Lauterbrunnen Valley

The Berner Oberland was gorgeous, and we stayed in Lauterbrunnen Valley in an amazing chalet. Lauterbrunnen Valley is also called the Valley of Waterfalls because there are 72 waterfalls in the area. One of the largest is Staubacch Falls which you can see from when you come out of the train station.  It was beautiful on the day we left, with the sun hitting it just right.  

Thirty minutes before our train left, D and I ran up to get a better view of the town from above. Luckily, we were able to catch our train out!

Murren and an "easy hike" that ended up being death defying

The next day we took a cable car up to Grutschalp and then the Panoramafahrt - the Panoramic train - to Murren. Murren is a bustling resort town...except in November, when its shoulder season. To be honest, shoulder season is my favorite time to travel (see Sweden in November and Italy in February - if I had actually written a post, whoops) - less crowds and cheaper, so one can get photos like this...  

However, one problem in traveling during shoulder season is that lots of other things may be closed...like the cable car up to Allmunhubel, where our hike started.  So instead, we decided to hike up to Allmunhubel, which was up 1,000 feet from Murren, which turned out to be a bit difficult since the air is much thinner up there, and it was straight uphill. Luckily we had lots of beautiful views...

Birg station on top and the path cutting up on the right.

 

The weather was gorgeous, and we had some great views.  Here's Murren from above, and a non-working ski lift.  There are great ski trails all around the area - I can't wait to go back in March!  

Murren from above

The hike was very long, but had amazing views. Here's a high plateau with a gorgeous view of the mountain range. That is the Schwartzmonch and Jungfrau.

Eye of the Tiger

The Big 3:  Eiger, Monch, Jungfrau, and in the foreground, the Schwartzmonch.

 We decided to hike down to Gimmelwald via the Sprutz trail, where one sees the Sprutz waterfall.  HOWEVER, we did not know that right before the Sprutz waterfall, there is another waterfall that runs on the trail.  This is fine in most months of the year, but when it freezes over and you, your hubs, and your hubs' parents have to cross it AND there is what seems like a 200 foot drop into an icy river, its much, much more scary. We definitely should have had crampons to cross it.  We asked the TI in Lauterbrunnen if it was OK to go on the trail, and very Swiss like, they said yes it is fine but didn't tell us that a part of the trail could be frozen and there is a drop into the icy river below if you fall.  Oh, and you are at least 3 km from civilization should you hurt yourself. Anyway, we survived! :)

Frozen waterfall

After I crossed, D's mom + dad getting ready to cross.  D's dad scampered back and forth 3x while I hyperventilated.

Sprutz waterfall

Frozen waterfall on the left, Sprutz on the right.  I'm freaked out thinking about it.

We finally got down to Gimmelwald, just as the sun was setting and emerged from the forest for sunset and  the very end of some beautiful Alpen glow.

Alpen Glow

The top of Europe!

The Jungfraujoch is called "The Top of Europe" on the saddle between the Monch and the Jungfrau itself.  It is the highest train station in Europe at 3,454 meters or 11,332 ft. We took a (very early) cog rail from Lauterbrunnen to Murren, then up to Kleine Scheidegg. 

The view of Lauterbrunnen from Murren - the sun is about to rise.

 At Kleine Scheidegg, we transferred to another cog rail which takes you into and through the Eiger, with two stops along the way:  one halfway up the North Face of the Eiger and the other on the Sea of Ice. 

From the Eiger - the round patches of snow are snow making machines getting ready for ski season.

Sea of Ice

We finally arrived at the top of Europe after 50 minutes traveling through the Eiger on the cog railway.  Our first stop was to walk out on the top of the Sphinx mountain to see the Jungfrau and the Monch. 

Hello Jungfrau!

Hello Monch!  -  The Monch protecting the Jungfrau from the Eiger

Then we head into the ice palace - where everything, including the floor and chairs are made of ice with ice sculptures everywhere. 

Look what else we found!

Ice seats

There were some tight squeezes - look at that gorgeous color!

 We went to the top of the observatory to see the longest glacier in Europe: the Aletsch glacier, 22 km long.

One side: the Aletsch glacier - check out those crevasses.

The other side - this is the hike we did back in August.

After a few hours at the top of the Jungfrau we head back down to Kleine Scheidegg and hiked down to Wengen Alp. It was a gorgeous day! 

Check out this gorgeous view - Eiger on the left and Monch on the right.

Berner Oberland with Dave's Parents!

Well, I'm back. Sorry.  The past few months have been great - and busy.  I stopped writing in October because D and I went to Chicago for the amazing wedding of an amazing couple, I had a brief stopover in LV to see my sister while Dave went to Notre Dame to do some work/see some friends, and we met in Rochester, NY to go to our 5 year reunion.  It was a busy month!  

November was busy too!  Dave's mom and dad came out to visit us and we explored Switzerland:  Geneva, Nyon, Berner Oberland, Trub (where D's mom's family emigrated from in the 1750s), Montreux, and finally Zermatt. 

Ooh, big windows

We took the Glacier Express Rail from Geneva to Lauterbrunnen.  The stretch from Montreux to Interlaken is beautiful, and they have special panoramic cars. We were under the impression that to sit in these cars, we would have to purchase 1st class rail tickets (not true).  Generally, the people who work for SBB are really great - but I think we got this guy on his first day.  He was definitely training, as someone was looking over his shoulder the whole time.  So, I tell them we would like to purchase 1/2 fare cards for D's mom and dad - a great deal for Swiss rail.  OK, he does that fine. Next, I tell him I would like to purchase tickets from Geneva to Lauterbrunnen, through Spiez so we can go on the Glacier Express route, and we'd like tickets only on the Glacier Express route.  Do we have to go 1st class to get panoramic windows? Yes. OK. He inputs everything into the computer, prints it out, looks at it, then throws it in the garbage.  Repeat 4x.  Finally he gives us all our tickets, we pay an exorbitant amount of money (at least to an un-employed expat wife, but probably not so bad for normal folk), and we go on our merry way. We have an uneventful ride to Montreux, switch to the panorama cars, and then can't seem to find our seats.  Hmm, that's weird, we reserved them, we even have the reservation card and everything. The conductor just tells us to take a seat as the train is already moving, and when he comes back we give him our reservation.  The conductor then proceeds to tell us that the guy gave us the reservation for the wrong date, oh and he gave us our tickets in a very odd way, oh and he made our reservation in the 1st class cabin with the panorama windows but didn't give us our actual tickets, he thinks. At least, that's what I think happened - this was all in French.  Well, the guy is nice, and just as confused as we are, so he lets us sit in 1st class with the panorama windows. All in all, we think we only paid for the reservation for 1st class tickets (its a separate reservation fee and ticket fee), but we got panorama windows!

Gorgeous views

The ride is beautiful, we get to our chalet in Lauterbrunnen, and a bit down the road is a sheep farm with baby sheep!  We crash early since the next day we'll be going to the top of Europe!