Cow parades at home, Grindelwald Canyon walk, Hiking and Swiss music 

Snow and authentic cow migrations greeted us this morning. We woke up to beautiful snow on the mountain peaks, brisk air on our skin and the sound of ringing bells.

Outside our window the cows were parading down without fanfare and decorations, just real life.  Bells chimed, poop happened, cars stopped, much like driving through Yellowstone with bison crossing.

The kids and I took off to Grindelwald Canyon for more exploration of mountains, canyons and rivers. We were enveloped into a tour group and were ushered in free. Thank you Jesus! Here we saw a canyon swinger, jumped on a cargo net over the river and experienced amazing sights.

Grindelwald town playground was a fun escape from touring and adults.

Randy and Cody took the hills for a well needed adventure without people and leashes.

M researched and found us a night out listening to live Swiss music and dinner. 

Wengen Cow Parade-Gimmelwald-Lauterbrunnen-Trummelbach and base jumpers

Dairy cows live high in the mountains during the spring and summer months eating grass and wildflowers. These plants are what make Swiss cheese so different from other cheeses. Swiss cows wear bells around their neck so they can be found by their herdsman.

In September, herdsmen and their families lead their cattle down to the valley to protect them from wintry weather. Today we experienced the decorative parade of cattle and the hard working families that keep watch over them.  

Cable car rides and trains took us to many different villages to see the parade and for afternoon adventures. Gimmelwald’s population is mainly cows with a few families and no cars. Stores are “honesty stores,” open for you to shop and purchase based on honesty. No one will greet you nor ring up your sale. What looks like little free library boxes are full of cheese for sale, not books to give.

We ate pizza at the Mountain Hostel. Back in my 20’s my sister and I stayed in the Mountain Hostel and experienced the “Heidi,” a hot chocolate with peppermint schnapps. Cheers to the good old days!!!

M is reading The Hobbit for school and we were enveloped into J. R. R. Tolkien’s canvas for a few hours as we ventured down to Lauterbrunnen Valley. I love it when real life meets with learning. 

Trummelbach is a spiral waterfall through the mountain like a vertical slot canyon. An internal ride takes you to the 6th level of the falls. Once you exit the ride you can walk 4 levels up and then descend all the all back down. There are 10 levels of waterfall viewing. M and Randy are leaving the observation area on the top of the steps heading right around the outside of the mountain. Only Trümmelbach drains the huge glaciers of Eiger (3970m), Mönch (4099m) and Jungfrau (4158m) with up to 20,000 liters of water per second. 

Continuing through the valley we saw paragliders, base jumpers, helicopters, and even a rescue helicopter transporting a first responder dangling from what looked to be a 200 ft rope. The rescuer was dropped off, secured the person needing rescue to the line and waited for a return ride. The rescued person now was the one dangling below the copter as it flew out of the valley. The helicopter returned to get the first responder. We were exhausted after watching this and decided to go straight home, skipping other adventures.

Swiss 6 Grindelwald First Mountain 

Cold, rain, Cody, and family dynamics were off and running today. The kids and I completed an activity M and her 6th grade school friends created in class back in June. Her group did a project on Switzerland including activities, restaurants, and lodging. Despite the clouds rolling in and out, with the occasional snow flakes, we managed to fly under the wings of a huge metal eagle down a Swiss mountain. 

There was another cliff walk on First Mountain. This one I actually completed. I realized I needed my hands on 2 railings and not 1 railing and a mountain. After the curve I had 2 railings and clouds. I still did not like it but I conquered my fear. Z enjoyed copying people as they were modeling for their perfect picture. M waited patiently for her turn to stare at a cloud. I was not so patient and actually turned around and asked a preschooler to stop jumping on the plank overhang. I was holding on for dear life and he was as happy as can be just jumping as hard as he could, shaking the walkway!

Randy and Cody ended up enjoying the local restaurants waiting for us to descend. Having a 10 month old puppy tagging along is a tiring job, especially when he still needs training. Once we met back up, Z and I took Cody home while Randy and M grabbed dinner in town. They returned home with burgers for us.

Breakfast with a view and no real plans for the next 5 days because rain was expected every day with snow toward the end of the week.

This was our first full day in the area. Go hard or go home! The day started clear and then the rain settled in. Luckily we ventured toward the peaks and were above the rain clouds part of the day. 

We were surprised by playgrounds,

mountain views of the ALPS,

Quaint towns, and ease of riding cable cars, trains and buses.

We did the cliff walk in Birg, except I did not complete it. The height got to me, especially as I saw the kids walk a tightrope over the open air, granted they were completely safe with fencing and cables. Still, I returned to the deck and found flowers clinging onto the mountain side…probably hanging on for dear life too!

Lastly was Schilthron. We cleared the clouds and had another set of amazing views. A James Bond movie was filmed on location. This was our highest point all week and the highest mountain with a revolving restaurant. We were the last cable car down.

We decided to eat pizza in Murren and watched the sun light up the mountain sides.

Groundhog Day…We woke up to amazing views, clear skies, and breakfast down the hall.

We ended our time with the kids and I going through the Chateau de Gruyeres and Randy with Cody hanging in the village.

The Chateau was built in the 13th Century. Inside was spacious, ornate, and educational.

Two profound things etched in our minds forever, the vivid gardens and the severed right hand of an Egyptian mummy, which displayed bandaging methods practiced until the 3rd century (after Jesus) is actually written the description. See the photo below for more details…if you dare! 

Final reminders of our wonderful FUN time in a Swiss medieval village.

Next up, Grindelwald…Trains again and this time buying a ticket for Cody.

We realized our Airbnb was NOT in the town of Grindelwald, but rather in a smaller village of Schwendi, two train stops before Grindelwald.

After working through disappointments, unmet expectations, and dinner we came to appreciate and enjoy this place of refuge for the next six nights.

We woke up to amazing views, clear skies, and breakfast down the hall.

Today was the first day, of many to come, where we traveled by cable cars and funiculars.

To make it brief, at Moleson we hiked in different directions along the ridge of mountains, saw the French Alps.

We rode mountain trikes and alpine coasters. We even attended a cheese making demonstration.

After cheese school, I returned to the hotel and took Cody on a walk, the kids explored more of the trikes and coasters, while Randy took the funicular to get a beer. We finished the night with great food!

Since we had seen most of the things on our Geneva list last night we decided to sleep in, eat breakfast at the hotel, and continue on our way by catching a bus (with all of our stuff) and then a couple of trains. The landscape went from city, to mountains, even snowcapped mountains in the distance, to turquoise lakes lapping along the banks of the rails. The Grand Hotel Suisse overlooked the city park.

Our adventure took us along the northern side of Lake Geneva and around to Montreux located on the far east side. Just down from the train station was a restful, stunning park full of colorful flowers overlooking the turquoise Lake Geneva.

Not realizing until WAY TO LATE, that there was baggage storage at the train station we descended on a Sunday to the park with everything we owned. We had Nutella banana crepes for lunch. Luckily the day was beautiful, Cody and our baggage found a public shady park bench and hung out for several hours.

Randy and the kids hopped, well, literally jumped on a ferry to visit the Chillon Castle. Cody and I walked the park, chased pigeons, played in a water fountain and joined church back home via zoom.

Below are castle pictures and since I was not there and have nothing to say about them.

Next our adventure took us on 2 trains and a bus or two, I am losing count. The first train was the Panorama Express with windows on the ceiling. It climbed via switchbacks to Montbovon. Remember in Switzerland there are no assigned seats, or at least we did not ever have any, so I ventured up through several cars to the front as far as I could go, also not realizing it was first class until the conductor mentioned I could stay if I paid. Goodbye, even though it was EMPTY. I did manage to get the family to come experience the views and take pictures before we were caught.

Another train took us even higher to Gruyeres. While waiting for our last bus to take us up the mountain side to our hotel and the small medieval village of Gruyeres, we explored the cheese station. The wheels of cheese reminded me of the “Hot Now” donuts at Krispy Kreme.

The first picture shows nettles, which Mazie accidentally found and taught us to stay away from them! After unloading and getting our bearings we walked into town and had a tasty cheesy meal at Gruyere Traditions Switzerland, along with dessert.

Ok so just to orient us…it is now Sept 20 and we just returned from Switzerland. So the following posts after today will be about our adventures in Switzerland.

Back to 8 September…Today we went on an adventure after school. About 30 minutes away I found a hike where Cody could go off leash with the potential of a creek or waterfall to play in with the kids. The road we traveled was absolutely beautiful with mountain walls rising up from the carpeted floors of vineyards. Bikers were also enjoying this road. The stoplight picture below shows lights for cars up top and bikes on the side.

After winding through tight neighborhood streets and mountain switchbacks we found a rocky space where 2 cars were parked. We concluded it was the parking lot, even though Google maps wanted us to travel farther along on a dirt road.  

The hike was an easy dirt and rock road going from 2 lanes to one path, into the woods. As we approached the targeted area of exploration the temperature dropped 10 degrees.

And then, just as Lucy, Edmund, Susan and Peter entered Narnia for the first time, our faces had the same expressions of awe, wonder, and amazement as what was before us.

Surroundings our eyes were sights we had never seen before and before gave way to smiles and jubilant exaltations. One even shouted, “Can you believe this is in France?” followed by, “This looks like Dagobah!” (Yoda’s swamp planet where he trains Luke.)

We splashed, laughed, and explored the multiple cascading pools of puddles under the canopy of trees. The kids explored a waterfall and beyond. Cody was very curious as to where his people were going, trying to go with them. I eventually had to leash him so he would not attempt to follow and slide down rock faces.

After playing for a while we retreated back to the “Narnian lamppost,” which for us was an old mill in ruins. We found a room with grinding wheels, 5ft in diameter, and a cracked stone table reminding us of Narnia again. Abandoned rooms with sky ceilings beckoned our explorations. Truly an enchanting place, reminding us of our character friends in books and movies. 

On the way back Mazie collected wildflowers from a field and water with sand from a passing creek to bring home for Daddy.