[Previous post: part 6]

On our last full day of our trip we took the cog train down the mountain from Glion to Montreaux and then took a train to Geneva and walked to our hotel from the train station. We took a walk to see the Jet d’Eau (an enormous fountain in Lake Geneva) and the flower clock. After hearing so many cow bells all week I felt compelled to buy my own.

We walked to the higher elevation part of town to St. Pierre Cathedral. We climbed up the circular stair case to the towers and enjoyed the views. We were surprised (and delighted) to see an old toilet in the room at the top of one of the church towers.

After touring the inside of the church we went around back and toured the archeological site under the church.

On the way back to our hotel we stopped to buy some chocolate to bring home. We enjoyed dinner at a Swiss restaurant and then took a walk past the Lake Geneva sites lit up at night. The next day we took a quick train to the Geneva airport and flew home.

[Previous post: part 5]

The last day of the Summit wrapped up after lunch so we had plenty of time for an afternoon hike. We took the cog train to Rochers-de-Naye, at the top of the mountain. We hiked around the ridge line for some great views. There is a protected area for marmots in Rochers-de-Naye, but we did not see any marmots.

There is also an alpine garden and a hiking trail that loops around the back of one of the small peaks. There were lots of cool flowers, including Pulsatilla alpina (which reminds me of Dr. Seuss’ truffula trees) and Alpine Sea Holly.

There is also a long tunnel through the mountain that comes out at a restaurant with a scenic overlook.

Next up: Part 7: Geneva

[Previous post: part 4]

The next day we used the mobile app to plot our 5-hop journey from Wengen to Glion. We travelled from Wengen to Lauterbrunn, then to Interlaken Ost, then to Visp, then Montreux, and finally a cog rail train to Glion-Alpes. Some of the trains had playgrounds on them, complete with small slides and climbing areas. The cog train was much noisier than the previous trains we rode. The whole excursion took less than 3 hours and all the connections worked perfectly.

I went to Glion for the Second Annual Summit of Centers for Digital Trust, which was organized by the Center for Digital Trust at EPFL and held at the lovely Hotel Victoria. It was fun to meet center directors from around the world and compare notes.

I returned to my hotel room the first day and found a small herd of cows right outside my window. That evening I discovered that cows do not actually go to sleep when it gets dark, and even when they do finally lie down, their cow bells never stop ringing (and yes, every cow in Switzerland wears a huge bell around its neck). Watch (and listen to) this very short video clip of cows outside my window! Later in the week the cows even stopped by our meeting.

The views from Hotel Victoria were beautiful day and night and the chalet where we held most of our discussions was quite charming. The weather was perfect and we had all of our meals on the hotel’s covered patio. The food was great and lunch was served in three courses, with wine.

The Summit’s main social event was a trip via funicular and boat ride from Montreaux to Cully, where we visited a woman-owned winery and had dinner at a wonderful restaurant by the train station. This (and many other wineries in the area) uses grapes grown on the mountainside lining Lake Geneva. Our boat left from a port near Chillon Castle, a medieval castle.

Next up: Part 6: Rochers-de-Naye

[Previous post: part 3]

After arriving in Mürren, we walked around the town before heading out on the “Northface trail,” an easy loop hike that was supposed to take about 2.5 hours. Earth Trekkers recommended the clockwise direction and closing the loop with a ride on the Allmendhubel funicular to avoid a final steep decent.

Mürren is a cute, but touristy, town with good views of the mountains everywhere. (The umlaut on the u in Mürren made searching for it on the transit app with my US keyboard difficult until I cut and pasted the word from a website and then had it in my list of recent searches.)

The Northface trail starts off on a dirt road, but most of the hike is on narrow dirt paths through farms. At the beginning we could look back and get a nice view of the town of Mürren, but quickly we were surrounded by gorgeous views of mountains with a few short treks through wooded areas and some encounters with cows. The cows are fenced in with electric fences, which visitors are warned not to touch. From time to time we had to open and close a gate to stay on the trail.

After about 2.5 hours of hiking the road to the Allmendhubel funicular was in sight and we were ready for our ride down the mountain. We hiked to the funicular and were disappointed to discover it had already closed for the day. At that point we had no choice but to turn around and retrace our steps back to the trail and continue on down the hill. Ideally, the last leg would be done with hiking polls, but we managed without them. When we reached the bottom we could see the funicular track on the hill. We walked to the train station and took a cog train to a cable car back to Lauterbrunnen.

Next up: Part 5: 5 trains to Glion

[Previous post: part 2]

The next day the sun came out and we could see the mountain tops from Wengen! We debated which high summit to go to and settled on Schilthorn rather than the super popular Jungfraujoch (covered in snow and known as the “top of Europe”) to avoid some of the crowds and the need for advance reservations and winter boots. We didn’t have time to do both and the cable cars to the peaks are fairly expensive. We took the train down the mountain to Lauterbrunnen again, and this time took the bus to Stechelberg and then (very crowded) cable cars to Gimmelwald, Mürren, Birg, and finally Schilthorn. We went directly from cable car to cable car on the way up to reach the summit before there was danger of afternoon clouds, although it ended up being sunny all day.

Schilthorn’s summit is at 9,744 feet, the highest we went on our trip. The cable car system is currently under construction as they build bigger, faster cable cars to transport more people in coming years.

There are beautiful views at the top, as well as a revolving restaurant (Plz Gloria) and a small James Bond museum commemorating the 1969 movie On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, that was filmed on this peak and in the revolving restaurant. We ate our picnic lunch at the summit and watched people paragliding — a sport that seems both wonderful and absolutely terrifying.

After we had our fill of Schilthorn we took the cable car back down to Birg (summit at 8,806 feet) and enjoyed more views and a “thrill walk.” Yes, I walked on the glass platform but I didn’t let go of the handrail and I tried not to look down!

After all the views and thrills we took the cable car down to Mürren (5,374 ft) for an afternoon hike.

Next up: Part 4: Northface hike

[Previous post: part 1]

Our second day in Switzerland was cloudy and foggy. We had planned to travel to a high peak but realized all we would see is clouds (in fact there is a local TV station that airs live footage from the local peaks and there wasn’t much to see), so we opted for a valley hike instead. We stopped in a local grocery store and bakery to pick up fresh-baked bread, cheese, and fruit. Then we took the cog train back to Lauterbrunnen, walked around the town, and then headed to a nearby waterfall.

There was a large crowd on the path leading up to the lookout “behind” the waterfall. We waited and took our turn looking out. From that vantage point it really seemed more like a mist or a light rain so it wasn’t quite as impressive as anticipated, but still fun.

After we came down from the waterfall we continued down the valley path towards Stechelberg. We walked through lots of farmland with cows and sheep. We walked past a whitewater river and a lot more waterfalls. We also saw lots of split logs piled in neat stacks by the side of the path, drying out for winter. The mostly-level path was well maintained, with lots of benches and picnic tables. We stopped at a picnic area and ate our lunch.

The path continued on through a more wooded area and finally began a steep climb with several hundred stair steps, winding past more waterfalls.

Finally we reached the town of Gimmelwald, another town that prohibits personal cars. Gimmelwald is accessible by foot and cable car. There is a cable car up from the valley level and another one that continues on up to Mürren. The cable cars hold about 100 people and are timed to arrive at the same time and wait a few minutes so passengers wishing to travel on both can easily hop out of one and into the other and continue on their journey. Since Mürren appeared to be blanketed with fog we just walked around Gimmmelwald rather than continuing up the mountain. Later, we took the cable car back down to Lauterbrunnen.

Gimmelwald is much less touristy than the other towns we visited in the region and it doesn’t have a lot of places to stay or eat. We saw working farms, some self-service cheese outlets, and an “honesty shop” where you are on your honor to pay for what you take. We saw goats, chickens, and lots of cows. And, of course, where there are cows there are also cow bells.

Next up: Part 3: sunny day trip to Schilthorn and Birg

We flew to Boston two Saturdays ago to drop our youngest kid off at college and then headed back to the airport to catch our flight to Zurich. It was a great way not to think too much about our newly-emptied nest. Plus, the timing worked out to combine a work trip with vacation in a really lovely spot. In this blog post I’ll post about our arrival in Switzerland and then tell you about the rest of the trip (but mostly show you photos) in the next six posts. [part 2 | part 3 | part 4 | part 5 | part 6 | part 7]

Here is all the stuff we brought with us to Boston. The purple bags are the parents’ bags, headed to Switzerland. The rest of the stuff goes with the college student (actually not very much, we bought the bulky bedding and other stuff when we arrived and we’ll send her winter clothes later). We had to buy an extra seat on the plane for the guitar and bass to make sure they wouldn’t have to be checked as luggage. But with the new heavy-duty guitar case and the extra-small plane we were on, we couldn’t fit both instruments in one seat. Thankfully, there was an extra seat in business class and the airline gave the guitar a free upgrade.

After saying farewell to the college student, we had an uneventful overnight flight to Zurich. We arrived, went through customs, grabbed lunch at the train station, and immediately boarded a train towards the Berner Oberlin region. We made great use of the handy SBB Mobile Swiss train app, which lets you plan your journey, pay for your tickets online, and gives you detailed updates on train arrival, station maps, etc. It shows you what platform your train is coming in on and how to get to your next train quickly and easily so you don’t miss your connection. We travelled on many trains on our trip, almost all of them were on time or just a few minutes late, and we did not miss any connections despite most of them being under 10 minutes. The trains were, for the most part, very clean and quiet. What’s also remarkable is the app covers almost all the Swiss transit systems, even though they are owned and operated by different companies. We used the app to buy tickets on regular trains, cog trains, funiculars, busses, and cable cars across multiple cities. If you have a travel pass, you can also add that to the app and it will take that into account and offer the appropriate discounts. We did not buy a travel pass on this trip because I could not find one that seemed to be worthwhile given our itinerary so we just paid per ride and got a few free local rides from the city passes the hotels are required to provide.

Our first train trip required four hops and took about three hours. We went from the Zurich airport to Bern, then we changed trains and went to Interlaken Ost, then changed again to travel to Lauterbrunnen, and finally, took a cog railroad train from Lauterbrunnen to Wengen. We travelled past traditional Swiss and modern brutalist buildings and through lots of farms. The final leg was up a mountain and was particularly picturesque in a train car with lots of windows.

We arrived in Wengen on a cloudy, foggy day. Wengen is one of many small towns in the region that do not allow private cars. There are golf carts and taxis (and lots of construction vehicles), but we just walked the 10-minutes through town to reach our hotel at the top of the hill.

After checking in and surveying the nearby construction we headed to a nearby hotel for a traditional Swiss fondue dinner. After dinner we explored the town some more as the fog settled in.

Throughout this part of our trip we took advice from the Earth Trekkers Switzerland blog and Rick Steve’s Switzerland book and website, as well as friends who visited this region last summer.

Next up: Part 2: cloudy day hike