Germany and Switzerland: Day 5...Switzerland

We had a super early wake up call on Sunday to catch what I thought was a train to go to Switzerland.  It turns out that I had booked us on a bus to get to Zurich.  Oops.  It ended up working out wonderfully because there were only about 10 people on the bus, it was a double decker, and it was direct with no stops.

The only thing bad about the bus was that Ken could not stand all the way up!

We saw beautiful scenery along the way.  This is a view of the Austrian Alps.

We got to Zurich and bought our tickets to Lauterbrunnen.  We took the train to Berne, hopped on a train to Interlaken, and the hopped on a train to Lauterbrunnen. Once we left Berne, it was the most gorgeous train ride you could ask for.

Ken aboard our final train.  

We traveled for 6 1/2 hours, but it was totally worth it when you step out of the train station and see this:

It was one of those pinch me is this real moments.

We made our way to our hotel, Hotel Staubbach, to check in.  We were delighted when we saw that they had left a little surprise for us in our room.  It was then time to head out for a little lunch.

He had his beer, his girl, and a beautiful view.  He looks pretty happy!

We went back to our hotel to see if we could figure out a short easy hike for the remainder of the afternoon.  We ended up deciding to hike to Wengen, one of the villages in the mountains.  Yeah, it was a hike that was straight up the mountain.  Oops.

The scenery was so beautiful that it almost looked fake.  You also hear all of these bells that you might think are wind chimes but they are the bells of the cows in the nearby fields.  In some cases, you walk in the field with the cows.  

A few of Lauterbrunnen and the Staubbach Falls

We kept hiking straight up and I kept trying to convince Ken that it would flatten out at some point.  Um, it did not.  Apparently the one thing that the Swiss did not engineer was a switch back.  

We ended up on part of the Jungfrau Marathon trail, which I thought was pretty cool.  My hiking partner was not as impressed as I was.  He was focused more on not harming me for dragging him up hill for an hour and a half.

We made it to Wengen after hiking three miles and climbing 3,000 feet.  Yeah, it was pretty steep. Since it was a Sunday and in between seasons, not much was open.  We ended up finding a little bar that was open and stopped for a drink.  

Wengen

Looking down into the Lauterbrunnen Valley where we started.

While we were having drinks, we talked to a guy that lives in Wengen.  He asked us if we hiked up or took the train.  We told him we hiked and his response was,"that hike is a bitch."  Even the locals think it is a pretty tough climb.  We decided to take the train back down to Lauterbrunnen. Most people take the train up and hike back down.  Ken wondered why we didn't.  I told him that is because he married an Ironman.  :)

We had dinner and then walked around to see a little more of the scenery in the valley.  

Staubbach Falls

The sweet little lamb that appeared to be drunk.  

We had a wonderful first day in Switzerland!