Lauterbrunnen

Friday, May 18, 2018

With a cloudless sky this morning, we headed to Lauterbrunnen, close to our home base and also to our destination yesterday.  Lauterbrunnen is situated in a two-mile-long valley between two sheer rock faces, which are punctuated by multiple waterfalls; Lauterbrunnen means “only springs.”

 

Having learned that the weather here changes with great frequency, we decided to cover the higher elevations of the region while the skies were clear.  After taking a gondola to Grutschalp, we walked the Mountain View path to Murren, which was just over four miles.  The views across the valley to the peaks of the “Swiss Skyline” were indescribably beautiful.  We were seeing not just a different face of the Eiger and other peaks from yesterday’s view, but a panorama that was untouched by clouds; it was all blue sky and snowy peaks – so close, they seemed just across the street!  Our trail roughly paralleled the tracks of the train from Grutschalp to Murren, and we could see it chugging along its short route below us quite a few times as we walked through pine forest, crossed mountain streams rushing downward, and passed wildflower slowed by the irresistible number of photo ops.  (Trail markers in Switzerland don’t indicate distance, instead they show the time a hike should take; this information is useless when a man with a camera is trekking!)

 

We’ve had picnic lunches on the road in some extraordinary places, but even so, today’s spot in Murren was outstanding.  It was easy to find a bench in a quiet spot with a view of the “skyline” and the hang gliders passing above and below us.  Murren is a car-free village, though there are a number of sizeable hotels and shops, as it’s a popular tourist destination. 

 

En route to the valley floor, we took a gondola from Murren, with a brief stop for a look around tiny Gimmewald.  The cable car brought us down to Stechelberg, where we began our walk through the valley back toward Lauterbrunnen.  The flat path passed through meadows filled with yet more wildflowers and small dairy farms.  The waterfalls barreled down from the cliffs on both sides of the valley, and the River Lutschine, fed by all those waterfalls, ran full and fast through the center.  The setting was idyllic and we enjoyed the 3.6-mile walk to our car park at the train station.  We were amused to find that one small farm had a refrigerated vending machine stocked with cheeses, sausages, eggs and preserves.

 

 

On today’s walks and elsewhere as we’ve traveled through Switzerland this week, we’ve noted the massive stacks of chopped and split wood.  Sometimes they’ve been alongside homes, but we’ve also often seen them along roadsides or our hiking paths.  In every instance, they’ve been precisely cut into uniform lengths (often about three feet!) and stacked so meticulously that they appear to fit almost like the pieces of jigsaw puzzles.

 

Tomorrow, we’ll leave our lovely spot on the mountain in Beatenberg and head back to Geneva, where this trip began.  We plan to explore a bit of the north shore of Lake Geneva before returning our car and checking into a hotel at the airport before our first flight en route home on Sunday.