Tuesday, May 29 - The Swiss Alps, waterfalls and more waterfalls
Being in the Lauterbrunnen Valley is almost like stepping back in time. Most of the area is either mountainous terrain, mountain meadows, fields, or small yards with old houses or farm buildings. After breakfast, we got ready to go to ride a cable car up from the valley floor to the top of one of the nearby ridges. It didn't take long, seems like only about five minutes. We went from an altitude of 2624 in Lauterbrunnen to 4875 in the town of Grutschalp. The view below is of another of the falls which pour off the top of these very high cliffs near our hotel. The photo was taken from the ride up on the cable car.
After we got off the cable car, we walked up for a ways, to a small train station. On the way, we saw a number of different snails on the trail. The one below is almost white. We also saw black ones without the shell, slugs I guess.
There was beautiful scenery all around us on the walk.
Some of our group decided against the walk/hike, and opted for a ride on the train. Frank and Patti were on this train.
Before we reached the next train station, we came across a café which had not yet opened for the season. This large wooden bench out front was made from a huge log.
This waterfall is not too far from our hotel, and we walked pretty close to it on our day's hike.
This is one view of the Trummelbach Falls. This is a waterfall that has cut it's way through the inside of one of these mountains. There were ten different viewing areas inside the mountain where we could see all that water just rushing down through the channel it has cut over the years. The force of the water was just tremendous, it was really something to see.
Janice offered to take a photo for a young couple, and come to find out they are newlyweds from Asheville, and their parents live not very far from us in East Bend. What a small world!
We caught a thief in the act of stealing an orange Porsche after we came down from the Trummelbach Falls. Once the would-be thief saw that I had snapped their photo, they quickly moved away from the car.
This scene is one of many similar ones we saw as we walked back to our hotel from the Trummelbach Falls (we walked for a little less than two hours). The sides of these mountain cliffs seem to make walls around this quaint farming area.
Another of the waterfalls we walked past with some lazy cows which made it that much neater.
Another view of this waterfall - the wind would blow mist from it all the way out to the trail which we were on, a good hundred yards from the base of the falls.
Someone spent a bit of time next to the runoff from the falls stacking some of the stones along the side of this very fast running stream.
