Enchantment of Eastern Europe

I had some kind of allergic reaction yesterday and my eyes were watering like crazy. I spent the night sneezing and blowing my nose, even though I took an antihistamine! This morning, my eyes were puffy and my nose was still stuffed up, but I wasn’t going to let that stop me.

At 10:53 we took the train from Interlake West to OST, then through a long tunnel to Grindewald. I went in to ask at the friendly Rail Info station, and they told me we should have gotten off at the Grindewald Terminal, not the town, so back on the train we went for a short journey to the right place. We easily found the Mannlichen cable car and had the whole six person car to ourselves (covered by the Berner Oberlander pass again).

As we ascended on the 20 minute ride (6 kms, apparently), we heard many cowbells – what an experience! And that view!! We disembarked the cable car at 2222m or 7,317 feet.

From the Wengen-Mannlichen lift station, we thought we’d try the “Royal Walk”. It is a fairly steep uphill hike to the little peak, topped with a crown-shaped viewpoint.

The path gains more than 350 feet in elevation and I had to make many many stops, sometimes sitting down on a rocky spot to gain my breath. Thankfully, the last little bit of the climb has a rope bannister. There were people older than me coming down, so I didn’t want to quit! At the summit, the views were astounding!

We saw the Ediger, Monch, and Jungfrau in all their glory and the whole Lauterbrunnen valley complete with waterfalls!

Gary spotted the Schilthorn cable-car station where we had been the other day

Interlaken was laid out below too.

Back at the cafeteria, it was appropriate to stop for lunch, so we had delicious bowls of Goulash Soup, with a bun and a small bottle of red wine.

I was always on the watch for Edelweiss, but learned it was too early in the year for it to be blooming. Instead, we got the crocuses and a “Sound of Music” moment!

We got a good view of the Avalanche Barriers.

Next stage was a shorter cable car ride down to Wengen. Our Berner Oberlander pass covered the ride, so we just had to pay an extra CHF5 each to ride on TOP of the car. Another wonderful new experience!

While we waited for the cable car to start, I handed out my last two Canada zipper pulls to two little boys from Ireland travelling with their mom and dad. The oldest boy said “ta” without even being prompted. I highly recommend stopping at the dollar store for these little trinkets before you travel. It is fun striking up a conversation sometimes and other times just seeing the surprise on the kid’s face!

This is where we couldn’t resist buying a souvenir of the trip for Hildy!

We waited about 15 minutes for the little mountain train to take us to Lauterbrunnen. It was absolutely packed, but we managed to get seats and friendly Fritz from outside Bern struck up a conversation. There were some pretty views, but our conversation with Fritz was far more interesting. From Lauterbrunnen, we went on to Interlaken OST and West.

We stopped at the Migro grocery store, bought a chicken breast, pesto and a premade salad to have a cheap dinner in the apartment again.

I bought the best fridge magnet I have seen so far and was happy to put my feet up in our apartment again. Will everything fit in the suitcase as we move on to Lucern tomorrow? TBD!

The Fitbit report for today was 10400 steps over 7.5 km, but the big news was 222 active zone minutes!