I went to the Alps for my second travel break. I had a great time. I was extremely exhausted going into the trip because I had just returned from Poland on Monday night and was leaving for Switzerland that Thursday. The trip there got stressful right away when our very first train was late. It seems like lately every train I get on breaks down. We arrived over half an hour late to Florence just in time to watch our next train start to pull out of the station. We got to experience running with our back packs across Santa Maria Novella train station in hopeless pursuit of the last train to Milan that could get us to Switzerland that night! We missed it. Thanks to Patsy’s excellent Italian language skills, we were able to get our tickets to Milan changed without losing any money. It turned out that the new train did arrive in Milan just in time for us to get on a train to Switzerland. However, we didn’t have tickets for the entire way there, so it was questionable whether we would get to Interlaken that night. However, at every stage along the way, we were able to buy the tickets with time to spare.
We arrived in Interlaken, Switzerland a little after midnight on Thursday and successfully found our hostel. The next morning, I woke up first. I have been to the Rockies before and I remember the first time I saw those mountains. My family had arrived after dark and so we hadn’t been able to see anything. When my sister Elizabeth and I went outside, we were shrieking and jumping up and down. I felt the same way the first time I saw the Alps. The mountains were right outside the window, covered in snow. I could see the rugged landscape, right in front of me. Peaks so beautiful seem as if they could only exist in a dream. When Patsy and Meredith woke up, they had some jaw drop moments too.
We took the train from Interlaken to Lauterbrunnen first thing that morning, anxious to get up in the mountains. The train ride was short and the tracks followed a beautiful river. In Lauterbrunnen, we took the bus to Stechelberg. There is a gondola lift there that took us over the cliffs and to the village of Gimmelwald. The village is very small with more livestock than people. The population is about 130. The village has a one room school house. We stayed in the Mountain Hostel, which was an interesting place with an incredible view. We met people from around the world hanging out in the common room drinking hot chocolate and cooking instant food in the hostel’s kitchen. Every night, local people come in to pass time and eat. One night two men came with accordions and yodeled! I have never fallen asleep to the sound of yodeling before!
On Friday afternoon, we decided to go down into the valley and hike to Trummelbach falls. However, when we arrived, the falls were closed for trail construction. I enjoyed walking through the valley and seeing the cliffs on either side of me. Waterfalls created by snowmelt tumble down the sides everywhere you look. The valley used to be a glacier and has the “U” shaped landscape that is typical for valleys that were formed by receding glaciers. We were blessed with a crystal blue sky, which was a perfect backdrop to watch people hang glide down from the cliffs and into the valley.
On Saturday, we spent a good bit of money on a gondola ticket to the top of the Schilthorn. The Schilthorn is a mountain peak at 10,000 feet with a 360 degree view of the Alps. It was cold, but we spent several hours up there staring. We decided to hike back down to Murren from the Schilthorn, but the highest part of the trail was too icy for the shoes we had. We took the gondola back down to the next station, Birg. It was snowy there, but we decided to try it and began hiking down to the next town, Murren. This area of the Alps is very accessible to hikers because there are yellow signs everywhere that give the distance in walking time. It took about three hours to get to Murren from Birg. The trail was extremely steep because Murren’s elevation is 5.413 ft and Birg’s is 8,782 feet. We descended 3,363 feet. I never could figure out what the distance was. The hike gave us wonderful views that the top of the Schilthorn did not. We even went through the small town of Sonnenberg just above Murren, which was even smaller than Gimmelwald. We took the gondola back to Gimmelwald from Murren. The three of us were so tired when we got back to the hostel that we decided to take a nap before cooking dinner. We left a window open in the room because the weather was nice there. While we were asleep, cows were moved into a pasture directly behind the window. We were woken up by a cow mooing right outside our window.
Sadly, we packed up and left Switzerland on Sunday to come back to Sansepolcro, the palazzo, tests, papers, and all night homework. It was the ultimate get away and my favorite travel break so far. I know that I want to return to the Alps someday and show the mountains and towns to my family. Gimmelwald is so far away from the rest of the world, literally and figuratively. It took a gondola, seven trains, and three buses to get back to Sansepolcro! It was worth it!
Ciao,
Meredith
No comments:
Post a Comment