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We spent Friday, Day 12, in Bern and Fribourg because it was clouded over here in Lauterbrunnen, so there was no point in exploring the mountains that day. We got a bit of a late start because we were trying to finish up some laundry that morning, but we eventually got out the door. We arrived in Bern just in time for lunch, so we parked the car, and found a bench in one of the covered shopping arcades on which to eat our picnic lunch of cured meats, Swiss cheeses, tomatoes, rolls, apples, and Gummy Bears. :)
After lunch, we continued down the arcade in the direction of the famous Bern Bear Pits, only to discover that the last bear had died a couple of months ago, and they wouldn't be putting new bears in the exhibit until their new pit, which is currently under construction, is finished later this year. I wasn't too disappointed, because I think making poor bears live in a concrete pit in the middle of the city is a bit sad anyway. After that, we wandered around the city a bit more, found some fountains, found the house where Einstein formulated his theory of special relativity, and found a wine shop to poke about in for a while. Then we swung by the clock tower and decided to end our visit to Bern in favor of moving down to Fribourg.
Our first stop in Fribourg was a scenic overlook spot high above the old city. We snapped a few pictures there and admired the view for a while. Then we meandered our way down through the old-old city, and on into the new-old city, where we stopped to get out and see the cathedral and walk the streets for a while before we decided it was too hot, and we were too tired, and we just wanted to get back to our apartment. I was still battling my cold that day, so I wasn't much in the mood for wandering around. We made it back to the apartment and went out for dinner to a hotel that was having a BBQ night. We had a pot of fondue and BBQ for dinner, and it was good.
Saturday was another cloudy day here in the valley, so we decided to drive to Gruyeres for the day. We took a very twisty and curvy road through a beautiful valley and over a mountain pass to get there. It was a fun drive in the new car. Our first stop once we arrived in Gruyere was at the cheese factory. We watched a demonstration of Gruyere AOC cheese making, then we went to the restaurant for more fondue and some rosti, a potato dish that the Swiss are quite fond of. For dessert, we moved over to the Cailler chocolate factory across town, where we watched funny old movies about chocolate, toured their museum to learn how they make their chocolates, and then consumed copious amounts of free samples.
After lunch and dessert, we went to Chateau Gruyeres up on top of the hill. We walked through the old town area on the city wall, then on in to the castle. They did a pretty neat multimedia presentation about the history of the castle, then we were set free to tour the building and the grounds on our own. It was one of the best castle museums we've ever been to. I wasn't expecting much from their website, but it turned out to be a really good place to visit. After we finished up at the Chateau, we drove back to our apartment in Lauterbrunnen for the night.
We finally had a perfectly clear day arrive on Sunday morning, so we hustled into gear and got ourselves over to the train station for the trip up to the Jungfraujoch, the "Top of Europe". We rode the train from Lauterbrunnen, to Wengen, to Kleine Scheidegg, and then we switched trains to continue the journey from Kleine Scheidegg to the Jungfraujoch station. The first leg of the trip was mostly over ground, and had spectacular views. It took about 30 minutes. The second leg of the trip was almost entirely in underground tunnels and it took about an hour. We eventually arrived at a very cold underground station in the top of the mountain. We climbed out a tunnel and went up an elevator to a lookout point, where we were pleased to see that it was still sunny outside and we could see the glacier below us and the mountains all around. We walked out on the glacier for some fun in the snow before going back inside for lunch in one of the restaurants. After lunch, we walked through the ice cave, which is a little ice sculpture museum that they've carved out of the glacier. It was pretty fun. Then we got back on the train for the ride down the mountain.
We stopped our train trip at Kleine Scheidegg on the way down, and got out to take a hike across the mountain terrain. We hiked from Kleine Scheidegg to Mannlichen. It was a beautiful trail. We started out with views of the valley where Grindelwald is located, and eventually made it up to a ridge where we could see the valley where Lauterbrunnen is located as well. The clouds started to move in during the hike, but we were still able to take in some amazing views while we walked. We took the cable car from Mannlichen down to Wengen, then got back on the train for the rest of the ride back to Lauterbrunnen.
Only two more days left here in Lauterbrunnen, then we move to Zurich for one day, and fly home on Thursday!
I believe when we last left you we were ready to move from the Berchtesgaden area of Germany over into Switzerland. We spent much of Day 8 stuck in the car due to very long traffic jams in Germany. Thankfully, the roads finally opened up after lunch, and we were able to test the capabilities of the new car. I managed to hit 135 mph on one unlimited speed section of the autobahn. It was quite fun, and a little scary, but I got my fix. It's something I'll never be able to try legally at home, so I'm glad we had the opportunity to do it here.
We meandered our way to Luzern via a town called St. Gallen, which is famous for its abbey and library. We made it to the abbey about half an hour before the library closed so we made a quick tour of the room to see some very old texts and to check out the nifty architecture in the library. They don't allow photos inside, but you can see a picture of the place here.
We left St. Gallen and continued on to Luzern, and got stuck in yet another traffic jam outside Zurich. It was quite an exhausting day of driving. However, once we finally made it to Luzern, we went straight to dinner at the Mexican restaurant that I'd been looking forward to trying ever since we started planning our trip. It was pretty good, and stupid expensive. 15 Francs for a tiny (maybe 6-8 ounces?) frozen margarita. Hmmph. We had them anyway. :)
The next day was rainy and cloudy, so we decided to go to the Swiss Transport Museum in Luzern, along with what must have been the entire school-aged population of the city. They had some neat displays of trains, cable cars, and ships, along with a couple of interesting airplanes. We spent the rest of the afternoon wandering around the old town area of Luzern, and napping back in our hotel room, because we were both quite exhausted, and because I started getting the symptoms of a cold around then. We eventually went out for what turned out to be an excellent dinner. Jeff found a place with a good wine list, so we decided to try it. We found a great bottle of Bordeaux and both had lamb dishes to go with it.
The next morning, we walked up to the old city wall overlooking Luzern. We climbed up to the top and walked along the wall for a while, then climbed one of the towers for a good view of the city.
After that, we wandered back through some more of the old town area, then perused the wares at Bucherer for a while before getting back in the car to move to our next destination, Lauterbrunnen, Switzerland.
We've been blessed with great weather in Lauterbrunnen so far. When we arrived last night, the tops of the mountains surrounding us were in view, and several waterfalls are currently active. We are renting an apartment here, so we hit the little grocery shop in town for some supplies, then made dinner before taking a short walk up the valley towards Stechelberg before calling it a night. Here's the view from our apartment:
This morning we awoke to another mostly clear day, so we decided to take the cable cars from Stechelberg to the top of the Schilthorn to see the views. We were up in the clouds for part of the time, but other times things cleared up and we could see over the Alps. We meandered our way back down with strolls through Murren and Gimmelwald before coming back to our apartment, then we drove down into Interlaken to stock up on supplies at the supermarket for the rest of our stay here.
It's hard to believe that we only have six more full days here before we fly back home, but I suppose all good vacations must eventually come to an end, and we definitely miss our little pups. I suspect they are quite used to being spoiled and won't want to come back home with us, but they're going to have to. :)
We have had quite the busy last three days and we need to catch up on our blogging!
On Friday, we drove to Hallstatt, Austria, to see the picturesque town and to tour the salt mine in the mountains above the town. We began our visit with a funicular ride to the top of the mountain, and then we climbed the rest of the way to the salt mine on foot. They gave us funny overclothes with padded hineys to wear on our tour, and they gave us a shot of schnapps to warm us up for the underground tour. We walked into the mountain, then visited a few caverns inside where they used to leach the salt out of the rock with water. We also rode a couple of long wooden slides inside the mountain (hence the need for the padded pants). It was an interesting tour. It was one of the few mines we've been in that actually contained copious examples of the substance being mined - the walls were covered in salt crystals. The tour ended with a train ride through a tiny tunnel out to the side of the mountain.
From there, we walked back down to the funicular, and then rode it back down into Hallstatt. We wandered around Hallstatt for a while and ate a very late lunch there before heading back to our hotel for the night.
Saturday was spent touring the Konigssee, which is the lake right by our hotel here in Germany. It's been very well preserved from pollution over the last 100 years or so, and is quite pristine. We took a boat cruise across the lake to the far side, and from there we hiked to another lake and on around it to see a waterfall. We knew the waterfall was there, as we had seen it through a break in the clouds from the boat, but it wasn't until we reached the other side of the little lake that it appeared to us again. We were glad it finally did. We hiked back to the boat and rode back across the Konigssee to Schoenau. We made a quick stop at the hotel for afternoon tea (ok, no tea, but definitely cheesecake and strawberry shortcake, and doughnuts) for another late lunch. Then we moved ourselves and all our dirty laundry into Berchtesgaden to visit the waschsalon, or laundromat, as we call them here. After that, we went out for dinner at a little local restaurant, and then called it a night.
Today (Sunday), we visited some attractions near the town of Werfen, Austria. Our first stop was the Eisriesenwelt, which is an ice cave. It was a fantastic experience; one that would probably never be allowed in the US due to its total non-ADA accessible-ness. We drove up the side of a mountain to a parking lot. From there, we hiked about 20 minutes farther up the mountain to a cable car, which took us up another very steep and very high amount, and from there we hiked another 20 minutes up to the entrance of the ice cave. Once inside, we climbed another 700 or so steps UP into the ice cave, for a total of about a 1 km trek into the cave, the entirety of which was coated in amazing ice formations (sorry, no photos allowed inside, so check it out on their website). I have no idea how anyone ever decided to try and explore this mountain enough to find this place, but I'm glad they did. It was amazing.
On our way back down, we stopped for a quick bite to eat at a snack stand, then continued over to another attraction in Werfen: Berg Hohenwerfen. The castle itself was cool to look at, but the main feature of this visit was the falconry exhibition. We watched eagles and falcons and vultures and owls swoop over our heads while a four man brass ensemble played accompanying music. It was pretty cool. The birds were allowed to fly all over the place, right over the crowd. The handlers tossed dead mice up into the air for the birds to catch (sometimes they missed and they fell on the crowd, which was hilarious). It was a pretty good show.
After the castle, we headed back to our hotel for dinner. Tomorrow we drive to Luzern, Switzerland, with a stopover in St. Gallen, Switzerland, to see the library.
