats and sheep in the fields – we're still not sure of the purpose of the bells. We felt the gravel beneath our sneakers on the broad paths, as well as our sore legs and eventually toes from too much downhill walking. And we tasted the fresh bread we bought for lunch every day.

Our walks also got my imagination going. I could totally imagine Heidi frolicking about in the more remote areas we passed through (and then waking up the next morning and going, “Where am I?” – as she ALWAYS seemed to).

Cows with bells on. Not a picture of mountains!

The next day was the true pain-causer for our legs and toes. We took another cable car, apparently the longest one in Europe, up to the top of the mountain Mannlichen, 2343m high. The views were breathtaking, surrounded as we were by majestic snowy mountains. We then walked down to Kleine Scheidegg, at 2061m, from there to Alpiglen, at 1615m, and then the steepest section back down to Grindelwald, at 1034m. It took a total of 4 hours or so, and we definitely felt it the next day (and the next. And the day after).

 At the top of Mannlichen.

 A rare and elusive moment, superbly captured on camera: John really going all out in his imitation of the new camera pose we've been seeing: not just the victory sign, but holding your arm/s out wide while doing the victory sign! In John's case, also bending the body in a strange manner.

Near the top.

 On the way down...

Gorgeous colour lake!

Our pained legs didn't stop us from exploring further afield, however; the following day saw us travelling across to Murren, another little town in the same general region. The route was interesting for us, as a train took us most of the way, but the transport from the valley floor up to Murren involved a cable car for most of the way. We wondered if our luggage would be alright in the cable car, and then saw the size of it – a massive one that could fit about 100 people. Murren is apparently a car-free village, which means you have to have a special permit to be able to drive there. We did see some hardy vehicles there, but very few, and not many people either. It was a very quiet and peaceful place.

We had intended to take another cable car from here up to the top of the Schilthorn mountain, but when the price turned out to be significantly higher than we were expecting, we forewent that opportunity, figuring we'd seen enough beautiful views already to make us happy. Instead, we went for another walk, despite the protestations of our legs and feet, going on a round trip to Gimmelwald.

scene from our third day's walk

We also saw quite a high, thin waterfall in Lauterbrunnen.

And so ends our not very exciting account of various walks to places you haven't heard of in the Swiss mountains. Otherwise it would've just been all photos!