Travelling with Stabilo #6: Destination - Bernese Oberland , Day 3
On our third day in the alpine wonderland of Bernese Oberland, we decided to go for a town hopping adventure, exploring the many resort towns in the region. But first, we had to sort out our lost transport pass, otherwise we would not be able to go anywhere. So we headed down to the Lauterbrunnen station just after 9 am. Luckily the lady at the counter was much nicer than the one we encountered the day before, and within 10 minutes she gave us our replacement pass, free of charge. We were ready for our adventure!
Map taken from here
We hopped on the next train heading to Wengen, our first stop. The Bernese Oberland rails does a circuit loop from Lauterbrunne to Grindlewald and back, passing through Wengen and Kleine Schedidegg. Wengen is a mountain side town full of alpine style resorts and accommodations. Just like Mürren they also have a massive ice-skating rink. Maybe it’s for skiers who wanted something else to fall on to harden their bottom. There was also a nice little church and the whole place looked very romantic.
We stayed for a little while to admire the lovely town and took tons of selfies the traditional way with a tripod and a 10s timer. After that, we headed up to Männlichen via cable car. Männlichen is a small peak in the middle of the Bernese Oberland region. At 2230m above sea level, Männlichen is the starting point of a number of ski trails. In summer, Männlichen is the start of a lovely hiking trail that goes along the mountain ridge to Kleine Schedidegg. Unfortunately, in winter this trail is closed, so we didn’t get to go on it. However, the scenery at Männlichen was enough to keep us busy for a while. The weather wasn’t great as there was overcast, and the cloud and the snow combined to make everything look grey.
We went uphill, away from all the skiers and ski lift queues to get a better view of the area. As we went up, it almost seemed like we were hiking in Antarctica. There was nothing except snow all the way to the top, and it was very hard to determine where this top is. It’s like the sky have joined up with the snow to give an infinity of white. As we walked further along it looked more and more dangerous as it seemed that we were just walking into nothingness. I was worried about avalanches or accidentally falling off a cliff, so we turned around. And before us, the Männlichen came into full view, looming over the cable car station, with the higher peaks of Mönch, Jungfrau and Eiger hidden in the clouds. The panoramic view of the mountains was surely a feast to the eye.
It turned out that we didn’t really walk that far off into nothingness. In no time, we were back to the cable car station, ready for our next leg of the journey. We rode the cable car down the other side of the Männlichen, towards the other major gateway of the region, Grindelwald. Grindelwald is another resort town in the Bernese Oberland region and has nothing to do with the evil wizard Gellert Grindelwald in the Harry Potter Universe. Grindelwald has a similar status as Lauterbrunne as a low altitude town that is within easy access from Interlaken. The only difference is that unlike Lauterbrunne, Grindelwald is not car free. This small difference was felt as soon as we disembark the cable car at Grund, the cable car station at the foot of the mountain, about 20 mins walk from Grindelwald. Unlike Mürren, Lauterbrunne and Wengen that hosted pristine whiteness, the snow in the area has a brownish tinge to it. The place looked quite muddy probably due to cars driving past, bringing in dirt as well as melting the snow into the ground. The area was still beautiful, and the walk to Grindelwald was refreshing. We had to cross a bridge above a running stream, which was a nice break from all the frozen things that we have seen so far.
By the time we got to Grindelwald proper, it was past lunch time, and we were keen for a break and some food. We rocked up to a restaurant and went inside. The lady serving us was not enthusiastic at all. Maybe she was annoyed that we had to order food just as her shift was supposed to end? Anyways, we ordered a pumpkin soup and a rosti. A rosti is a traditional Swiss dish that is kind of like hash brown – thinly grated potatoes pan fried to crispy, then top with cheese, bacon and in this case a fried egg. Both were very delicious. After the late lunch we went around town to explore. It was starting to snow. A St Bernard seemed to have taken a fancy of us, and started following us around on our adventure. We walked to the fringe of the town where there was less people and stared at the vast snow-covered fields and cute little houses, and wondered what a good life it would be to retire here in this beautiful village in this beautiful part of the world.
We said good bye to our new tailed friend and walked back into town to catch the ski-lift up to First, a ski-field just above Grindelwald. I was not too keen on going on a ski-lift with my feet dangling in the bitter cold and only a bar stopping me from falling into the abyss. My other half however seemed overly excited. But it turned out there was nothing much to be excited about, as by the time we got to First, the weather was so poor that really nothing could be seen. Worried that the ski-lift was going to close due to the deteriorating weather, we hurried back down to Grindelwald. We found that there were a whole lot more people in town then a while back, presumably because everyone’s day was cut short due to this storm. We too, decided to head back to Lauterbrunne by train, where our warm room and hot food would be waiting for us.
