Our Swiss Alps Adventure
While we were in Bern for a day trip, a few of us decided it would be a good idea to stay the night and go to Interlaken the following day rather than return to Geneva. By the end of much discussion, only three of us were really willing to do it, and so Devon, Drew, and myself booked ourselves into a hostel in Bern. It was a decision well-rewarded, as the next day would prove to be my favourite of all my entire trip to Switzerland, and one of the funnest days of traveling I've had in all my years of wandering.
The whole group came to the hostel before going back to Geneva and together we had a big, homemade delicious pasta meal with salad and bread, a group effort directed by Devon who is a trained chef. After the meal, everyone but us three boys headed back to Geneva, and we headed to bed.
In the morning us three boys literally sprinted to the train station and climbed on board our train to Interlaken as it was about to pull away.
Once we arrived at the Interlaken Ost train station, we bought another train ticket for a shorter ride to Lauterbrunnen, altitude 800m, then caught a cablecar up the side of the mountain to Grütschalp, where the walking trails begin (the red lines show two train rides and the cablecar, the green line is what we walked).
Completely unprepared and wearing the same clothes as the day before, we set out on a mission to conquer the Swiss Alps.
Devon ponders the grandeur of the Alps and the valley below from the cablecar
The snow-covered trail as we set out on our walk
Across the valley, the postcard-perfect stereotypical image of Switzerland
We stopped at a little town up on the side of the mountain called Mürren, ate our bagged lunch, and talked a lot.
There were some nifty little black birds flying around our sitting area
That's a LOT of firewood
Swiss patriotism
When we reached the point of our walk at which we had to turn around to make it back to our train on time, we decided we'd stretch our muscles then do some cliff-jumping. There are a series of small cliffs about 3 metres high which form sort of terraces or steps down part of the mountain, and by jumping off each one we found we got to the bottom a lot faster than our climb up the mountain. We captured some of the more glorious leaps on camera:
Devon
Me
Drew
This guy knew how to get down the mountain even faster than us!
Someone lost a shoe on the mountain, but we never found a body so hopefully he/she managed to get home safely.
This is the train for the lazy people who don't want to walk
We made it back to Bern just in time to jump on the train back to Geneva and off we went. That evening in Geneva our whole group of 12 people had one last communal meal at a nice restaurant and we had speeches and laughter and all that good, sappy stuff. Juan and I enjoyed our supper so much that we took photos of each course. This photo shows the amazing dessert, and my sunburnt face. Yep, it was rather bright in the Alps and we had no sunscreen. The next day the burn was gone though, because of quick aloe vera application thanks to Devon who had some in our Geneva hotel room.
The next morning we headed to the airport for our flight home. Juan and I caught a separate train as we had been waiting for a straggler.
The End.
The whole group came to the hostel before going back to Geneva and together we had a big, homemade delicious pasta meal with salad and bread, a group effort directed by Devon who is a trained chef. After the meal, everyone but us three boys headed back to Geneva, and we headed to bed.
In the morning us three boys literally sprinted to the train station and climbed on board our train to Interlaken as it was about to pull away.
Once we arrived at the Interlaken Ost train station, we bought another train ticket for a shorter ride to Lauterbrunnen, altitude 800m, then caught a cablecar up the side of the mountain to Grütschalp, where the walking trails begin (the red lines show two train rides and the cablecar, the green line is what we walked).
Completely unprepared and wearing the same clothes as the day before, we set out on a mission to conquer the Swiss Alps.
Devon ponders the grandeur of the Alps and the valley below from the cablecar
The snow-covered trail as we set out on our walk
Across the valley, the postcard-perfect stereotypical image of Switzerland
We stopped at a little town up on the side of the mountain called Mürren, ate our bagged lunch, and talked a lot.
There were some nifty little black birds flying around our sitting area
That's a LOT of firewood
Swiss patriotism
When we reached the point of our walk at which we had to turn around to make it back to our train on time, we decided we'd stretch our muscles then do some cliff-jumping. There are a series of small cliffs about 3 metres high which form sort of terraces or steps down part of the mountain, and by jumping off each one we found we got to the bottom a lot faster than our climb up the mountain. We captured some of the more glorious leaps on camera:
Devon
Me
Drew
This guy knew how to get down the mountain even faster than us!
Someone lost a shoe on the mountain, but we never found a body so hopefully he/she managed to get home safely.
This is the train for the lazy people who don't want to walk
We made it back to Bern just in time to jump on the train back to Geneva and off we went. That evening in Geneva our whole group of 12 people had one last communal meal at a nice restaurant and we had speeches and laughter and all that good, sappy stuff. Juan and I enjoyed our supper so much that we took photos of each course. This photo shows the amazing dessert, and my sunburnt face. Yep, it was rather bright in the Alps and we had no sunscreen. The next day the burn was gone though, because of quick aloe vera application thanks to Devon who had some in our Geneva hotel room.
The next morning we headed to the airport for our flight home. Juan and I caught a separate train as we had been waiting for a straggler.
The End.
posted by PhotoDiarist at 12:00
2 Comments:
Ah! That's it! Switzerland and the conference looked like a lot of fun. Wish I could've visited! Have fun leaving yet again to travel! How does it feel graduating?
The jumping photos are reminiscent of those from your May 27th 2005 post. Whoah!
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