Switzerland - Day 13 (Bern)

Up early today. We decided to head to Gimmelwald (Swiss Alps). It is quite the traveling process to get here, so we didn't want to lose time in the morning and get home too late. We ate breakfast at the hotel...probably the first breakfast with a ton of options for us. From there we headed to the train station to see what we could figure out. Fortunately, the SBB ticket area has a help desk and the gentleman that assisted us was fantastic. He booked us a ticket that would get us through 4 different types of transportation on one ticket for 80 franc round-trip!. Fabulous!

Step 1: Bern to Interlachen OST via train (approx. 50 min.)

Step 2: Interlachen OST to Lautenbrunner via train (approx. 20 minutes)

Step 3: Lautenbrunner to Schetelberg via bus (approx. 20 minutes)

Step 4: Schetelberg to Gimmelwald via gondola (approx. 5 minutes)

Totally crazy, but amazingly enough, all of our connections were within minutes of each other, so they were incredibly efficient! We arrived to the Gondola to begin our adventure. Unfortunately, we did not pick the best weather day. It was incredibly overcast and rainy. We made the best of it and still thought it was cool to be hiking in the Swiss Alps.

We explored Gimmelwald, while trying to remain as dry as possible. We stopped at a little place for hot chocolate and loved the fact that they had an "Honesty Shop"'attached to their hotel. You can go in, take an item, and leave an envelope with the amount you owe and what you purchased. The envelope goes into a bin and it is all on the honor system. Such a cool idea!

From Gimmelwald, we hiked an hour to Murren. Another little mountain town tucked away from the business of the world. This hike had what I would imagine to be amazing views. From what we could see through the fog, it was beautiful. Murren was a fun town ... we stopped and ate lunch on a bench to get out of the rain for a little bit. Then we got pretty chilled, so we found another little place and had more hot chocolate.

We got as far as a little town just above Murren and then needed to hike back down. The last gondola going down the mountain was at 16:03 ... we did not miss that considering it would add another hour and a half to our time in the rain. On our way back down, we enjoyed taking our time.

We found ourselves stopping and listening to the cow bells on the hillsides and patiently waiting for chunks of the clouds to pass so that we could sneak a peak at a pretty section of the area. One section of the trail was pretty much all cow manure, so we knew we would smell by the time we got back down.

At one particular section, we thought for sure that it would clear, so we waited and entertained ourselves with catching crackers in our mouths and making a video. The clouds passed some, but never enough to give us a sense of what we were missing! I guess we will just have to come back!

The gondola ride down still had breathtaking views of Schetelberg and waterfalls! We stopped in Lautenbrunner on our way home for dinner and more exploring. We stopped for burgers and beer and met a funny waiter from the Czech Republic who told us that we were beautiful girls. Hmm ... we were seriously a hot mess, so not sure we should take that as a compliment. The burgers were fabulous ... genuinely some of he best meat and bread I have ever had!

We wrapped up dinner and made our way back to Bern. What an amazing train ride! The views of a lake and surrounding peaks are hard to get enough of! Made it back to the hotel just in time to avoid the crazy thunderstorm and heavy rain that came with it!