And......we're BACK!!
Yes, we've been offline for a while because our lives have been slightly hectic what with traveling, working, and (best of all) having friends and family visit us. And you, dear Reader, have borne the brunt of this. You have been sorely neglected, but fear not! We're back, we're thinking of you, and (best of all) we are bringing back more photos of mouth-watering mountain awesome-ness!
So....where were we last? Ah yes, flying out of Aberbeen, Scotland.
(Side note: while we only had about 6 hours in Aberdeen we really enjoyed it. Many of you will not be surprised that "no stoppin" Susan Maupin whipped up a plan on the spur of the moment that had us doing all of the following: a visit to St Machar's cathedral, a walk through the old part of town including the university, visit to the 13th century Brig o' Balgownie bridge, 2-3 mile walk along the Don river in a beautiful nature trail, another 2-3 mile walk along their lovely seafront promenade, dinner at the wonderful Silver Darling resturant by the port, and drinking and dancing late-night with the locals at an Irish pub. Whew!)
From Scotland we flew to Zurich and then took 5 trains to get to Wengen. (This was easier than it seemed. Trains, like everything else in Switzerland, run like clockwork so most changes lasted 3-5 minutes and were usually a matter of walking from one side of the platform to another).
Let's get to the photos! Wengen is a beautiful small village perched high above the Lauterbrunnen valley, not far from Interlaken. Our place had an absolutely gorgeous view of the valley and the nearby mountains of Jungfrau, Breithorn and others.
Our place
Here is the view down into the valley from our deck:
And the view of nearby mountains:
Here is my workspace for the 3 weeks we were there!
The place was beautiful inside as well, and was really roomy which was great because we had visitors coming!
Schilthorn - and our first visitor!
Wengen is a great jumping-off place to see so many beautiful mountains. One of our first excursions was to Schilthorn, which is a famous peak with a mountain top 360 view and a rotating restaurant, accessible via cable car. It is also famous for providing the set for the James Bond movie "In Her Majesty's Service", and in fact has been turned into somewhat of a memorial to that movie, as you see below.
We were joined by our very first visitor, Susan's dad Tim. Tim's visit made our stay even more special.
Jungfrau -- and our second visitor!
Things got even better: we were joined by our second visitor, my daughter Haley! Together, we made an excursion to Jungfrau, which is a beautiful glacier that we could see from our place. The trip up to the glacier is by a special train through a tunnel that was built back around the turn of the 20th century (thanks mainly to imported Italian workers), and is pretty amazing.
Jungfrau was beautiful:
Mannlichen
One of the best things about being in Wengen was having hikes right out our back door. Many days we would wake up and go hiking for a couple of hours on Mannlichen, which was a peak right above town. We took some pictures looking back down on the town below from one of our hikes. You can see the avalanche barriers they've erected in places on the mountain in the photo below. We saw a lot of these in Switzerland.
Here's me with a hat I found on the trail. Susan dubbed this "Miami Vice meets Edelweiss"!
We also took the cable car up to the top of Mannlichen for a sunset barbeque dinner
Folklore night
Back in town, there was a folklore night with lots of local folks playing music, singing and dancing.
And what would Switzerland be without trying the cheese fondue!
Interlaken
We made a visit to the beautiful city of Interlaken as well, where we took a funicular to the top of Harder Kulm.
And for our next trick..
And that's not all! Believe it or not, there is more to show about our travels in Switzerland. Next time, we will cover some of the longer hikes we did. Till then, we hope everyone back home is doing well!
