Grindelwald - Grosse Scheidegg to Meirengen

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What a day! Left the best to the last 😊

We got the Grindelwald Bus up to Grosse Scheidegg where we alighted to a great view out over Grindelwald in the distance, over to First where we'd been yesterday and up to the sharp ridge of the Eiger. From there we started down the other side of the Pass away from Grindelwald. First, you walk through high alpine vegetation at the Pass, down through soft boggy plants, lower down to high pastures and forest to Schwarzwaldalp. This is a pretty place with a few houses, a hotel, a cheese sales little hut, and a very old saw mill running off a water wheel. Further down the road were small farms with many cows with bells and also milking goats. The noise was quite deafening but also lovely. Through the farms was a river running right down the valley fed by melt water and glaciers. On one side of the valley are the high jagged mountains of the Wetterhorn and Wellhorn. On the other side are the lower mountains of the Swartzhorn. Even further down the path becomes steeper again as it drops off the high glaciated surface and over the edge down to the valley where Meiringen is. The most appealing part of the walk apart from the scenery is the vast variety of alpine flowers in swathes of yellows, or whites, or pinks or mauve. I seemed to have taken dozens of pictures of flowers over the past few weeks in the Alps.

At the Reichenbach Falls (where Sherlock Holmes supposedly met his death) we walked down a path beside the thundering falls until we got to the funicular which we took down to Meiringen. It was then a short walk to the town and railway station where we got a train back to Grindelwald. The walking time was about 5 hours which included time for a coffee, a lunch stop and numerous picture stops. The round trip took 9 hours including the bus and trains.

So ended our visit to Switzerland on a high note. As always, it is best to get away from the main tourist areas where the beauty, peace and quiet make the visit worthwhile whether it be a 1st time or a 10th.

Tomorrow France.

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Photos

The Wetterhorn
Captured from below Grosse Scheidegg on way to Swartzwaldalp

The renovated old saw mill
Built in 1896 and renovated recently. The water wheel drives the saw mill

Lunch time for the red team
Picnic on a bench at a little hut beside the stream.

Rural scene near Rosenlaui
Tranquil scene in the Rosenlaui Valley

Reichenbach Falls
The falls near Meiringen where Sherlock Holmes was supposedly killed