Day 3 A Hike to Kleine Scheidegg

The plan for the day was for Phil and I to hike up to Mannlichen, where XiaoQin would join us via cable car. Then hopefully, wed do the mountain view walk together to Kleine Scheidegg and maybe back to Wengen, depending on how much walking we were willing to do. After a short quarter mile walk through Wengen, the trail led steeply up along the hillside. One look up the mountain and it was obvious why---the trail went alongside what was practically a cliff! It didnt take us long before we got to the Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy memorial. I suspected but didnt know that he was the Mendelssohn, so I took a picture and moved on.

From Tour of the Alps 2011

Going higher up, the views opened up but because of overcast skies, we could not see far. We had been warned that this hike would be harder than usual because of constructions on the avalanche protection near the top, but were not prepared for signs like this:

From Tour of the Alps 2011

In the USA, these signs would be cause for a lawsuit were anyone to be injured by rock fall, and hence the entire trail would be closed, despite the fact that I did not see any possibility of rock fall.

Once we got higher, we saw some wildflowers and the pace slowed a little bit. I wasnt happy about the overcast, though, as it promised that our views of the mountains would be occluded.

From Tour of the Alps 2011

Sure enough, the panorama trail granted us only views of the base of the Eiger, the Jungfrau, and the Monch, and the best view of the mountains we got was further down, past the Kleine Scheidegg train station.

From Tour of the Alps 2011

We finished the hike one station down, got onto the train and then had a pizza dinner, hoping for some nice weather tomorrow before the serious riding began.

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Day 2 Rosenlaui to Wengen

We woke up in the morning without any jet-lag, and to dry roads but overcast skies. I had previously booked Hotel Bernerhof in Wengen, the one part of Lauterbrunnen valley that I had not explored. With permission from Andreas, we left our bikes in Rosenlaui: there was no point carting the bikes around to Wengen where we would have no need for them.

The first stop of the day, however, was Reichenbach Falls, just above Meiringen. The falls is well known amongst Sherlock Holmes fans for being the site of "His Last Bow", where he struggled with Moriarty and fell to his "death." Holmes, of course, was far too popular with his readers for Doyle to keep him dead for long, and returned by popular demand.

From Tour of the Alps 2011

We drove over to Lauterbrunnen Valley for a good look at the Staubbach Falls. This is the fall that greets you upon entering Lauterbrunnen Valley, and it has a hiking trail that goes up behind the fall. Due to strong wind that day, however, the falls were pulled away from behind the hiking trails so we got a view of Lauterbrunnen instead.

From Tour of the Alps 2011

From Tour of the Alps 2011

This being XiaoQins first time in Lauterbrunnen, we had to see the Trummelbach falls, so after buying a picnic lunch at the supermarket, we drove to the Trummelbach parking lot and ate. Phil chose to stay with the car and read while we paid the admission fees to look inside the mountain at the falls, which included a ride up the Funicular railway.

From Tour of the Alps 2011

We then parked the car at the parking structure in Lauterbrunnen and hopped onto the next train up to Wengen. Even though it was overcast, the view down the valley with all its attendant waterfalls put Yosemite valley to shame.

From Tour of the Alps 2011

Arriving at Wengen, we followed the arrows towards Hotel Bernerhof. After a few minutes of walking we came to an intersection where there were pointers to other hotels, but not to Bernerhof. A look around and we realized that we were standing right in front of it!

By the time we were settled, it was around 4pm, which wasnt much time for a long walk, but the visitors center helpfully pointed us at the St. Marys Cafe walk, which granted us nice views of the valley from where Wengen was at 4000 feet.

From Tour of the Alps 2011

We had dinner at a nearby restaurant and prepared ourselves for a more intense hike the next day.

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