On day 1 of our Swiss stay we decided to cover Schilthorn which is a 2,970 meter high summit of the Bernese Alps, overlooking the valley of Lauterbrunnen in the Swiss canton of Bern. First of all we took a train from Interlaken OST to Lauterbrunnen which is a small village. These stations are connected by a narrow guage train and the train remains in the plains for most of the time during this trip which lasts around 20 minutes. We could see nice views of the Alps and lush green grasslands dotted with bunch of small yellow flowers on the way. The train runs in parallel to river Weisse Lütschine for part of the trip and it was an amazing sight seeing the river down at a depth while the train plies through the mountains.
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| Streets of Lauterbrunnen |
After reaching Lauterbrunnen we decided to spend some time walking around and getting to the know the place. It had just rained there and was a cloudy day. You could see me walking on the streets of Lauterbrunnen on this picture on the left. We could see the mountain slopes covered with lush green grass with sheep grazing all around. There was a waterfall with a narrow stream of water falling from quite a height as you can see in the picture below.
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| Waterfall |
At the time we visited the place we used a funicular to travel from Lauterbrunnen to Grutschap and then took a little train from there to Murren. The funicular has been now replaced by a gondola which delivers you to the same place Grutschap from where you take the same little train to Murren. For those not familiar with funicular it's a small train with cog wheels which takes you up a very steep ride to the top of the mountain. It was an amazing ride with scenes changing every minutes. When we started at the base we could see the green grass, mid-way the journey snow flakes started to appear all around and finally we we reached the top at Grutschap it was all covered with snow.
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| Murren |
From Grutschap we took a small train to the mountain village of Murren and this journey was even more spectacular. The train passed through the snow covered mountains and we were at quite a height.
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| Murren |
Finally we reached the Murren village and we were told to walk through the village to a cable car which was to take up to the schilthorn mountain. Murren remains a cosy mountain village which is the highest, continually inhabited village settlement in the canton of Bern and lies on a terrace at 1650 metres, high above the Lauterbrunnen valley. The walk through the village was quite a delight. It had snowed last night and the threes and houses were all covered with thick snow.
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| Murren |
We could see quite a lot of houses around but it was all deserted with nobody in sight except us the tourists.
You can see some nice snaps of me enjoying the walk in Murren village.
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| Murren |
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| Murren |
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| Schilthorn Summit |
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| Schilthorn Summit |
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| Piz Gloria Revolving Restaurant |
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| Piz Gloria Revolving Restaurant |
Finally we reached the cable car station at Murren. From Mürren the cable car took us to Birg, which is the final change before the Schilthorn. From birg we took another cable car to the Schilthorn summit and between Birg and the summit, the cable car passes over Grauseeli, a small lake. Schilthorn has a panoramic view which spans from the Titlis, Jungfrau, Mönch, Eiger, over the Bernese Alps and the Jura mountains up to the Vosges Mountains and the Black Forest. Other than spectacular view of the mountains the main attraction is a panoramic revolving restaurant, named Piz Gloria, at the summit, which is where the James Bond movie On Her Majesty's Secret Service was set. A famous black ski run featured in the film starts at the summit and leads down to the Engetal below Birg. The restaurant revolves a full 360 degrees in 55 minutes. In the picture on the right I'm standing on the stationery part of the restaurant while the whole restaurant around me along with chairs and tables is revolving.
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| Jungfrau from Piz Gloria |
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| A Graveyard at Lauterbrunnen |
In another amazing picture on the right it looks as if I'm sitting besides a picture frame but it is a real view of the mountains in the backdrop. Funny isn't it! We spent some time at the summit soaking our eyes in amazing view of the snow covered peaks. In any other tourist place we had to do quite a lot of hiking and tracking to reach a place like this but we were able to reach at the mountain top enjoying our lunch at the Piz Gloria restaurant without moving our limbs too much. It can happen only in Switzerland. If there is one place which truly symbolizes the spirit of Lazy Traveller it's switzerland gentlemen. Lazy Traveller loves Switzerland and would like to come back to this again and again.
While returning to Lauterbrunen when we descended using the funicular we spotted a pretty looking garden. We decided to explore after getting down. We walked down to the garden but on arriving there we realized it's actually a graveyard. We could not believe our eyes. Even a graveyard can be so tastefully landscaped and can be beautiful.
Finally we ended our journey by taking the train back to Interlaken. We were literally taken off our feet on our first encounter with Switzerland. The truly mesmerizing natural beauty on one hand and amazing tourist friendly infrastructure on other hand. It makes Switzerland one of the top tourist destinations in worldwide. You must visit Switzerland at least once in your life. That's all for now folks and keep coming back for my remaining blogs of Jungfrau and Zurich.
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