Monday Goat Blogging

Goats - Switzerland  2019

Goats and flowers! Wow!

Check out an earlier Marin County goat post.

Leaving Murren

Tree, Snow - Switzerland  2019

Gondola, 5 AM - Switzerland  2019

We got up at 4 AM in order to catch the first gondola ride down to the valley. There had been a light dusting of snow during the night.

Autumn, Alps

Autumn Leaves - Switzerland  2019

Trees, Stream - Switzerland  2019

Further on up we started seeing the start of autumn colors. Eventually we reached Murren and our hotel and started packing for our next day's departure.

Fog

Tree, Mountains - Switzerland  2019

Hali, Fog - Switzerland  2019

We hiked up and out of Gimmelwald, into the fog.

Gimmelwald Flowers

Flowers - Switzerland  2019

Flowers - Switzerland  2019

Luckily, it was overcast for some nice diffused light.

Gimmelwald - 2

Gimmelwald Buildings - Switzerland  2019

Firewood - Switzerland  2019

Good photography weather, clouds and fog concealing, now revealing, distant snow-enhanced mountains.

Gimmelwald - 1

Gimmelwald Gondola Station - Switzerland  2019

Gimmelwald Sign - Switzerland  2019

Gimmelwald is a small village located below Murren, made famous by a glowing Rick Steves review. We wanted to go for a hike, but not a downhill hike, so we decided to take the gondola down to Gimmelwald and walk back up. A nice, somewhat blustery day . . . rainfall early on prompted us to don our raingear.

Monday Horse Blogging

Horses - Switzerland  2019

Two horses seen in Gimmelwald.

Murren Views

Buildings, Eiger (Murren) - Switzerland  2019

Hikers from Gondola (Murren) - Switzerland  2019

Wow. Are there similar locations in the U.S.? Not in the Sierra Nevada, but maybe in the Rockies?

Restaurant Stagerstubli

Food (Murren) - Switzerland  2019

Menu (Murren) - Switzerland  2019

Nice restaurant in Murren, but only open for one of the days we were there.

Alpine Hike - 4

Rock Wall - Switzerland  2019

Cattle Shed - Switzerland  2019

Photos taken as we descended to the little station where we caught the train that took us back to Murren.

As I said, the final stretch consisted of very steep downhill sections, through crumbly soil and tree roots. If we'd known, we would have started from that end (footing much easier to maintain while going up.)

Alpine Hike - 3

Ferns - Switzerland  2019

Tree Trunks - Switzerland  2019

Descending into the woods.

Hmm . . . these photos are very similar to others I've taken in Marin County!

Alpine Hike - 2

Eiger, Monch, Jungfrau - Switzerland  2019

So, the Mountain View hike provides plentiful sightings of these impressive peaks. From left to right: Eiger, Monch and Jungfrau. (Click to enlarge.)

Interesting that during the hike I didn't know exactly what I was seeing . . . got the names only after doing some internet sleuthing.

Alpine Hike - 1

Hali Hiking - Switzerland  2019

Hali Hiking, Eiger in Distance - Switzerland  2019

We wanted to do some hiking in the Swiss Alps, so after some cursory research we decided on the Mountain View trail. From Murren we took a small cog railcar up to the trailhead, then started out. Our starting point was pretty high up - that meant that the rest of the hike was downhill. That was OK for most of the distance, but became disadvantageous later on.

Monday Horse Blogging

Horses (Gimmelwald) - Switzerland  2019

Horses seen during a nice little hike we took from Gimmelwald up to Murren.

Murren

Evening Clouds (Murren) - Switzerland  2019

Whoa. The extremely picturesque town of Murren. Alas, for this low light scene, the small Canon G5XII had to use a pretty high ISO, thus resulting in significant "noise" in this photo.

Supposedly no cars are allowed in Murren. However, there were a number of work vehicles puttering back and forth.

Murren Hotel

Hotel Alpenruh (Murren) - Switzerland  2019

Eiger, Evening Clouds (Murren) - Switzerland  2019

Our Murren hotel, with the Eiger in the background. Bottom photo taken from the patio outside our room.

Gondolas

Gondola - Switzerland  2019

Gondola - Switzerland  2019

First we got off at the wrong Lauterbrunnen station. Got back on the next train, then we arrived at the correct Lauterbrunnen station. We managed to find the little bus that traversed the valley floor, and took it to the Stechelberg stop. Finally, a trip to Murren via one of the famous gondolas! (Called "cable cars" by them, but I prefer "gondolas.")

Really quite amazing, I kept wondering how the Swiss had managed to fund such obviously expensive infrastructure projects. Wouldn't it have been easier to just bulldoze a road up to the top?

Boarding Gondola (Murrren) - Switzerland  2019

Train to Interlaken and Lauterbrunnen

Mountains - Switzerland  2019

View near Interlaken - Switzerland  2019

During our seminal discussion of our Europe trip I mentioned that I'd like to visit "the Alps." Margaret quite reasonably wanted to know, "Swiss Alps," or "Austrian Alps?" Huh. Hadn't thought about it.

After some back and forth we all decided on the Swiss Alps. So it was that we found ourselves travelling first, from Zurich to Interlaken, then from Interlaken to Lauterbrunnen.