Yet more mountains and one waterfall

After leaving Lucerne, we made our way to Grindelwald for yet more mountains and hiking. Grindelwald is one the highest drivable points up to the swiss alps, and having a car meant, why not? Apparently there was an end of season open-air concert the weekend we were there so we were actually pretty lucky to get a room! We didn’t know about it til we were there but none of the artists appealed to us so no biggie.

Lake Thun (on route to Grindelwald)

Similar to Baden-Baden, you get a tourist pass when you check into the hotel, which gives you some discounts. With the pass, we were able to use the sport centre swimming pool for free so that’s what we did. It was really quite wonderful to plunge into a pool of warm water when it was so cold outside. The lovely view of the swiss alps from the pool certainly helped too!

View of Mount Eiger from our room

After a day of relaxing at the pool, we went hiking again the next day and it was freaking hot!! Due to the open-air concert, some of the trails were closed however that didn’t stop us though our original plan was to hike up and then take the cable car down. In any case, it was another heart-stopping cable car ride up and then we spent some time playing with the snow up in the mountains. Ski season was officially over, however there was enough snow for kids to learn how to ski and there were quite a few of them doing practice runs, pretty cute actually. We just fooled around and threw some snowballs at each other, lol... The hike down was pretty alright except for the sun beating down on us, the two of us got totally burnt!

Before the long hike, why not have ice cold beer?

After hiking at Grindelwald, we made our way to Trummelbach Falls which are the only glacier waterfalls inside the mountain and still accessible in Europe. It took us a while to find it as there were many other waterfalls around that region and we thought we could view it from the outside. It turned out that we had to take a lift up to view it up close. It’s enclosed within the mountain so the sound of the water gushing down at up to 20,000 litres per second is pretty deafening. It was a bit creepy as well cos it was quite dark and it was pretty late when we were there so it was also quite empty. It was a bit of the ‘Lord of the Rings’ moment when Frodo and Sam were in Shelob’s lair, as it was so dark, otherwise the sight was quite majestic to behold.

Totoros in the alps!!!

(not native to this region)