A place for all things I love...

Friday, June 24, 2011

Grindelwald, Switzerland

After many trains we finally arrived in Grindelwald. First look was really breathtaking. The air was so fresh & everything was a beautiful green. The huge mountains with snow make utah look despicable. When we arrived we walked up a little street to our hotel the Hirschen, where we were greeted by a lovely staff with the thickest accents.
Bottom left is our hotel. We took a little power nap & showered the gross train traveling off us.
When we were all ready we walked around the quaint little streets & shops. The fields were full of grass & flowers.
We stopped at this cute little playground.
That night we had a yummy dinner across the street from our hotel. I had a chicken risotto & Jeremy a steak. It was so nice to have different options for food than Italian. It ended up being very expensive, as we found all of switzerland to be. If you are planning a trip beware you will be broke afterwards!!
This was the view from the restaurant.
That night we hung out in the library to catch up on emails & chat. At this point Jeremy & I had run out of clean underwear since we never found anywhere that would wash clothes for a reasonable price & we didn't want to waste time at a laundry mat..
So we whipped out the tide packet Sandy had got for us & washed them in the tub! It was actually a lot of work, so I am glad we have machines to clean our clothes normally! That night we slept so well with the fresh air and super comfy pillows & blankets.

The next morning (Tues 17th) we headed down to breakfast where we had the most delicious hot chocolate. We then took the bus to a glacier at the bottom of the Eiger. Here is the view of the town below.
This cow greeted us at the front of the trail & the boys couldn't resist a photo shoot with him.
It was a nice one hour hike though we were a little chilly. You walked along man made planks to see multiple little waterfalls, come off the glaciers.
This is the view on the way out.
What a refreshing morning hike! From there we took the expensive train over the mountain that stops at all the little towns & ends up in Lauterbrunnen.
It was so cool to look at all the little towns hidden away in the mountain. Some of which you can only get to by train.
I have no clue how they got houses up on that cliff!
They even let us get out to get some better pictures.
Here is our first view of Lauterbrunnen from the train!
I can't think of anything more amazing than seeing the little houses with huge waterfalls coming off the cliffs.
These brown & white cows are everywhere, since they are big on milk here. If you are quiet you can always here the sounds of the bells the wear. We actually brought a small one home for Diesel :)
Sheep also graze a lot of the mountain sides.
We loved lauterbrunnen! I especially loved all the chic cabin like houses. Reminded me of a forest christmas time. Everything was brown with either red or green shutters.
I would have these shutters on my house :)

We stopped at a cute cafe called airtime & had some sandwiches & brownies. yum! The people running the place were so unbelievably friendly! It had sort of a park city vibe to me.
I especially liked the decor. I was in love with this grey velvet couch!

After our yummy meal we took the bus over to Trummelbach falle.
You walk thru these huge fields to get to the start of the trail. Sort of reminded me of the sound of music for some reason..
Trummelbach falle's was freezing cold!! You climbed up a bunch of stairs that were surrounding it till you got to the top.
They cut out the rock into tunnels for you to walk along.
This picture reminds me of the Goonies movie for some reason. below.
Jeremy's favorite* picture of us with the swiss flag & Lauterbrunnen in the background.
The bottom of Trummelbach falls.
On the way out we saw this sweet little girl picking flowers. She seriously was so adorable with her curly hair & glasses. I wish I had taken another picture of her.
She had made this flower crown which Jeremy decided to model. haha
Wouldn't it be so dreamy to have a picnic here?? 
After the falls we hopped off the bus early because the boys wanted to check out some helicopters who were taking people skydiving.
We decided we hadn't seen enough waterfalls so we hiked up to this one called Staubbach. They had to move sheep out of our path, & it was very steep my thighs were defiantly feeling it at that point.
View from the hike.
We didn't realize that you were hiking underneath the waterfall & it wasn't possible to stay dry! But hey when in Switzerland right? So we went anyways even though we got pretty wet & cold.
It had a really cool ice/snow glacier below but we couldn't get a picture since our camera would get wet.
On our way back we finally looked at a watch & realized we needed to run to catch our train. We barely made it there in time.. or so we thought. We soon realized we had watched our train leave while we sat on the wrong one.. haha
It actually worked for the best since we got a refund & took a much cheaper train straight to Grindelwald instead of over the whole mountain.
When we got back we headed back to our hotel to dry off & get some dinner. The food was delicious! I got a salad with dressing, yay! (They never put anything besides vinegar on your salad in Italy) We also had some really good cheese fondue.
The boys who weirdly ordered all the same meals had this very custom swiss dish with brats & even a cute little flag :)
That night the owner of our hotel told the boys about the German version of bowling that he had installed in the bottom of the hotel. So we went down & enjoyed what is called "Kegelbahn". I would later hate this word as Jeremy would yell it in an obnoxious voice at random times!
It is a 9 pin bowling which the Kemps never really got the hang of..
I have decided to split Switzerland up in two posts since we were there longer & I have a million pictures! So next up Switzerland day 2!

1 comment: