Switzerland: Part 3

Lauterbrunnen

We stayed in the small village of Lauterbrunnen while in the Alps. 

It was the most perfect little Swiss village with its gingerbread chalets, lush green pastures with cows, 

windy paths and surrounded by snow capped mountains. 

Every chalet was the traditional style with ornamental cutouts and window and rail boxes stuffed with  

Geraniums that were mostly red. 

We stayed at the Hotel Silberhorn. 

We had a vey comfortable room with the most amazing view of one of the many waterfalls in Lauterbrunnen. We slept with the door opened listened to them overnight. 

Same pictures taken different times of the day. It was so pretty I couldn't stop taking pictures from our balcony.  

Hubs and I were really tired when we got to Lauterbrunnen and once we saw the wood burning pizza oven in our hotel's restaurant we knew exactly what we were doing for dinner.....

pizza and wine on our balcony and then our first TV watching (in bed) since leaving home.

Just some more views.....

When we travel, I cannot pass up walking through the local cemetery or grocery store.

I know it may be weird, but I think there is a lot of local culture in both. 

Lauterbrunnen's cemetery was absolutely beautiful, each grave was a different flower garden maintained by the family. 

All of my 3 daughters love sauces and so this picture was for them. 

We do not this variety of Heinz sauces here in NC.

During our three days in Lauterbrunnen, we took walks down different paths after getting back from the other villages and tours. I feel like I am continually repeating myself, but there are no other words to describe what we saw,  it was all just so beautiful.

Here are some of the sights....

A few of the small farms had vending machines sitting on the side of the trail 

and were selling the cheeses they made. 

Yes.....CHEESE VENDING MACHINES!

The top of a roof that was made of growing grass. We saw a lot of these. 

FYI, the Swiss slugs are huge!

squash and pumpkins growing on a mound

I was on a mission to find an authentic Swiss cow wearing a bell!

We heard bells ringing from a distance and kept following the trail until we found them!

We walked by the big waterfall that we could see from our room and realized you could walk up and go behind it in the rock. Let me tell you, it was quite a trek! We knew we were getting into something bad when we saw the barrel of hiking poles that were free to use.  

We definitely needed them after the first set of steps. 

We ate dinner in our hotel's small restaurant for our last meal in Switzerland.  

The menu was very simple and traditional Swiss. 

Swiss food is delicious, but very heavy on cheese, meat and potatoes.  I guess they burn off the calories with all of their trekking and activities. 

You can figure out what we had by looking at the pictures.

We said good bye to Switzerland and this beautiful view that night. 

We packed up and could not wait for our driver to pick us up bright and early.

Our next stop was Bellagio, Italy!

I will breaking from this story for a few posts and will be sharing our holidays,

and then, back to Italy! 

Switzerland: Part 2

One of the days while staying in Zurich, we took a train to Bern which was about an hour ride.

We were told the train system in Switzerland was superb and easy and it was.  We sat in the upper car, second floor, in red velvet(ish) recliners. 

Bern was beautiful and very different from Zurich. 

Medieval, with its many watch towers and stone walls. 

The most famous landmark in Bern is the medieval clock tower  (Zytglogge). We did a tour of the inside of it. It was really interesting to see the original designs and mechanisms.

We were up inside when the clock struck on the hour and it was fun to peep out and watch the crowd looking up at us as the rooster crowed, the bears dance and the jester juggled.   

Bern has one long main street lined with some really neat shops and places to eat. I literally could've stayed in the ribbon shop for hours. I didn't buy anything because I wanted it ALL and couldn't narrow down what I wanted most.  We caught the train back to Zurich after wandering Bern for a bit and having our usual snack - a charcuterie board, but with humus this time. 

(Can you imagine an entire shop of ribbon!)

The next morning we packed up our bags and headed towards Lauterbrunnen, a small town in the Swiss Alps. We had a driver that new the area like the back of her hand and she detoured and made stops to show us things that we would have never found on our own. 

Our first stop was in Lucerne. It was cold and rainy so we did not stay the entire two hours that was planned.  I would have loved to wander around and explore more of Lucerne, because it was my kind of place....it was full of lots and lots of beautiful flowers! The Chapel Bridge is Lucerne's claim to fame along with the Lion Monument. 

After Lucerne, we drove through so many little towns and villages and I couldn't name them or tell you where we were if my life depended on it.  Melanie, our driver put up with me asking all kinds of cultural questions as we twisted and turned up into the alps.  I would rather know about the every day culture of the places I travel than to hear about all of the history. I have all of the scoop on Swiss holidays, Christmas family traditions, every night dinners, the school system, school lunches, weddings and even their funerals. 

Melanie, stopped at a little spot so we could get lunch to eat on the road.  Behind the little snack shop was this view.....

and on the other side of the road was this view...

like I said before, Switzerland is beautiful. 

This was my Swiss fast food lunch, a hot ham and Swiss cheese panini, 

 paprika potato chips and a filled gingerbread cookie. Melanie told me you would find these cookies in a lot of childrens' lunch boxes.  Pretty much it is a  Little Debbie Oatmeal Cream Pie, but gingerbread. 

Our last stop before getting to Lauterbrunnen was the Gelmer Funicular.

It is the steepest funicular in Europe - and we were nervous about that. 

We had to walk in the rain and WIND through the woods, on the most beautiful paths....

turning the corner above was a terrifying sight... the swing bridge that we had to cross (in the wind and rain) to get to the funicular. 

At the top, we had to walk in heavy fog along a path and we literally had no idea what there was to see until the fog lifted.  It was crazy how one second we could not see anything at all but fog and the next second was a crazy blue lake, cliffs and even a few buildings we walked by and didn't even see them.  

Melanie

This is the fog rolling in, up from the valley.

We headed to Lauterbrunnen after getting back down off the mountain and crossing that long hanging  bridge again. We were ready for some dry clothes and dinner!

Coming up next time is our three days in the Alps, waterfalls and snow in August!

And just so you know...