Day 1 - Arrival
It was a 7 hour drive from Salzburg to Lauterbrunnen Switzerland. We rolled into our Air BNB around dinner time. One of the highest rated restaurants in town was just a short walk away, across the creek and through a campground. We didn’t have reservations for the Restaurant Weidstübli but were able to get seated fairly quickly and had a fantastic meal. The boys rode this Swiss cow while our table was prepared.
Day 2 - Stabbach Falls
This is the view from our bedroom window. That is Stabbach Falls, the second tallest waterfall in Switzerland at 900 feet.
Looking up the valley from the deck of our apartment. It was quite warm during mid-day, but the mornings and evenings were actually chilly when the sun was hidden by either side of these huge valley walls.
Our first excursion of the day was to hike to the Stabbach Falls. There was a great play ground on the way so of course we stopped to check it out.
We continued our trek to the falls. The trail goes straight up behind those trees and into a tunnel in the rock.
The tunnel ends at a series of stairs that climb up behind the falls. You can see the mist from the falls in the background.
There was a bit of a wait to get under the falls, but it was worth it!
Here we are exiting the falls and heading back down the trail and into town to find some ice cream and lunch.
Ice cream, check!
Swiss Corn dog, check!
Summer sausage, check!
After a great lunch we picked up some groceries and headed back to our apartment. This stream flowed right through the side yard of our unit. The water was clear, cold, and a great place to cool off in the mid-day heat.
Day 3 - Gimmelwald Hike
We picked up week long travel passes that allowed us to use busses, trains, and tram/cable cars on demand. Today we grabbed a bus to the tram station and took the tram up to the top of western side of the valley.
A nice break-in hike since most of it was down hill with great views around every corner.
The main crop around here is cheese. For that you need cows. For cows you need feed, so all through the valley the fields are cut, then the hay is raked and baled. On the steeper slopes they use these smaller cutters!
Of course the cows prefer the fresh stuff! They were everywhere on our hike!
You hear them before you see them!
Here we are on the outskirts of Gimmelwald, the objective of this mornings hike.
Just another fabulous view!
When you have the opportunity to sample an award winning beer…
The kids got ice cream and we found a great table overlooking the valley for some refreshments.
Which is your favorite view, you can probably guess mine!
Fortified with our refreshment, we set out to continue our hike. Another great playground outside Gimmelwald, this car went back and forth by pulling on the chain.
On the trail to Murren there were many flowers, both wild and growing like these in yards.
We found a great restaurant in Murren that had tables outside
and in the shade. We had many variations of the traditional Swiss Roesti dish during the week. This one had potatoes, cheese, fried egg, cheese, and pickles.
After lunch the hike continued, more spectacular views and easy downhill hiking. We decided to bring our hiking poles on this trip and were glad we did.
Of course for a lot of the hike, I used only one pole!
It is possible to have too much fun? I think so.
The view from the tram heading back down to the valley floor.
We hiked back to our apartment and put on bathing suits to cool off in the stream, and call this a day!
Day 4 - Wengen/Grindelwald
We took the train to Wengen and did a 6 mile hiking loop into the forest. These little garden gnomes wished us well as we headed out of town.
Leaving town we were on a nice single lane paved road.
We continued up on farm roads with better and better views as we climbed.
Soon we were on a single track hiking trail through pastures and forests on our way up!
Great views near the top of the trail, and well above the valley floor!
Just one more uphill…
…before the trail headed down and back to Wengen. We found a shady cafe in town and had some refreshments while the kids found another playground.
It was still early in the day, so we took another tram ride up to Mannlichen.
Ski lifts and gondolas come here, and in the winter the skiing must be fantastic. A few cyclists made their way up here as well. Good thing we left our bikes in Austria, not sure I could have resisted this climb!
Another day, another roesti! This one was loaded with garlic and bacon!
This kids playground even had a bowling alley!
All kinds of things to play on! After lunch we headed back to Wengen via tram, and back to Lauterbrunnen via a cog train. We did a little shopping before heading back to the apartment to end another great day in Switzerland.
Day 5 - Jungfraujoch
Today’s adventure will take us to Jungfraujoch, also known as the Top of Europe. The highest train station in Europe at 11,300 feet above sea level. To get there we took a cog train from Lauderbrunnen to Kleine Scheidegg.
Here at Kleine Scheidegg we changed trains for the final leg up to Junfraujoch. The bike racks have plugins. It seems like 80% of the bikes we’ve seen here are E bikes.
The train enters the mountain and lets us out at 11,300 feet inside a glacier!
We took a 45 minute walking tour inside the glacier then headed outside to stand on it. The place is very popular with tourists and there was a huge line to get a photo next to a pole. We side-stepped the line and got better views here.
About to go back inside, there was this view of Am Aletschgletscher.
When at altitude it is important to stay hydrated; we find ice cream, coffee and beer works best for this crew!
We had two hours to spend at the Top of Europe and that was the perfect amount of time.
We headed back down to Kleine Scheidegg and grabbed the train back to Wengen.
Some of us were pretty worn out from the altitude. But when we arrived in Wengen, we got our second wind and decided to take the tram back up to Mannlichen for lunch (yes, Roesti) and another playground session.
This old antique bike is parked at Mannlichen, looks like it needs a little air, kinda like us at 11,000 feet!
Day 6 - Oberhofen/St. Beatus Holen (Swiss Caves)
We decided to leave the valley and visit two near-by attractions, the town of Oberhofen and St. Beatus caves. We could have used our travel passes but decided to use our rental van for today’s transfers.
We wandered around the old town area of Oberhofen.
A number of surfers were taking advantage of the release gates of this dam in the in the center of town.
Very calm on the other side of the dam!
We stopped lake side to enjoy some refreshments and the kids took a dip in the lake.
We found a nice restaurant near the Oberhofen castle and had a great lunch.
Next stop is the St. Beatus Holen (Swiss Caves). These caves were discovered by St. Beatus, a Catholic Missionary who by legend drove the dragons out of these caves where he dwelled.
One of the dragons still lives in the caves!
There is a lovely cafe at the cave entrance and we took full advantage of the shade and refreshments!
We returned to our apartment and were treated to an early evening thunderstorm that cleared just as the sun set!
Day 7 - Trümmelbach Fallen
Today’s objective is the Trummelback Falls. Kids under 4 are not allowed to tour the falls, the passages are narrow and wet! Debby stayed behind with the youngest and the rest of us set off on foot for the falls.
It was a great walk through the valley. We left early in the morning and the sun was not yet on the valley floor.
There is a tram that takes you 2/3rds of the way to the top, then you climb up to see the top 4 falls. Then U turn and head down to catch the 7 lower falls. It’s one stream of water cascading through caves formed by the water’s flow.
It was quite misty and cool, I should have taken my rain jacket, but had a wool sweater in my pack and put that on!
Here is a video of one the lower falls, it was quite dark in the upper falls.
We headed back to the apartment after checking out the cafe and gift shop at the falls. The Falls were highly recommended and we agreed, it was a great morning.
We headed back into town for lunch and more of the delicious Swiss Corn Dogs. The only disappointment of the trip, the Corn Dog Stand was closed for the weekend! No worries, across the street there was pulled pork BBQ, pommes, and ice cream!
Back to the room we did some cooling off in the creek.
We decided to check out the playground before dinner. We had made reservations at Restaurant Weidstübli and had a few hours so we hiked over together.
After a while, we were done with the playground, but we still had plenty of time before dinner. I noticed there were hardly any people in line at the top of the falls hike. “Would you like to hike up to the falls with Papa?” He was game, we topped off our water bottles and headed up.
With light crowds on the trail we were at the top in no time and had the place to ourselves!
When we started the climb I was not sure if we had enough time to complete it and get back in time for our dinner reservation. We were at the top 20 minutes
before my failsafe turnaround time!
We toasted our success back at the base of the climb by refilling our bottles with fresh spring water and finishing off this bag of gummy bears! I let Deb know we had just finished the climb and were heading back for dinner. She said, ‘you two are in trouble, we have dinner reservations!’
We got back in plenty of time and headed back to the Restaurant Weidstübli to finish the week where it all started a week ago. No wait at all, which did not excite the boys who wanted to play on the cow, and we enjoyed another fine meal to cap off a great week in Lauterbrunnen Switzerland!
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