Finally, the last part of my trip through Switzerland – more than a month after I came back .

We had a nice and relaxed train journey from Interlaken to Zermatt. The weather had changed completely, it was sunny and very warm. Our hotel in Zermatt was wonderful, we were warmly welcomed with a nice drink and we had  a beautiful room (with decorated wooden ceiling panels) with a perfect view of the Matterhorn.

The last time I was in Zermatt was Christmas 2006, when I went skiing with Paul (see here). It was fun to recognise places in a totally different season

We went for a short walk just out of Zermatt, but it was really warm (28 degrees) so we quickly abandoned our uphill path and didn’t venture very far. Zermatt is car-free, but there are lots of electric vehicles buzzing around, most of them owned by the hotels. The small town is almost entirely based on tourism. It’s also a real mountaineering base, of course for the Matterhorn but there are many other mountains over 4000 m around Zermatt. I took lots of photos of the Matterhorn, it’s such an iconic mountain

The next day we took the Gornergratbahn which goes up to 3089 m. This time we had no issues at all with the altitude, Zermatt itself is at 1600 m so we must have become accustomed. My dad managed to walk into a glass panel though – thinking it was an open door – so perhaps he was still kind of influenced by the altitude Luckily this time we actually had a good view from the top!

It was quite a circus at the top station, everybody was posing for pictures in front of the Matterhorn, and in addition there was a professional photographer with a St Bernard dog… He had a Japanese assistant (very clever), who would hold a cardboard shield in front of any camera that was illegally taking a photo of the St Bernard portraits It was quite fun to watch all this

I love people-watching, playing “guess the nationality” and secretly taking photos of all the silly tourists

Including my dad of course, hehe.

There is a hotel/restaurant/observatory at the top, and great views of the Gorner Glacier.

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Some more views of the glacier…

After a lot of searching, we finally spotted the new Monte Rosa Hut! It opened in 2010 and looks fantastic, a really modern building, with solar panels and its own water system. Inside it’s all wood I’d really love to visit! You have to cross the glacier to get there though, so I’ll have to find out how difficult this is.

After enjoying the view (and the free wifi ) we took the train back to Zermatt, but got out at the Riffelalp station, which is situated at 2200 m. We walked from there to Sunnega, 7.5 km away and only about 100 m higher. Though as my dad will stress: we went up and down a lot, so the height difference of “only” 100 m is a bit misleading

It was a beautiful hike. The first part went through the forest, with lots of hollow trees. We also found some words of wisdom on a bench

My dad kept saying he felt like he was walking around in a model-train landscape, and sometimes it really does look exactly like that!

Of course there were lots of flowers around to take photos of…

About halfway we came passed a restaurant, a very welcome break. My dad had tomato soup and I had a pancake with warm cherries and ice cream, mmmmmm…

At some point we crossed a river that comes from the glacier. In some of the nearby shallow (and still) pools, we found lots of tadpoles!

The Grindjisee – famous for its reflections of the Matterhorn, but it was getting cloudier and the reflections weren’t very spectacular.

A break between the flowers and a very pretty lake further down.

My dad was not so keen on the last part of the hike, where you had a relatively steep drop next to the narrow part. I didn’t even pay attention to it, but he was very relieved to reach the end of that path A little while later we reached Sunnega, from where we took an underground funicular railway back to Zermatt. What a nice day!

The next morning it was time for a classic train trip: the Glacier Express from Zermatt to St. Moritz. A very beautiful train with big windows

It takes 7.5 hours and there is a lot to see on the way – spectacular bridges and loops, high passes… We really enjoyed it! Most people in our first class compartment were having lunch served at their place, but we only ordered a big piece of chocolate cake (we had brought our own lunch). The only down side of the Glacier Express is that none of the windows opens, with made it very hot at some point, and it also caused reflections in all the photos I took. The next day we backtracked along the most spectacular part on a regional train where the windows did open, so I got better photos the next day These two photos show the famous Landwasser viaduct, which is 65 m high!

We got to St. Moritz in the early evening, but we were surprised to find that everything (shops, supermarkets) etc had already closed. Oh well. The next morning we got up early and started our journey back to the Netherlands. I had been a bit scared about this last day, as it was going to be a 15 hour journey, but the views were so beautiful that time passed very quickly.

Our trip went like clockwork all the way until the Dutch border – there we were thrown out of our train because of “technical problems” and we had to continue by regional trains with a few changes. We finally made it back home at midnight…

What a journey! I enjoyed this week in Switzerland a LOT and I am so happy my dad and I had the opportunity to go on this trip. I also rediscovered how much I love Switzerland, and I hope to come back soon

After a relaxing trip from Luzern, the day wasn’t over. We decided to take the funicular (Harderbahn) from Interlaken up to Harder Kulm. It’s a fast, but very steep ride up. Unfortunately the rain had come back and we were in the clouds at the top station. We had been quite optimistic and didn’t bring any rain gear, but we walked to the restaurant anyway (5 minutes from the top station).

There wasn’t much of a view, so we had a cup of tea/coffee in the restaurant while hoping it would improve. The clouds did lift every now and then, giving a nice view of Interlaken, Lake Brienz and Lake Thun. We thought of walking down instead of taking the funicular, but decided it wasn’t such a good idea without any waterproof gear.

The next day it was time for our big excursion to the Jungfraujoch, the highest railway station in Europe at 3454 m! It was disappointing to wake up to clouds and rain again, but nothing we could do about it. This is the big disadvantage of being on a tight schedule, and unable to postpone this trip to the next day. We got up early, and departed for Grindelwald.

Grindelwald is a very special place for me, I stayed at the youth hostel there during two summers and thought it was paradise on earth The youth hostel is located higher up the hill, overlooking the valley and the impressive mountains, and I went on some really nice walks from there. It was strange to be back and only change trains, especially since the area around the train station is very touristy – filled with souvenir shops and huge groups of Japanese tourists – not the Grindelwald that I remembered

We continued to Kleine Scheidegg, and at some point we came out of the clouds and had a view Actually we had come into a layer in between the lower and the higher clouds, which didn’t promise much for the view from the top station, but we stayed optimistic At Kleine Scheidegg we changed onto the final train line which soon enters a tunnel (with 2 stops to look at the view from windows built in the tunnel wall) that took us to the top station.

I had been up to Jungfraujoch once before, and tried to prepare my dad for the possibility of feeling funny because of the high altitude. The last time I was here, I came from Grindelwald (at 1000 m), where I had already been for a couple of days, and I only had mild symptoms while running up a flight of stairs. This time we came straight up from Interlaken at 500 m, and were not acclimatized at all. We both were soon hit by the strange feeling – lightheaded, dizzy, racing heart – it’s quite scary actually, especially if you have never experienced it before. We found some seats and took it easy for a while – making sure to drink plenty of water. After a while, I convinced my dad to come for a walk around the station. There is a 1 km long tunnel which partly goes through the glacier – quite spectacular! We took it really easy, walking slowly, and stopping whenever the symptoms came back.

You could see the layers of the glacier quite nicely in the walls of the tunnel. They had also made some ice sculptures here, and there was an exhibition about the building of the train line up to Jungfraubahn, which is quite incredible – they started building it in 1896!

Halfway through the tunnel walk, there is a lift that takes you up another 120 m to the Sphinx Observatory which has a viewing platform. My dad was not feeling well, so I didn’t want to risk taking him even higher up. After completing our walk around the station, he went to sit and play with his tablet (they have free wireless internet – crazy!) while I walked back to the lift. I soon found out that I shouldn’t walk too fast either though… but taking the lift up was not a problem at all. It was nice to get some fresh air, and FRESH it was – it was a few degrees below freezing here. Not much of a view though

Part of the platform was closed due to icefall – and occasionally ice rained down onto the part that was open as well. It was very windy, and very cold… I didn’t last very long out there! It was impressive to see the ice that was growing on the fence… I wonder how it can move so neatly without breaking off?

We decided it was time to leave, and even while walking to the train my heart started racing so fast I thought I might actually need medical help – really scary. I’m not sure why it was affecting us so badly this time, but seems like you never know how you will react. Last time I was here, the building was full of signs warning you to walk slowly and not run up the stairs. Now there was nothing! I find that strange, because not everybody knows that this can happen, my dad had never even heard of altitude sickness, and then you’d be extremely worried if you suddenly feel so ill.

Anyway… it was all easily solved by getting on the train and descending more than a 1000 meters We got off at the Eigergletscher station, just outside the tunnel, and decided to walk to Wengernalp, two stations away. I was amazed my dad was up for it, as it would take at least 2 hours (all downhill though) and we were started off on a tiny path straight into the clouds, with hardly any visibility

The hike was actually really beautiful and the clouds added to the atmosphere. We met 2 people close to our starting point, after that we didn’t see anybody. The path was easy to follow, and the abundance of wildflowers was just amazing…

Suddenly we heard a loud BANG and when we looked around to find where it was coming from, we saw a piece of the glacier tumbling down the cliff. Wow! There was no danger, as we were nowhere near it, and it was impressive to watch the forces of nature at work. I almost forgot to take photos until my dad nudged me

On and on we went, in and out of the clouds…

We found this “nest” of caterpillars, and so many wildflowers that it almost seems unreal.

At some point we saw a helicopter flying around in the thick mist, carrying buckets of concrete from a working area lower down. I just hope he had more visibility than we did!

We even came across this Alpine Salamander. Don’t think I’ve ever seen a salamander before! They look like a lizard, but their skin is slimy like a frog’s. It sat so still we thought it might be dead, but sometimes it made small movements. According to wikipedia, they are very stationary and apparently only move up to 12 m during a whole summer – so perhaps it’s still sitting on the same rock??

Suddenly our little path was blocked by a HELICOPTER! Yes, the very same one that we saw flying around. They were building a new skilift here, and we had to take a small deviation from the path to get around the work area.

We had been hearing cow bells all the time, and finally we came across a group of cows The farmers were trying to move them to the farm, by singing to them

Pretty raindrops…

The drizzle and mist had now turned to heavier rain, and we were happy when we reached our destination: Wengernalp station. It had a comfortable waiting room to wait for the train down to Lauterbrunnen. We had a well-deserved big plate of pasta in Lauterbrunnen, before returning to Interlaken.

The next morning we woke up to a sunny and warm day Our hotel in Interlaken was in the ugliest building in town, a big concrete tower block. This photo was taken on the day we arrived, but the panorama showed the view on the morning we left – it might be an ugly building but it sure has the best view in town! The field in the middle is used as a landing place for the many paragliders – some passed by very close to our balcony!

Look at this view of the Jungfraujoch, if only we could have gone a day later… Still, I actually really enjoyed our day in the clouds! The second photo is taken from outside the train station at Spiez, where we changed trains on our way to Zermatt.

But Zermatt will be featured in part 3, I think this blog post is long enough now

My dad is crazy about trains, he is always watching documentaries about train journeys on tv – most of them filmed in Switzerland. My mum is not that interested (“all these trains look the same” ), so I always told him that I’d take him on a train journey after his retirement. He retired last year, and a few weeks ago we boarded a train from Amsterdam with destination Basel! I originally wanted organize the trip all by myself, but my dad found a perfect trip in a brochure from a train-travel agency which included all the places we wanted to visit, with all hotel bookings taken care of. Easy!

Our train to Basel was delayed, but they caught up on the lost time during the journey. We traveled first class and had a compartment all to ourselves – luxury! The journey went smoothly, and before we knew it, we were in Luzern! We checked in to our hotel, then walked to the centre to see if we could catch a boat trip with our train pass. We found out that the pass was valid on all crossings, and a roundtrip was leaving in 5 minutes – perfect! It was really nice to enjoy Lake Lucerne from a boat, in beautiful sunny weather.

After 2 hours we were back in Luzern and we walked to the old town to have dinner. It’s really pretty… with the famous bridge and a lot of decorated old buildings.

After a really nice pasta meal outside, we walked back to the hotel in beautiful evening light. What a perfect first day!

The next morning we borrowed bikes from our friendly hotel, and set out to explore more of Luzern. It was a quiet Sunday morning and we stumbled upon this open-air concert near the water…

We had lots of fun people-watching!

After a while we continued cycling along the lake, until we came to the Swiss Museum of Transport. I had been there once before and was really impressed, so I thought my dad would enjoy it too. We both did, and we spent the rest of the day at the museum. It’s huge, and has lots of exhibitions on trains, boats, cars, bikes, planes… whatever you can think of really. We even got to test drive electric bicyles and an electric car (wow, so quiet!), and pretend to be a weather forecaster on tv… hey maybe I should become a weather forecaster when I grow up

The next day the weather had changed to rain and low clouds. We took the Golden Pass Line to Interlaken. A lot of the trains in Switzerland have these huge windows, it’s really nice to have such an open view.

According to our itinerary, we should stay on the train until Interlaken, our destination. We decided to get out at Brienz though, and see if we could cross from there to Interlaken by boat with our train pass. It was raining heavily when we arrived, but when we came out from the supermarket where we bought lunch, it was dry and we went for a walk along the lake while waiting for our boat.

We were in luck: the next boat to depart was a steam paddler – the DS Lötschberg. With our first class tickets, we had the top part of the boat all to ourselves. It was a beautiful crossing, and the sun even came out at times. The colour of lake Brienz is truly spectacular!

My dad spent most of the time inside though, where you can look through a large hole in the floor at the steam engine in operation…

It’s so relaxed to travel by boat – we really enjoyed it. After arriving in Interlaken, we waited until the DS Lötschberg departed again, so we could get a photo from the shore

Stay tuned for part 2 of our Swiss Railway Journey: Interlaken

The summer school finished last Friday, and I travelled to Verbier where Paul is staying. I had booked a one-day introduction course to paragliding for Saturday. I was a bit scared about doing this, but it was lots of fun! We spent most of the day at “ground school” – learning to set up the glider and the harness, and how to take off (without actually taking off). In the afternoon I first did a short tandem flight – really great! And then it was time for my first solo flight… I was a bit nervous and I thought I’d be terrified through the whole flight but actually I didn’t get scared at all and was able to relax and enjoy the flight. It’s a great feeling to be flying on your own! It wasn’t very difficult as you are almost “remote controlled” – you have a radio and they tell you exactly what to do. The landing went fine, though I did fall over face forward – but the landing field has very tall grass and it made the landing very soft. Paul was able to take a great video of my flight, and because he had a radio on him as well, you can hear everything they were telling me…

The flight was only about 5 minutes, but it was fantastic and I am now very keen to take a course myself!! I didn’t expect I would enjoy it this much, I am usually quite a chicken and scared of everything…

Paul is doing the last few flights he needs for his license at the moment, when he comes back we will leave for Vevey (near Montreux, at the lake of Geneva) until Wednesday. Paul has a lot of photos and videos of his 2 weeks of paragliding, so more soon!