I've mentioned Walter's a few times and thought I'd give you a little info about it. Walter is 88 and still does all the breakfast and dinner cooking for his guests. Tim is the "front man." Tim is from the UK and an absolute joy. Not that Walter isn't nice, he is just a guy that stays in the background and doesn't say a whole lot.
Walter's sits at the top of Gimmelwald. There are two ways to get there from the cable car: a road (about 15-18 minutes) or a path/stairs (about 5-10 minutes). Most of the time we took the road. It was a lot easier for Charmelle. Here is are two photos on the trail from about the middle, looking up and looking down.
The rooms at Walter's are small, but work fine. We have a community restroom on each floor, but a shower in each room. 5 minutes of hot water cost 1 franc. According to Tim, this was to make sure everyone had hot water for their shower. It's really no big deal for me, but Charmelle liked 10 minutes. We definitely made ourselves at home, as you can see in the photos below. The view every morning made this quiet little lodge seem like a 4-5 start villa.
I had one of the most enjoyable times last night. First, Max, the son of the Germany family staying at Walter's, has been very shy of the 4 days we've been here. His dad speaks pretty good English, and we've all been chatting with them. Max, however, has just been a typical shy 6-year-old. He really likes Angy Birds and did bring down his stuffed Angry Bird toy to show us.
Charmelle had tried to play Angry Birds with him on her iPad, but something wasn't working. So I went up and grabbed my iPad and off he went. He cranked though levels like a master. He even provided color-commentary for us. It was a really cute thing to watch and hear.
I decided to introduce him to Train Yard. For those that have not played it, don't start! Basically, you have to draw train tracks to carry the train or trains to the destination(s). Some times the trains need to join, other times they need to collide so their colors can mix, etc. it's a lot of fun and takes a fair amount of problem solving skills, at least for must of us adults. Then the is Max. I showed him how to draw the tracks and somehow he and I went through the basic "rules" of the game. The amazing part is, I speak maybe 20 words of German and he speaks no English. In any event we did it. He successfully completed tons of levels. It was a lot of fun. He also is a very talented artist for a little guy. He drew us 3 pictures: an iPad with Angry Birds and 2 about Train Yard. Then he asked for our address and email. I can't wait to get a message from him. It was great!
We also had 2 new couples join us at Walter's. One was from Iowa and had completed their first RAGBRAI last year. Believe it or not, they didn't know Bruce Spitzer or any of his family I could name. I told them I was suspect of their actual Iowa roots. She is a 6th grade teacher and he is an IT person. We spend a lot of time talking about Ed Tech things and RAGBRAI. The other couple was from Huston, but originally from Lafayette LA. They were getting ready to move to Washington DC where he will be starting a new position as a graphic artist. It was a lot of fun just drinking wine and chatting.
Charmelle and I decided to take a day trip down to Interlaken. It was finally a nice clear day, and with Charmelle's leg in a boot, hiking was out of the question, so we went exploring.
Interlaken is a busy town that took us less than an hour to get to (by cable car, then bus, then train). Our host had suggested a restaurant on the top floor of a hotel. It is the tallest building in the city which made it east to find, and gave us a great view of the city.
There is a park across the street that paragliders use as a landing area. So as we sat there enjoying a great lunch (sorry no photos for this, we were hungry and got side tracked), we watched the city 18 stories below and watched countless paragliders swoop in and land. It was a great way to spend the afternoon together.
I have taken so many photos in just the few days we've been here, I can't make posts for all of them. So I'll just drop of few of my favorites from this region into this post.
Cycling a major mode of transportation around here. I have been rather shocked about one thing though. The Swiss seem to take safety very seriously. We saw a city employee running a weed wacker wearing a bright orange jumpsuit with reflective stripes, long leather gloves, a helmet and full face shield. However, I honestly have only seen 3 people wearing bike helmets?
In any case, there are a lot of different bikes around, big bike parking areas near train stations and stores, etc. I've snapped some photos and thought my cycling friends would enjoy a look. The first one is am electric-assist mountain bike. Then a cool old commuter bike, then a couple bike parking areas.
Murren is a nice little town. Actually, it's quite a bit bigger than Gimmelwald. There are only 125 residents in Gimmelwald, so Murren feels like a big metropolis. They have restaurants, a grocery, spots stores, and miscellaneous shops.
Jo, JJ, and I came back down to Murren and had emailed Charmelle from Suppenalp while having coffee to take the cable car up and meet us. Once we arrived back in Murren, we found out Charmelle had walked up to Murren!
She is a crazy woman, but I love her. She was waiting for us in a little restaurant. The three of us were hungry from our hike, so we enjoyed a local standard. I'm not sure how to spell or say what it is actually called, but it was good! Hash browns made of of something like Yukon Gold potatoes, with cheese cooked into them, topped with a couple of fried eggs. Don't judge until you've had a nice hike in the Alps and have an opportunity like this one. Yummy!
We had a great day yesterday. While the clouds never actually burned off, we still made a day of it. Jo, JJ, & I hiked up to Murren, then to Im Suppen and then back down. Murren is the next town up from Gimmelwald. We can't really call it a hike to Murren, because it's actually a paved road, but it is UP. A quick comment about the road. Gimmelwald is relatively car-free. There are some tractors and small 4x4s, or farm trucks that pass by. Even this really cool old Mercedes Military truck I'm trying to get a photo of. One of the other guests works for Mercedes and is blown away by this thing as well. Anyway, the road that runs from the cable car up is a narrow single lane. While we don't see vehicles often, they do zip along. I need to ask Tim about the "rules of the road" for when there is opposing traffic. It has to happen at some point. There are not a lot of places to pull over or into along this road, so one vehicle must have to back up. I just wonder how they decide. Ok, back to the walk/hike. It takes about 35 minutes to get to Murren. Since we were still in a lot of cloud cover, we couldn't see the peaks and were walking in pea soup like fog. But it was still quiet neat. One thing that is really investing here is that no matter where you are, you can hear the sounds from waterfalls. The run-off is unreal and the water falls on the other side of the valley are huge. I've included a video so you can get a little bit of what I'm saying. The sound you hear is not static, it the sound from the waterfall in the center of the frame when the video starts, which is on the other side of the valley. It's not a great quality video, but I think you'll get the idea.
Once we got to Murren, we made our way through town to an actual hiking trail and started up some more. Yes, thin air, lots of climbing, and not riding/hiking this summer made for some tired lungs. However, the hike was well worth it.
About half-way up, a we crossed paths with a women. She told us about a little zip-line in the trees up the trail. We had a fun time playing on that. Here are a couple actions photos of Jo & JJ on the swing. We hiked along through mountain meadows and heard the cow bells in the distance, but the fog really prevented us from seeing much beyond a few hundred yards.
