Down to Lauterbrennen

 July 5 Tuesday

The weather today is changing every 5 minutes. We see blue sky and puffy white clouds and suddenly we’re in one of those clouds and are nothing. We’re happy doing some sight-sitting, catching up on laundry, having good conversation. 

Our big excursion of the day is to go down to Lauterbrennen. We came through it on our way to Murren but just changed trains and didn’t see anything. Getting to Lauterbrunnen involves a narrow gauge train. Then switching to a cable car. Hard to imagine living here and doing that to go to the next town!

The first thing we noticed was the cars and the number of tourists. Compared to Atlanta it’s nothing but after being in Murren, it felt like a lot. 

We follow the main road towards the falls. A friend had told us that the cemetery was nice va so a we were also on the moon or for that. When we got close to the waterfall, we discovered that the cemetery was directly across from the falls. 

All of the markers were neat little flower beds with beautiful, well cared for flowers. There wasn’t an old section. I think the oldest one we saw was a a death date  in the va 1960’s. Christina said that in Germany you have to pay yearly for grave maintenance. None of this impertuity stuff like we have in the States. Nobody pays and the bones are dug up and the spot is reused. I think that va is what is happening here as well.

There is a path up to the waterfalls. Christina and I decided to walk up it while Nick waits comfortably at the bottom. It ended up being more than we thought it would be. We got to where we thought the path ended to discover a big metal tunnel going back into the mountain. From there we took open metal stairs. Then the stairs turned into steps kinda cut into the rock and we popped back out  of the mountain next to a the falls. You really couldn’t see the falls very BBC well but a god view of the town and a feeling of adventure.

Back down we stop at a truck selling little donuts. Donuts go great with beer. Right????? Actually the donuts were gone by the time the beer came.

We’ve seen what we came to see and what Lauterbrennen is famous for — the water falls. So back up the mountain. First the cable car then the little train. While on the train we noticed a boy of probably about 13,  riding hours bike as hard as he could be and keeping pace with the train. He had such a big grin on his face. He would fall a little behind on the steep uphill but then would catch up again. 

Tonight is our last night in Murren and our last night with Christina so we decided to splurge for dinner and go to the best restaurant in town. It’s a small town but the competition is stiff and it is V truly wonderful and truly be a splurge. We all ended up choosing the venison with a cream mushroom sauce, red cabbage and a fruit computer with pears, currants and cranberries. A good Bordeaux wine too good with it asking with the great view. Definitely a memorable night. 

When we got back to our place, Christina made a fruit topping out of the leftover pears and apples from the fondue to go on the waffles we had left. Really good!