Last night we stayed in Lauterbrunnen again and had breakfast there this morning. We actually met another family from the Jacksonville area. We had our swiss meusli and packed our things to head to Grindelwald, were we planned to zip-line.
Fortunately the weather has been great, and was perfect this morning, so we were able to do our excursion. We took a gondola all the way up to First (means mountain ridge in German) where we got ready to zip line. The length of the zip line was 800m (2624 feet) long and in some points was 45m (147 feet) from the ground. The max speed was 52 miles per hour! The zip line had 4 parallel lines, so up to 4 people could go at the same time. So basically you sit in the harness which is like a seat, and they strap you in, and then you put your feet out on the door in front of you. They count to 3 and away you go! We were both able to take our cameras, so we got pictures and video going down! It was a ton of fun.
After our zip-line, we hiked down to the next gondola station called Bort, where we got a coke and an sparkling apple drink that is my new favorite thing, for the mere price of 10 Swiss francs...yeah pricey I know! Anyways...In the package that we purchased with our zip-line and gondola tickets were tickets to rent scooter bikes to ride the rest of the way back down into Grindelwald where we first started.
So this scooter-bike is like a sturdy scooter with mountain bike type tires and hand brakes. When we first got started, I wasn't so sure how I felt. It was almost scarier than the zip line because we were headed down very steep hills! We did have helmets at least, and after the first quarter of a mile or so, we got the hang of it, and to be honest, I almost enjoyed it more than the zip line. So through steep winding paths, we made our way down the mountain. I would say it took around 20 minutes or so to reach the town.
From Grindelwald we headed back toward Interlaken to head to where we are staying tonight in a very small town called Morel. We had a lunch of salad, salami, brie cheese, and chocolate flan in the car : ) On the way we were able to see the Rhone glacier far off from the highway. The drive was around 80 miles, but took several hours because we were riding through mountain passes, with very tight turns.
When we got here we had to wind up a steep and very narrow mountain road to reach our hotel. We are staying in an apartment like room that is part of a bed and breakfast owned by a larger hotel. We had a living area, kitchenette, bedroom and bathroom which all probably could be found in an IKEA somewhere. By the way, Swiss bedding is not so luxurious. First of all it is, most of the time, two twin mattresses that have separate sheets pushed together so there is a crack right down the middle. Then they give you each a separate bedspread, and the pillows are very small and flat. I normally sleep with 2 king size pillows, one for my head and one as a body pillow...so it has been interesting!
After getting our stuff into our room/apartment, we headed to the larger city nearby, called Brig. We found a place to eat dinner. I had some spaghetti carbonara and Jared had a bratwurst with some pommes frites (French fries). Then we headed back towards our hotel in search of dessert! Another piece of info: in all the places we have been everything closes around 7 or 8, even the grocery stores. So we had to drive about 10 minutes past our hotel to find a Coop gas station that was still open. Coop is one of the major grocery chains here and the Coop gas stations have quite a selection (though no coffee), complete with a small section of grocery items, and freshly baked bread everyday. We got some Swiss pastries and have been hanging in our room trying to find a TV channel that is in English!
Tomorrow we are headed to Zermatt for the day to see the MATTERHORN! Here are some of our pictures from today:
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| Many houses have a collection of cow bells hanging from their porches. |
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| Jared on the gondola on our way up to First from Grindelwald |
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| We were about to do this! |
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| The zip line platform. |
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| Jared on the ride down. You can see the gondola cars down below. |
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| My feet and Jared on the way down the zip line. You can see the station where were would stop out on the right. |
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| Kissing cows! |
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| Me and my scooter, and pink get-up! |
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| J and his scooter! |
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| We look awesome, and color coordinated! |
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| Lunch in the car! |
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| Rhone glacier. For size comparison, you can see the building on the cliff out on the right. |
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