Lungern

We started the day catching a series of trains and busses to go to the Ballenberg Outdoor Museum. A particular high point was making our own butter out of cream, perhaps tied with seeing some piggies, cows, and goats. We spent a good amount of time walking about and walking through old farm houses, granaries, and workshops. After a while, Laura started giving me the "I'm hungry" cues, so we found one of the restaurants and had a simple meal of soups/salad/sandwiches, though Caty got the local comfort food of Mac n cheese n applesauce.

Caty was struggling with the heat and not feeling up for any further activity, and so we decided to split our party once we arrived in Brienz. Laura took her back to the hotel to recuperate and I followed our itinerary by taking the Rothorn bahn, a steam cog railway train, up to the peak of the mountain. As has been the theme this trip, the views along the way were ridiculous, whether looking down at the lake or up at the mountain.

Lacking my chaperones, the real brains of the group, I made a snap decision when I got to the top of the mountain. I immediately turned around and started to hike the trail back down to halfway point of the mountain, Planalp. The trail was one of the more difficult ones, partly due to the nature of the descent, partly due to the nerves that come with sheer dropoffs on each side of the path, partly because I was racing to catch the last train of the day, and partly due to... aggressive cows.

I arrived at the station in good spirits, primarily because I hadn't been maimed by a momma cow. Or been zapped by the electric fences and questionably marked bypass gates.

I beat the last train by a healthy margin, so I sat on a bench and settled in to the panic-inducing thought that they maybe wouldn't let me actually get on the train at the halfway point, or it would just go on by me (fear unfounded). The conductor did give me some trouble, not because of my ticket, but because I needed to show both my ticket and the swiss pass. Tickets validated, I relaxed and enjoyed the view on the steam train back down, and narrowly caught the other trains that took me back to Grindelwald. I rejoined Laura and Caty for dinner at the hotel restaurant.Read more