A Few Days in the Swiss Alps

Wednesday morning found Kate, Jen, and I leaving Pecos and the comforts of the rolladen-darkened apartment behind at about 8:45am to pick Justin up from his office in Wiesbaden. Once Justin was securely back in the driver's seat of the spacious Ford Ka, we headed southwest-ish towards Stuttgart, Germany. Now, Stuttgart is not exactly "on the way" to Interlaken, but Justin had some work stuff he wanted to do on the base there, so we made the side trip.

While Justin was busy protecting U.S. interests on base for a few hours, Jen, Kate, and I headed to the "Burg Hohenzollern" castle about an hour away on Justin's suggestion. Being as it was a typical, cloudy German morning with virtually no visibility, we followed the signs up a mountain to the castle which was hidden behind the thick clouds. The castle turned out to be great and very castley...I think.

I did learn a few things while at Burg Hohenzollern:

1) German soldiers find Kate and Jen, shivering in rain gear, to be very "appealing."
2) Kate and Jen find German soldiers creepy.
3)My new favorite German word is "HundeBistro."


Once our bodies had had enough of the cold and dampness, we headed back to Stuttgart to reclaim the fourth member of our party and complete our trip to Interlaken, Switzerland.
After a good 5+ hour final leg of the trip, we pulled into Interlaken under the cover of nightfall. We headed to our hostel, Balmer's Herberge, with high hopes that it would be better than our accomodations in Amsterdam a few days earlier.




Balmer's turns out to be the oldest privately owned hostel in Switzerland and was quite a pleasant surprise. It was full of American college kids, lots of common areas, board games, magazines, fireplaces, and an underground (literally) nightclub. We were all worn out from our long journey, so we fell asleep pretty quickly with thoughts of the mountains we would see the following day in our heads, or mine, at least.

Thursday morning, we started our hike up the Alps in Gimmelwald and headed north. At first, we were on a nice little path...

After we stopped for a little lunch of cheese, bread, and fruit, Justin and Kate decided to, in the words of Kate's hero, Emeril, "Kick it up a notch." Needless to say, the hiking got a lot harder, fast. Soon, our friend, the paved path, was gone, and heavy, wet snow was in its place. This worked out okay for Kate and Justin and their hiking shoes. The New Balance and Asics sneakers that Jen and I had on were a different story. At one point, I knew I should turn around and take a picture of what we had just trudged through:

Soon, we found ourselves on a ski run with two other disoriented American hikers and quickly made our way to Allmendhubel, a little snowy town. Once in Allmendhubel, we sat down outside a little ski chalet/cafe and took in the breathtaking views. Pictures really don't do it justice, so I'm not even going to try...well, maybe one...

While we basked in the magnitude of the Alps, we did get to enjoy the musical stylings of these two gentlemen:
They sounded exactly like you would expect them to sound...

After our rest, we headed back down the mountain. We took a bahn (cable car) down the first half of the mountain and then hiked down the last half. Once back in Interlaken, we walked around and had some traditional Swiss food:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosti

The evening was capped off with a very difficult game of Trivial Pursuit 6 that Kate was able to walk away from victorious. However, must I remind her who the reigning Pictionary champs are?

On Friday, once we checked out of Balmer's, we wanted to bahn/hike to some glaciers, but found the bahn out of service for the season. We regrouped and decided to hike from Grindelwald to Bort. We opted for the "Sport/Easy" trail and got started. This trail took us up through some beautiful, dense German woods.


The hike to Bort gave me a chance to, besides sweat all over my shirt, observe Justin and his fondness for precipitation in the form of crystalline ice water, better known as snow. One might attribute this fondness to growing up in Pennsylvania with its snowy winters, or simply to the lack of oxygen way up in the Alps. Either way, Justin loved eating snow, picking up big chunks of it,

sticking his arm as far into it as he could, and jumping into it whenever the chance arose.

Once we arrived in Bort, we enjoyed one last Swiss meal and a final bahn ride downhill before starting our journey back to Wiesbaden.

Interlaken and its surrounding areas are the stuff dreams are made of, literally. If you are ever planning a trip around Europe, put it near the top of your list.

*Big thanks to Kate, Justin, and Mr. P for all of their hospitality during our trip and for letting me be a guest blogger.