Last Day in Switzerland

First and foremost, since yesterday’s post, Mike and I have won 3 out of 4 games of Euchre. Dave would like to take credit for our wins since he taught us the game.

Now onto today’s activities…after the intense day of hiking yesterday, getting up and around today was rough. There was a lot of grunting throughout the day - sitting down, standing up, walking, just generally moving in any way was challenging, also not moving was a problem too so there was no winning on that front. But we rallied and had a great day.

We started our day with the traditional Swiss breakfast - meat, cheese, bread, and Nutella for me. A little slow today, we figured out with the help for the hotel staff how to get to our morning activity: Jungfraujoch. We took the train from Grindelwald to Kleine Scheidegg. If that sounds familiar, it is because it was the reverse of the hike we did yesterday. Traveling up by train allowed us the opportunity to notice all the spots we had been and take in what an accomplishment yesterday’s hiking was. We then switched trains to make it way up to Jungfraujoch which included an intense increase in altitude. None of us had major altitude sickness but a little shortness of breath and brain fog for sure. The most important piece of advice if you are visiting there is bring your sunglasses. Mike forgot his and Dave decided not to bring his - so Carrie generously shared her sunglasses with the men so no one went blind (mine are prescription). Jungfraujoch is known as the “Top of Europe” and includes amazing snow covered mountain and glaciers views. We walked the discovery tour including:
-The Sphinx Terrace (highest point) where we had to time it just right to get the clearing in the clouds for the incredible views
-A tunnel where there were plaques for the people who had died in the construction of the railway and tunnels.
-Ice Palace with carving displays
-Glacier Walk which I’m sure is amazing for people who do not see snow regularly and get to play in it there
-A stop in the Lindt store where they gave us a chocolate sample

Overall, the visit to Jungfraujock was cool but definitely not the coolest thing we’ve done. We trained back down the mountain shedding our layers and napping.

After a bakery lunch in Grindelwald, we stopped at the hotel to drop our stuff off and return our rented hiking poles (best CHFs spent of the entire trip). We then headed to our afternoon activity, Gletcherschlucht, a glacier canyon. The 30 min walk there felt brutal, mostly because of our hiking the past 3 days, and we decided to take the bus back later. Before we headed into the canyon, we stopped on a bridge over the rushing water to discuss survival ability if one were to raft down this river (not good). Gletcherschlucht is a walkway through the canyon where you view beautiful rock formations, waterfalls, and cliffs. Also, it was cold which was nice after walking in the hot sun to get there. At the start was the swing - jump off a high cliff and swing through the canyon. Hard pass. Mike would have done it if someone else was wiling, but the rest of us were not interested. Halfway through the walkway there was a net over the river to walk out on. Also a hard pass for me but Mike, Carrie, and Dave walked out on it to stand in the middle of the canyon. A beautiful place to visit for our last afternoon in Switzerland.

Upon return, we played more euchre, did a little shopping, and showered and rested before dinner. Dinner was at a pizza place but there was a wait so we…played more euchre. Dinner was DELICIOUS pizza at Onkel Tom’s (we chose to ignore the name…) and ended with petting their cute dog on the way out. At 10:45 when our meal was done, we made the responsible decision to not play more and pack instead.

We had a wonderful time in Switzerland and feel very accomplished from our three days of hiking (and one day we still walked 20k steps despite no hikes). Tomorrow, we head to the train early and make our way to Paris for vacation #2!Read more