Life as we know it...: Hiking in the Bernese Oberland!

This morning we woke up and went down to the breakfast provided by our hotel. I had some more of the birchemuseli, with some eggs and toast. Something interesting that I have noticed in the grocery stores and even gas stations is that they sell small cartons of eggs that are brightly colored like Easter eggs. I couldn't figure out why, mostly because I can't read German! They had some red ones at breakfast this morning, and the sign (in English) said "Colored so we can tell that they are hard-boiled and not raw." Interesting!

After breakfast we walked down into town, which is probably about a quarter of a mile, got some meat and cheese for sandwiches and headed to the train station. We took a 15 minute train ride to the no-car town of Wengen, where we planned to hike up to Kleine Scheidegg.

Kleine Scheidegg (elevation 2,061 m, 6,762 ft) is a high mountain pass below and between the Eiger and Lauberhorn peaks in the Bernese Oberland, Switzerland. It connects Grindelwald with Lauterbrunnen. The name means "minor watershed." From there we weren't quite sure if we would continue our hike to a gondola station on a mountain called Mannlichen or if we would come back down the mountain the way we came up.

We began our hike on a steep road going through bed and breakfast type hotels and homes, and then eventually we were more in wooded areas. The trails here in Switzerland are different from those in the national park areas that we have hiked the most. They are very steep, as opposed to having many switchbacks like those in the US have. The weather was a little overcast when we started so even though we were working hard to hike the steep trails, it wasn't too hot.

It took us about 2 and a half hours to reach Kleine Scheidegg. At the top are several restaurants, a train station (you can take the train up instead of hiking, but that is for sissies!), and some shops. We sat and ate our lunch with the beautiful views of the Eiger (Ogre), the Mönch (Monk), and the Jungfrau (Virgin).

After lunch we decided to continue our hike over to Mannlichen. It was another hour and half, but wasn't much more of a climb in elevation, so if was fairly easy. We had a beautiful panoramic view of the whole mountain range, and the valleys down below. We could even see over to where we will be zip-lining tomorrow morning. Based on the fact that our feet hurt, and that the way down from that point would be very steep, we decided to take the gondola back down to Wengen.

We stopped off in Wengen for a snack: a delicious apple tart from a bakery and some Rivella soda, before getting on the train to head back down to Lauterbrunnen where our hotel was. We showered and napped a bit before heading out for dinner and to search out a laundromat.

We ended up at the same restaurant that we ate at last night, because the food was good and we liked the lady that worked there. She was very nice and helpful. I had a pork sausage made in the valley, with some rosti and onion sauce, and Jared had fish and chips made of lake fish caught locally. It was delicious. We sat on the patio again, and it was raining, so we decided to stay for some fresh apple strudel with ice cream!

After dinner and dessert, with the help of the lady at the restaurant, we found the laundromat, and did a quick load, only to find that the laundromat would close before we would have time to finish drying our clothes, so now we have underwear hanging in the window of our hotel! : )

Tomorrow we will be zip-lining (I CAN'T WAIT!) in the morning and then traveling for the majority of the day!

Here are some of our pictures from today!