Tiff & Jared's adventures

If I had to use three words to describe the Swiss Alps, it’d be holy freaking cow (yes cow, I’ll get to that later). Seriously, we saw some of the most stunning vistas we’ve ever seen, and we’re fairly well travelled.

Before getting to Interlaken, we briefly stopped at Lake Blausee. It was a little touristy, but there was a beautiful lake, an organic trout farm and a nice nature trail around the lake. There is a female statue at the bottom of the lake, and the legend goes that she and her lover used to always meet at the lake. Once he passed away suddenly, she was so grief stricken that she continued to come to the lake every night and eventually died of sadness. Her tears are what caused the striking color of the water.(really hard to see but the statue of the girl is in the middle of this picture)

After this first stop, we began our time in the Alps by leaving the greater Bern area and driving to Interlaken, the adventure capital of Switzerland. Interlaken is the base camp for a lot of exploration within the area, as it sits in the valley nestled in between the two lakes: Thun and Brienz. From Interlaken, travelers can go to the many quaint picturesque villages, go on hikes and explore Swiss culture and tradition.

We arrived in the morning, got our parking pass, and left to explore the town of Lauterbrunnen. The name of the town itself means many fountains, which makes sense because there are 72 waterfalls in the valley. Fun fact because I just watched the movie Tolkien (it was so good): the landscape is so beautiful that it inspired the elvish city of Rivendell in the Lord of the Rings series. One of the most famous waterfalls is easily seen as you enter the valley, the Staubbach Falls. It plunges nearly 300 meters from the overhanging rock face, making it one of the highest free-falling waterfalls in Europe. Jared and I walked through town all the way to the waterfall, where there was a trail going up to the falls, through a tunnel, and nearly next to the falls.

After taking way too many pictures, we ventured back to the visitor center for suggestions for the rest of the day. The guide recommended we take the cable car to Grütschalp, then take the train over to Mürren. The trip up the mountain was absolutely stunning; we received 360 degree views of the alps. Mürren is interesting because it’s a carless town; the only way there is by train or walking. In the summer, the is home to about 500 residents and in the winter, it hosts about 1,000. We walked around and stopped at a bar to grab a beer (European beer so far has nothing on American beer). Talk about a drink with a view! From our patio table, we were staring up at the three tallest mountains in front of us, the Eiger, Mönch, and Jungfrau. (We considered taking a train up to the Jungfrau, the highest alpine rail station in all of Europe, but it was 200+ CHF (~200 USD) per person!)

After finishing our beer, we began our hike down to Gimmelwald, another carless town. Along the way, as I was taking GoPro videos and looking like a tourist with my silly voice commands “go pro start recording, go pro stop recording,” someone started talking to me. Lo and behold we met a fellow Denverite – Jake! What are the chances?! We ended up walking the whole way back to Lauterbrunnen together, taking in the views of the super small town of Gimmelwald and the valley of waterfalls. We exchanged information and promised to meet the following day for the cow festival (Oh yes).

The cow festival started the next day at 2:30 so Jared and I planned to do a hike in the morning before heading back over to Lauterbrunnen. We asked the hostel staff for advice on the best way up to the Augstmatthorn, and one of the staff was super helpful. They directed us to park at Lombashalp, and hike directly up the mountain. The drive itself up was absolutely stunning, as we passed Swiss wooden homes with flowers hanging off the windows and cow pastures with the faint sounds of cowbells. We parked and raced up the mountain knowing that we had limited time to ascend. The hike was basically all uphill. We crushed it and ascended in less than an hour and a half. Along the way, we walked through cow fields, avoided their numerous droppings, and saw some capricorns with their super long horns. We pushed through and, almost out of breath, made it to the top. Holy. Hell. If Heaven’s doors look like anything, it might be the view we saw that morning. Out of all the hikes we’ve done, this one probably had the best view we’ve ever reached. In all directions, we were faced with mountains, the Lake down below, and the ridge line hike that kept traversing to the other side of the mountain. We sat for about twenty minutes just taking in the sheer beauty of it all before hastily making our way back down the mountain.

Legs sore and hearts full, we drove back to Lauterbrunnen to meet Jake and Eduardo (another fellow traveler that Jake had met the previous day). We got some snacks and beer, and picked a good spot on the sidewalk. Jake briefed us that the “festival” was basically a local farmer strutting his cows through the town, as they come down into the valley during the colder months of the year. The cows are adorned with huge bells and beautiful florals on top of their head, and march through the Main Street. The whole ordeal probably lasted about five minutes and was a little touristy, but dang was it cool to experience.

By this point, it was about 4 o’clock and we were thinking of the next thing to do. I had wanted to explore Grindelwald, and since we have a rental car, we took the gang and went to do a hike. We got into town and after going to the tourist information, we took a cable car up the mountain and started the hike. We got a great view of the valley, and even found a nice spot with a good view to drink our beer cans. We ended up taking a few wrong turns (not from drinking too much but rather bad signage), and we were racing against the setting sun to make it back into town. It was absolutely stunning to walk through the hillside at twilight, looking into all of the beautiful Swiss homes. We made it to our car after it had gotten dark, and man it was a fun hike! We parted ways with everyone for the night after exchanging information and having a grand ole time together.

The next morning, we slept in a little, finally showered, and met our new hostel roommates (who also were from Colorado!). We spent a little time walking around the lakes of Interlaken before heading out of town 😦 I wasn’t quite ready to leave Interlaken but we still have a sizable itinerary in front of us.

We made our way to Lucerne and spent a few hours walking around the city, and seeing the famous Chapel Bridge. The bridge is a world famous timber bridge dating back to the 1300s. The bridge stretches diagonally over the Reuss river, and has pictures dating back to the 1700s hanging above in the ceiling of the bridge. Lucerne was a little touristy and crowded, so I don’t think I’d necessarily go back, but I’d recommend checking it out if you’re traveling in the area.

We then left Lucerne and drove into another country, no big deal. There wasn’t even a border into the country of Liechtenstein, the third smallest country in Europe and six smallest country worldwide. The country is about 62 square miles, the capital is Vaduz, and there is a prince who lives on a hill in the capital. We were able to drive up to the castle and take some pictures. We then drove up the street to Restaurant Kainer, where we had a decent meal with the absolutely best dinner view we’ve ever had.

We just made it go our AirBnB and we’re resting up since tomorrow is Oktoberfest! Auf Wiedersehen!