Thursday, Sept 26. Our final day together with Tony and Amy over here in Switzerland this vacation. We are planing to go purchase their train tickets from Interlaken to the airport in Kloten, ZH. For some reason we thought that at 5:30 in the morning there would be nobody on the ticket counter. We combined our effort with a daylong site seeing and souvenir shopping tour.
We had plenty of breakfast food left and again enjoyed coffee on the terrace, leaving for our tour in the car at 9 am.
To follow our route, you can refer to the map I will publish again. Today we had lots of clouds but it was dry all day until later that day with the sun peeking out a lot.
We parked about a mile away from the station on the only public parking lot and started walking through the whole town back to that station. quite a long way, specially there was nothing to see of importance.
View from the Parking lot
With a close up
A long way back to the Gondola station
Amy and Tony don't mind walking
The brand new Gondola,
you still see the old tracks of the cable train on some places
Giant Gondola, just for us
The remarkable thing was how they build this gondola, that thing took of in total silence.
Arriving on top, we changed to a small railroad, who brought us to Murren. From here we walked up to the Palace hotel and all the way to the Schilthorn Bahn, a gondola who would bring us to the Piz Gloria.
It was nice for me to check out all the changes happening up here in Murren. Just for your information, 44 years ago, in 1969 I was hired to work in the Palace Hotel in Murren to cook for the crew and actors of the James Bond movie "On Her Majesty's Secret Service" a Broccoli and Salzman production. They rented the whole hotel that winter. The best part was to feed the film crew on locations. We loaded the food on helicopters and went to bring them hot beverages and some luncheons where they build and filmed the avalanches or filmed other outdoor activities.
Walking up to the Palace Hotel from the Railroad station
At the Schilthorn Bahn station we had to decide if we go up to the
Piz Gloria.
We decided not to go because of the weather.
That mountaintop in the back is Birg, half way station before Piz Gloria.
You can not see it because they are in the clouds.
Piz Gloria
Just a picture out of a brochure. Donna and I where up here 3 years ago, (if you are interested check out 2010 blog for more information on the Piz Gloria), the Restaurant
actually rotates all around, at a speed of 1 time every hour.
We decided to a little shopping in Murren
Cows coming down the street
Waiting for them to pass
Their new pasture
Another view of the Palace hotel, still the same as when I was there.
A view of the Kleine Scheidegg and the Eiger Gletscher
before heading back to Lauterbrunnen
Back down in Lauterbrunnen there where lots of people along the main street, waiting for the so called Alpenabzug. That's when the farmer bring down the cows from the alps to stay in their warm stables for the winter. A tradition you will encounter in a lot of towns in this region.
Beside there giant bells, they all carry a decorated milking chair on there head
Driving back to Grindelwald we decided to try a new restaurant for our last dinner together but the one we chose was a bust. Most restaurant still allow smoking and that was the reason we left and went back to our restaurant Bahnhof Grund.
We had a great dinner and a fantastic time. Tony treated us for my birthday coming up. Actually we consumed 10 Eigernortwand (Ice beers), 5 Pfluemli (Prune schnapps), 2 Grand Marnier and 2 small beers. Wow!!
And of course incredible delicious food
Pork steak with herb butter
Spring roll salad
Wiener schnitzel
Aelplermakkroni
Cheers to great service!!
Back home we checked the mail, Tony and Amy had to pack, had one last drink
and went to bed early.
Grindelwald last 2 days will follow soon
Thanks for posting.
ReplyDeleteTony
More adventurous fun! Love it!!
ReplyDelete