Switzerland may seriously have trumped everything we'd done so far.
Friday, Dad took us to one of his favorite places in the world. We got up early and ate a typical delicious European breakfast at our hotel headquarters down the street. Then we left Interlaken and went to a town called Lauterbrunnen. It's in a narrow mountain valley in the shadow of the Jungfrau--the highest mountain in Europe. The cliffs surrounding the valley have 70 waterfalls. It was beautiful.
But that wasn't our final destination. In Lauterbrunnen, we caught a tram to go up the cliffs. We got separated again in transit. The tram wasn't supposed to leave until 9:55AM, so we were in line at 9:45 and Ashley wanted to run back to the car for something. As soon as she was gone, the tram driver opened the gate for boarding. Dad thought we still had 10 minutes before take-off, so eh ran out of line to get Ashley but sent the rest of us on in. No sooner had we boarded than the gate was closed and we headed up the mountain without Dad and Ashley! We freaked out a little, especially when we passed over the parking lot and saw Dad freaking out with Ashley nowhere to be found.
But we enjoyed the train as much as we could. It was a beautiful ride up this sheer cliff, with waterfalls and glacial peaks all around us.
The train dropped us off in a cliff town called Gimmelwald, and there we waited for the next tram to come up with Dad and Ashley. The Swiss guard lady got irrupted with us for not leaving the station, but we refused to budge. Twenty minutes later, the next tram came up and there were Dad and Ashley waving at us from the front window. We were so relieved to see them.
Reunited, we got on another tram to take us farther up the cliff to a town called Murren. It was SO PRETTY. I don't know why or how people built a village so high up a sheer mountain face but I'm so glad they did. It had the most breathtaking view, and it's really become a little resort town. The buildings were big and well-kept, and most of them seemed to be hotels and restaurants. It was still really quaint, though. Lots of goats and cows with very loud bells around their necks.
We just walked along the cliff for a long while, looking down into the valley or across at the magnificent mountains. We had fun watching paragliders taking off from a hill right behind us.
A short hike through the woods took us to an amazing panoramic view of the valley and mountains, and you can guess how many pictures Sarah and Ashley took of us.
We got a bratwurst and sandwich lunch and ate it on the hill outside of town directly under the paragliders' take-off spot. It was so beautiful and serene, we could have happily stayed there all day.
But by then we were pretty tired, so we headed back down on the tram at around 2:00PM. Going down, the tram was way crowded, and Dad just had to tell us a story about a tram line breaking and killing all the passengers. At one point the tram seemed to just be free falling, so my stomach plunged, and it lasted long enough for me to start panicking and praying not to die. Sometimes I hate being afraid of heights.
Once we were on the ground again, we headed just a little way down the canyon to Trummelbach Falls. It's this huge waterfall inside a cave. It has ten different levels--like it cascades into a series of 10 pools. We took a lift up to the 5th level, then hiked like a million stairs up this cave system to the very top of the waterfall. It was cold and misty and there was little light besides some floodlights, but it was incredible. Oh, and loud. Waterfalls are already loud, but put one in a cave, and it roars. It was epic. Ashley and I thought it was something straight out of a movie, so we soon found ourselves "sword fighting" with our water bottles on the spiral stairways, with caves and waterfalls as our backdrop. And we had a blast doing it.
But really by then we were unbelievably tired, so we took a pretty drive back to Interlaken and took power naps in our hotel.
After that we went to the grocery store and grabbed dinner there, then took it to another tram, but this time up the mountain to a restaurant directly above our hotel. It wasn't really a tram--more like a railcar that just went straight up through the trees. We had a front-row seat, so we got to see all of Interlaken open up to our view. Sarah said it was her favorite train ride so far. But she just had to say "This would be a really fun roller coaster ride if we just plunged all the way back down." Thanks. A lot.
But up at the top we had a great view for dinner. And there was one of those glass overlook patios by the restaurant, so we got to see so much of Interlaken from above. It was amazing.
When we got back to the bottom of the mountain, we walked along the turquoise river that connects the two lakes, drove around a bit, then went home to watch a movie and chill.
We were happily exhausted and we'd seen enough mountaintops to be satisfied for the rest of the trip.
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