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Moutains and Muscles...
Blair, Alysssa and I in the Swiss Alps. Just arrived in Prague today after a very sad good bye to Blair and ALyssa who are headed to Dacchau and then Ireland and Scotland. Good thing for free Internet or I would still be crying my little eyes out because I miss em so much...
Our last few days travelling together were in two of the neatest towns--Gimmelwald, Switzerland and Rothenburg, Germany.
We stayed two (way too short) nights in Gimmelwald, Switzerland, and old garming town nestled in the Swiss Alps just below Jungfrau, one of the highest peaks in Switzerland. The town is just 200 people and there are only 3 different families that reside in the town. In order to get there we took a train from Interlaken to Lauterbrunnen and then a gondola from Lauterbrunnen a thousand feet straight up into the magnificence of the Swiss Alps, passing at least 10 waterfalls on the way up. We stayed at a small hostel called the mountain hostel where every window has a view of the mountains. The town has one main road, a couple of hotels-hostels, no grocery store but plenty of personal homes that sell fresh eggs, cheese, homemade yogurt, bread and milk. Cows and
sheep with bells around their necks graze in the fields and although there is no night life or famous buildings to see, there was more than enough natural beauty and hiking to sustain this traveller.
On our only full day in town we hiked to Brindli Mountain. We were warned by fellow hosteler-hikers that the last part of the hike was more of a climb up a mountain, but assured that the views and the scenery were more than worth it. So Blair, Alyssa, Richard (a canadian friend) and I set out to find this point. We hiked through snow at points to find the trail and up steep, rocky staircases keeping our final destination in view. Richard and I got to talking and got a bit ahead of Blair and ALyssa, we ended up waiting a minute at a gate for the girls to catch up and continued talking. After a few minutes, we began to wonder where the girls were because they had not yet arrived and we did not think they were that far behind. So we back tracked just a bit, searching the trail behind us for any sign of them, but there was nothing.
Schneeballs...
Yummy balls of butter, sugar and chocolate in Rhotenburg. Schneeball means snowball. Eventually I looked up toward our final destination and in the distance I saw two girls hiking straight up the face of a mountain blazing their own trail to reach Brindli MOuntain. I wish I could replay that moment and my disbelief for you...Richard and I shouted to the girls and they simply said, they thought that was the way...so although there was a perfectly marked trail infront of us, we left the trail and began climping up, up and further up to reach Brindli. I have to say that this maybe was not the smartest move, I was on all fours, rock climbing at points to meet up with Blair and Alyssa but it sure makes for a funny memory, at least since I lived to remember it. (I may be being a little dramatic, but it was pretty intense). When we reached the top, there was a small trail that went along the ridge of the mountain giving us unbelievable views of the Alps and the then miniscule towns below.
After yelling at Blair and ALyssa for a moment for leaving us without saying anything and forcing us to climb up after them, I could do nothing
The rooftops of Medieval Rothenburg...
Taken from a walk along the walls that close the city in, defintely an entry for the sunset book. but marvel at the view that we had and just laugh at how amazing the moment was. WE continued to hike along the ridge and then down the face of the mountain (me on my butt 75 percent of the time) back down to Gimmelwald. On our way back, we saw and heard about a dozen avalanches in the distance. That evening we hung out at the hostel with all the other hostelers, hearing everyone's hiking stories and playing cards until we fell asleep.
The next day we woke up and took a train north to Rothenburg, Germany, a medieval town on the ROmantic Road. The entire town is walled and is complete with gates and look out towers and a night watchman, who leads a tour of the city giving some of the history. Rothenburg is exactly the Leder Hosen Germany that you imagine, full of coblestone streets, bavarian buildings, cuckoo clocks, Kathe Wohlfart Christmas trinkets etc, etc, etc. Rothenburg is also the home of an old dessert known as SCHNEEBALLS--german for snowballs. It is basically eggs, flower, sugar and butter rolled up into a ball and fried and covered in anything from chocolate to powdered sugar. Thank
Imposters...
Our local Poway newspaper, publishes travel photos from people who take a picture with the newspaper...unfortunately we did not have an authentic Poway Chieftan with us, but we wanted to make the paper, so we used another newspaper...think it will pass; notice anything about the house; goodness for all the alpine hiking to work those off!!!
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Coach
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Lovin' these
Farbs-- I am loving these entries. I check two or three times a day for updats. You are having an amazing experience. I'm jealous.