World Cup

We have been able to watch a lot of the games including part of a game at a restaurant in Murren. Last night we decided to watch the Swiss-Argentina game in the downtown square (with the Parliament building at one end). There are a lot of restaurants around the square and they placed TVs so that they faced the square  and then put all sorts of tables and chairs in the square. We were lucky to be there just when chairs were being put out. We grabbed two chairs and ordered dinner and ate during the game. Here's what it looked like:

There were not too many exciting moments since the Swiss were on the defense a lot. I did capture this moment:

Some of the TVs were out of sync by about 2 seconds so you could here one crowd starting to yell a few moments before you could see what it was.

North Face trail 3

Wandering through the meadows and by streams in the Alps...amazing!  The next part of the hike was down through a mountain forest to Sprutz waterfall.  Many groves of tall fir trees are planted as an avalanche protection for the villages.  This little forest protects the hamlet of Gimmelwald from danger in the winter.  We went from grassy meadows to thick trees and shady, rooted paths that were quite steep and slippery.  If it had been rainy it would have been a lot harder to get down.  Here are a few pictures of the path in different places.

This path wound down to the Sprutz waterfall.  Very cool experience--literally!

As you can see by these pictures...Marc is very cool!

And so am I!

Here's a better picture of what we saw.

We then had to hike up the other side of the waterfall and continue along the path through the forest.  As we walked we came to a little hut that had benches in it for those needing a break.

Then we finally saw Gimmelwald.  It is such a cute little hamlet.  Both Gimmelwald and Murren are supposed to be car free, but small cars are allowed for some of the residents.

And the trail part of the hike was over once we got down into the village.  We still had to hike uphill for about 45 minutes to get back to Murren.

North Face trail 2

As we walked along, the trail went up into the high mountain meadows where the cows are taken in the Spring.  It is a tradition to have the cows wear bells so they are easier to find.  Every cow wears one and they are different sizes, shapes, colors.  During the ceremonial move up to the hills, the cows wear bells that can weigh ten pounds.  Here are some bells hanging under the eaves of a house in Gimmelvald.

The cows stay up in the high meadows all summer and graze.  The little alps are where the farmers live and the huts are where they make the cheese.  During the summer all milk is made into cheese as it is impractical to bring the milk down to the villages.  When the cows are brought back to the lower fields, the milk is used in the villages.  I would love to be a cow and live up there!

We really enjoyed walking with the cows and listening to their various bells.  Even when the cows were lying down chewing their cud, they would move their heads just enough to ring their bell,  Marc thought it was kind of annoying for those cows to have to hear that all the time, but I liked hearing them.  Here is one of our trail mates with her bell.

This is a video of what the cow bells sound like.

And for an idea of what it was like to hike there, here is a little video.

The North Face Trail Part 1

Getting off the funicular and looking back down at the town was so spectacular.  We found the signs for the North Face trail and started on our way.  Here is the view from where we got off the funicular.  They were constructing a children's adventure area up top.  The sign posts had many trail names on them and they were usually color coded and easy to follow for the most part.

We were amazed at the views from this hike.  As I was going through the pictures last night, I kept saying to Marc that I couldn't believe we had hiked there!!  The North Face trail went around the top of the mountain valley above Murren and ended up in Grimmelwald about 1000 feet below the village of Murren (where we switched to the other cable car).  I'm just going to post some pictures and hopefully you'll feel as we did.

This was beginning the hike from the funicular stop.  We were blessed to have a clear cool day and no rain which had been forecast.

 The meadows were filled with alpine flowers.  Absolutely gorgeous!

In

Nestled in the small valleys were little farms called alps.  There are little mountain huts in the alp which in the summer are used for cheese making.  Some also can be rented to sleep in--quite rustic but the scenery is breathtaking! 

This picture above is one of my favorites from the hike.  It sums up the beauty of the Swiss Alps.  I am so grateful for a Heavenly Father who provided this amazing earth for us to enjoy.  We are so blessed!

The funicular

We woke up and thought it was 8 am but it was only 6!  Breakfast was served at 7:30.  It was a cold buffet consisting of fresh breads, cheeses, ham or smoked bacon, bircher muesli (oats with fruits, yogurt, nuts, seeds, juice, and milk-all mixed together), hard boiled eggs (colored red), jams, yogurt, chocolate in hot milk, juices, and a bunch more that I can't remember.  It was amazing!  We had chosen a hike for the day and were excited to start.  We wanted to take the funicular (a train that climbs a steep slope) up the mountain to begin.  Here is the train from our balcony and a few more from our ride.

It was a cool way to get to the top of the slope and look down on the village of Murren.

Not in a million years would we try this

On the edge of Murren we saw a trail with some people at the end of the trail. We decided to check it out. The trail ends at the edge of a cliff that is 2,400 feet high. Here is what we saw:

 

Turns out this is a popular base jumping spot. Shortly after this jump we saw two others jump at the same time.

First day

We arrived in Zurich and rented a car and headed down to Lauterbrunnen.  We drove by this lake in Luzern and couldn't believe the color-- a gorgeous aqua.

As we drove down the road towards Lauterbrunnen, we saw this waterfall that was spectacular.  We couldn't believe how many waterfalls there were along the way.  Then we drove under this!

Who does this?!!  We arrived in Lauterbrunnen and ate lunch in a cute cafe and walked around for a bit.  There was a cool church and another waterfall, this one spurting water further out.

Lauterbrunnen is a smaller village on the valley floor of the Berner Oberland region of Switzerland.  It's such a beautiful area!  We were headed to Murren via Gimmelwald and had to drive to Stechelberg to get on the cable car.  Dad was terrified!!!  No joke!!  Maybe worse than Splash Mountain.  (He said yes it was worse)!!  Looking up at the cable car coming down was pretty crazy. We got on the cable car and made it safely to Gimmelwald where we had to get off and get on another to go up further to Murren where we were staying for two nights.  Dad was better on this one and actually opened his eyes to look at the mountain side.  Here is our view:

After getting off, we hiked up the walk to our hotel, checked in, and dropped our bags and went out on the balcony to see this.

We couldn't believe how gorgeous it was and it was cloudy!  More tomorrow!