April 21 included a lot of walking and a lot of breath-taking scenery! After breakfast we stowed our bags at the train station (which included a morning sprint for Bryan to get change for the locker and make it on the train in time!) and rode from Interlaken to Lauterbrunnen.
It was a short (20-minute) ride and was pretty enough. From Lauterbrunnen, we rode a cable car up to Grutshalp, then hiked a little over an hour to Murren.
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| Lauterbrunnen |
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| Lauterbrunnen from the cable car... |
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| From the cable car |
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| Top of the cable car in Grutschalp |
We were sooo glad we did the hike between Grutshalp and Murren, because, once again, it was a gorgeous day, the views were fantastic, and the air fresh. Thank you Rick Steves for that recommendation! The sun was so bright that it washed some of our pictures out, but the scenery will be forever stuck in my mind. We walked through both trees and pastures, with the mountains always close by!
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| For the non-hikers |
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| Check out the peace sign the guy in the window is flashing for our sake |
Once in Murren we walked around a little bit and took a few more pictures...
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| More hang gliders |
Then it was time to ride the cable car (gondola) up the Schilthorn...it was one of the last ski days of the season, so we packed in with the skiers and up, up, up we went!
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| On the way up! |
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| We stopped at the midway point to take a few pictures |
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| ...then kept going up! |
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| At the top |
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| Don't let the sun fool you - it was warm down below, but freezing (literally) up top!! |
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| Waiting for the car to up to take us back down |
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| Approaching the midpoint |
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| Midpoint snack |
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| Here comes the cable car... |
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| Back to green again |
Hungry, we had some lunch and then rode a different cable car from Murrne to Gimmelwald, then from Gimmelwald to Stechelberg.
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| Bit of a different view on this ride... |
From Stechelberg we took a quick bus ride toTrummelbach Falls, where we bought Bryan a red Swiss ballcap and then hiked up to see the falls. It was different than any waterfall I've seen before - it wove in and out of a huge rock formation, so it was only visible in bits and pieces from 10 "stations" as you walked up (yes, many more stairs!). The power of the water was amazing, and it was a very cool experience. The camera didn't even come close to capturing it.
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Station #1, aka the "bottom" |
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| Heading to the next station |
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| Valley view on the way up |
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| Down at the bottom/beginning again |
The final leg of our journey was to walk back through the valley to Lauterbrunnen...
Back in Lauterbrunnen, we caught the train to Interlaken, grabbed some food from the grocery store, retrieved our bags from the locker, and caught a train to Basel where we stayed the night. It was an incredible day of soaking in the beauty of God's creation. What a delightful area!
A few final pictures of the lake as he headed out of Interlaken on the train...
