May 28, 2011 - Varenna

Last night's storm led to a beautiful day here. We are truly feeling la dolce far niente. Lazy and lay back. We walked through the village this morning and decided this should be our last memory not an airport hotel. We found a restaurant overlooking the lake and made reservations for Monday night then booked a shuttle to the airport from here. The lake is incredible and we took the ferry to Bellagio, it's more incredible then the one in Las Vegas and a lot more beautiful. We ate here last night and were in heaven the food was fabulous, the...

May 27, 2011 - Lake Como

We are in Varenna on Lake Como. Oh yes it is beautiful here. Today was challenging. It rained all day and we were switching trains all day. We left Engelberg at 9:00am and arrived here at 5:30pm. Although we thought Engelberg beautiful, it was not a great place for us. The mountains are for skiing, little walking accept at high altitude and mountain climbing skills would be needed. So the geriatric duo, although we have loved our hiking, chose to take the easy roads. We arrived in Lucerne and after having spent the afternoon there...

May 25, 2011 - Engelberg

We are in Engelberg. Which seems to be all hotels and gift shops. Very fancy. Far step from our wonderful little Lauterbrunner. Here, however, they are remodeling. Instead of cowbells all we can hear is jackhammers and there are cranes all over the city. We are staying in a Hotel which was built over 100 years ago, you can tell. Last night I went down to the desk and no one was there. Apparently one must go to the bar next door if you have a problem. The bar had two girls, barely in their 20's and neither spoke English very well. The hotel...

May 24, 2011 - Last day in Lauderbrunnen

Today we took a train up the mountain to Kleine Scheidegg. It is at the base of the Jungfrau, which has the highest train station in Europe. The train, which we did not take, travels inside a mountain until you reach the top. Then you ascend to a building which has been built next to a glacier. We then walked down the mountain to the next village. It took an hour or so. The three mountains in the group are the Eiger (ogre), the Monk, and the Jungfrau( young girl). I had read the Eiger Sanction many years ago and enjoyed seeing it in person....

May 23, 2011 - Monday in Switzerland

Today was one more beautiful day here. We left early this morning and took the train to Grindelwald. We took the ski life up to First(Fierst) got off at the top and the hiked to a lake, about an hour and a half. No meters just time. Spent most of the day there. The pictures will explain why. Last night as we went to dinner, the town band was performing on the main, only street. They had new uniforms and there were women dressed in traditional wear. We of course were on our way to dinner and had no camera. When we returned to our village,...

Jul 18, 2010 - Day 12

Day 12 So we treated ourselves today and went on a train to the highest train station in Europe. It's called the Jungfraujoch and holy cow, it was high up! We arrived at the station after an hour and forty minutes on two different trains. Then we went up to the observation tower and surveyed an amazing view of the Swiss Alps and glaciers. We took the snow path (in our stupid running shoes) even further up and it was the first time Kim or I have ever felt shortness of breath from being so high up (about 13,000 feet above sea level). We had...

Jul 17, 2010 - Day 11

Day 11 Well spent most of today travelling. We left Fussen at about 11:00 A.M. and got to Grindelwald, Switzerland at 7:30 p.m. It was a long day but we had no problems most of the way. The last connection was tricky because we had no platform information until we got there and we had about 7 minutes to catch the next train. Anyway, we arrived and found our hotel and then walked around for about 2 hours. It is breathtaking here. Just what you'd expect to see in a "Heidi" movie. We are right next to 2 giant mountains and overlooking the...

Jul 6, 2007 - Grindewald

The night before a lady at the patch store suggested that we go to Grindewald. After a quick trip to the Coop we headed to the train station to see how much it would cost us. The train ride only took 40 minutes and 15 CHF. The views were spectacular and of course Grindwald was pretty darn nice. It's mainly tourist shops, sport stores (Inter sport is everywhere) and restaurants. All the hiking trails lead to a different restaurant and at the very top was the highest train station which looked super cool in all the pamphlets but that's the...