Day 29: 25 July 2010

  

Finally…the sun is shining in Gimmelwald!  First thing we did this morning was check the webcams on the top of Schilthorn and sure enough, the sun was out and the view was finally clear!  Quickly checked out and left our bags downstairs before racing for the early bird cable car discount that is valid before 9am.  Getting to Schilthorn from Gimmelwald involves three cable cars: one to Murren, one to Birg, and one to the top.  Schilthorn is one of the tallest accessible peaks in the Swiss Alps at 2,970m high (10,000ft.).  It was made famous in the late 60s when the James Bond movie On Her Majesty’s Secret Service was filmed here at Piz Gloria, a revolving restaurant at the top.

It was very cloudy as we rode up to Birg, but once we reached the top of Schilthorn around 9:15am, the views were well worth the wait.  Beautiful blue skies today with the Jungfrau, Eiger, and Monch peaks all very clear right in front of us.  The temperature at the top today was around 3C (38F) but felt warmer with the sun shining down on us.  We walked down the last few steps of the trail leading up to the top and sat for a while on the rocks facing the three peaks.  Met some other American families, including a couple from Colorado, a nice family with two adopted Asians from San Diego, and our first meeting of folks from the East Coast…that is if you can even count New Jersey.  We swapped travel itineraries, took lots of photos of each other, and just took in the awesome view!

Walked around the back of the restaurant for a different view of other peaks including Mont Blanc in the distance.  Although it is the tallest peak in Europe at 4,810m, Mont Blanc looked tiny from Schilthorn. Thought about grabbing something to eat up here, but decided to skip the James Bond 007 breakfast buffet because we didn’t feel like paying $27.50 each!  So glad we made it up here early today because by 10:45am, the clouds were already starting to move in and cover the view.  By the time we left a half hour later, all of Schilthorn was enveloped in clouds with no views of any of the peaks.  If there’s one thing we’ve learned here, it’s that the weather is variable…often by the minute or hour, so you really have to take advantage of your time.

Rode the cable cars down to Murren and arrived around noon.  What a difference a day makes here!  Today there were great views of the Jungfrau, Eiger, and Monch towering above the town.  Lots of people were out and about including a large number of Japanese tourists, some senior citizen groups, and many families.  We walked through town and stopped for a while to watch several paragliders overhead.  Tried to get a cheap lunch at the Coop today, but didn’t realize it was closed so we fell back on the old faithfuls for lunch…ice cream and peanut butter crackers.  Wanted to go for a long hike today, but since it was already mid afternoon, we decided to walk back to Gimmelwald.  Took a steep, slippery path through the woods that dropped us on the road high above town.  Got to walk through the whole town on the way back to see the different farm houses and animals along the way.

Back at the Pension, we spent a few stressful minutes trying to find a hotel for tonight, and then we left on the cable car back down.  Really enjoyed our time here despite the rainy weather.  Sabrine and Heidi at Pension Gimmewald made us feel right at home (British owner David was just not as friendly!).  The only downside to staying in quiet Gimmelwald is that you need to take the cable car to Murren to start most hikes, go to the grocery store and have more food choices available.  Not sure where we would recommend staying here.  Hope we’ll get to make a return visit to this area again someday…We still have the entire Jungfrau side to conquer!

Stopped just a little beyond that cable card lift in the town of Lauterbrunnen, the gateway to the Jungfrau and Schilthorn regions.  For the first time in weeks, I had chicken salad at an American/British café.  Drove a few minutes down the road to Interlaken for what we thought was a 6:30pm Mass.  However, when we arrived, a sign said a special Mass was taking place today at 6pm in a different location.  For once we would have even been early to Mass!  It wasn’t easy finding a Catholic Mass here.  There were several Protestant churches in Murren and some off the other mountain towns, but very few Catholic Churches in the area.  We tried out best.

Since we couldn’t go to Mass, we walked through Interlaken instead.  What an odd city!  I thought it was a quaint town like Lauterbrunnen or a pretty lake town like Lausanne or Lucern, but it was none of these.  The main street has several fancy hotels across from the unkept town green, souvenir shops, restaurants, and a very random, out-of-place Hooters.  Interlaken seems to be a melting pot for all ethnicities.  We were definitely a minority here with all of the Japanese, Indian, and Muslim tourists, especially near McDonald’s!  No wonder everyone was eating there…Switzerland is a beautiful country, but ridiculously expensive.  Right now, 1CHF is roughly equivalent to 1USD.  I finally found the Swiss sweatshirt I wanted, but I jus couldn’t rationalize buying it for $59…not even the Bucknell bookstore charges that much for a lightweight sweatshirt! There is no reason why the sandwiches we had should have cost $7.50 or why our dinner plates last night were $17-19.  At some point, though, you have to eat, so we tried our best to keep the cost down.  Case in point, we decided to get take-away pizza here instead of sitting down for dinner.  Bad idea…it was the WORST pizza I’ve ever eaten.  I almost always go by the rule that nobody can really screw up a pizza, but this one just tasted awful!

From Interlaken, we drove towards Zurich.  Apparently there is no easy highway out of this area.  Even the A8 winds through the mountains, along the lakes and through the tunnels before it flattened out near Lucern.  If we had realized we were driving right by here, we would have definitely waited to have dinner here so we could have reminisced about our last trip to Switzerland here and taken in views of Pilatus.  On to Zurich we went.  Somehow we took a detour through cornfields, and then into the outskirts of the city, then had to backtrack to our hotel.  Not sure if we can blame the GPS for this one or not since there were several roads closed that we were suppose to take.  We made it, though, and a comfortable, modern room was waiting for us. 

The Hotel Arte in Spreitenbach was a great find with free parking, breakfast, and Internet despite its odd weird outward appearance behind a McDonald’s in an industrial area.  There was even a bowling center in the basement!  It was tempting to play but we figured it would have been pricey so we passed.  Went for an ice cream at McDonald’s instead.  In typical Swiss fashion, even the sundae cups were $3.50, but I was in desperate need of something to cleanse my palate after the nasty pizza so we got them anyway.  As usual, we did some last minute research online and then went to bed.