Day 28: Gorgeous Grindelwald

Breakfast was included in our hotel price, so we felt obliged to partake.  Breakfast fare was OK, a large assortment, but since I have been eating so much for lunch and dinner I had generally been skipping breakfast,.  In fact there is a packet of muesli I bought in Uzès I’ve been carrying around with me still unopened.  But that's enough boring breakfast talk....

What every good hotel buffet should include

Right, now second stop is the tourist centre to see what we can do with our time here, and given the Jungfrau is some 170CHF, or $200AUD plus per person return trip, we will be giving the top of Europe experience a miss this time around. The lovely lady at the tourist centre gave us a town map and an area map with lots of walks marked on it, so walks it would be, which I was very happy about.

So we headed off down through the suburbs to the river, then walked along a well formed gravel path, past various arrangements of rocks, and sticks which I can only presume was an outdoor art programme that had a very strong Blair Witch theme going.

We followed the path up river to the Gorges du Glacier, which the waitress in the adjacent hotel said was closed till the end of the month.  Probably not a bad thing given it looked like a similar set up to the Gorges du Fier, so I was pretty much gorged out.  The waitress was very helpful though and told me of another gorge, and maybe waterfall which she provided directions for via my map; may be something to do tomorrow, or on our way to Lake Como. After a little rest and coffee, we continued on, meeting some friendly goats and the cutest sheep.  That then was enough for Michelle who returned to the hotel while I bought some of the best tasting Swiss chocolate, and went exploring around town in the car.

I was seeing if I could get further up the mountains, maybe to some snow but the roads pretty much degenerated into bike or walking tracks, or were just dead ends.  I did manage to see some more spectacular scenery though.

Giving up on the car, I walked into town and caught the aerial cableway up to Bort.  Now that was a damn good idea.  Those cable cars are a bit unsettling, having you dangled from a wire high above steep mountain drops, but getting out of the car and stepping out into a snowy landscape with such magical views across to the mountains and back down to Grindelwald was priceless.

I walked down from Bort, originally following the trottibike scooter path down. But when the scenery from that path looked like it was walking through the valley around town I jumped across and followed the trail under the cable cars back to the bottom.

Now walking through alpine forests with these types of views I happily could do all day.  The trail continued past a dam and then wound its way down the mountain towards town, past small farms and houses.

I saw at least 5 snow avalanches on my way down, then I had to wait on the path whilst the cows were being brought in from the paddocks to their milking sheds.  The cows in the higher paddocks were very unhappy to have to wait their turn, mooing very loudly to no avail.

Further down I passed more goats, and then was walking through the streets and paths of upper Grindlewald and back to the hotel.

Dinner again was at the hotel restaurant and it was a feast of food and drink.  Apèritif I took a gamble on and had the Underberg.  It came in a little bottle wrapped in brown paper, even though I was having it in the hotel ;-) It was some very potent and fragrant spirit, made with a closely guarded family secret of various herbs.
Main meal was Nordwand Rosti, a pork steak with a tasty little peppery cognac sauce served on rosti. Somewhere along the way I also managed a litre of beer before an awesome dessert of espresso croquant, crème brûlèe, vanilla ice cream, caramel walnut, coffee topping, cream and bailey’s liqueur.  Or, more simply a B-52 sundae.   I definitely ate way too much, and was feeling very happy afterwards :-)

More Grindelwald gorgeousness to be seen here!