May 20

Awoke again this morning (Wednesday) to a glorious day of sunshine and glass lake view of Lake Geneva. After a quick morning run and few more snapshots, we said goodbye to Lausanne/Ouchy and made our way to the Black Forest in Germany.

May 19

This morning (Tuesday) the sun was once again bright, so after a morning jog along Lake Geneva, we booked a leisurely ferry ride from Ouchy to Chateau de Chillon. This was very scenic as we stopped at several small lake front towns, and passed many vineyards. The visit at the Chateau was equally enjoyable as it is one of the few medieval castle undamaged and well preserved. I predict that this leg of the trip will involve many more castles and vineyards.

We returned to Lausanne/Ouchy via the train and walked down to the Olympic Park and Museum. This was a well spent couple of hours and we enjoyed the sites - including a Canadian hockey jersey from the men’s silver medal at Lillehammer (1994).

May 18

We left Gimmelwald in heavy fog and a light mist - so guess it was time to say good bye to this piece of heaven. The drive to Lausanne was pretty cloudy and mostly rain, making the twisty drive via ‘the scenic route’ less enjoyable. Our stops along the way made up for it as we stopped in Gruyere for a cheese making demo and samples, as well as the Cailler Chocolate Factory (demo and many samples J J ). We arrived in Ouchy (the river front by Lausanne) and loved it so much we just booked a room with a view.

Gimmelwald (May 13 - 18)

We also took some pictures of the other larger falls, specifically the Murrenbach and Spissbach falls.

Friday, we had booked a panoramic train ride from Interlaken to Montreux.  We awoke to some pretty low clouds, and by the time we reached the valley the rain started to fall.  The Golden Pass train ride was interesting despite the weather, but we both agreed that the Bernina Pass train trip had the better scenery.  Anyways, here are some pictures of the train we took up,  the cloudy scenery and the "Classic" Panoramic train we took back.

Today  (Saturday) we awoke to the breaking cloud cover, and after viewing the satellite views of the mountain tops, scrambled out of bed and quickly headed out to the cable car to ride up to the Schilthorn mountain (famous for the setting of a James Bond 007 movie).  The cloud cover continued to burn off, and we really had some great views of the mountains, and after a few pictures, went inside for the 007 breakfast buffet.

We then caught the cable car back down to Gimmelwald and our B&B to change into shorts and start our hikes. We split the hikes into two parts  - the first leg was from Gimmelwald up to Murren.  Many of the barns have large cowbells hanging under the eaves, so I took a picture with Scott standing beside them to illustrate the size of these bells.  Sure wouldn't want to be the cow wearing those!  Murren is situated up from Gimmelwald (only accessible by the trails or by cable car), but we were rewarded when we arrived as we found a really big Toblerone chocolate bar (Jack told us the Swiss had the best chocolate).

After lunch and refreshments we started out on the next hike which felt like we were walking totally vertical, but after the first bit of huffing and puffing, the trail did level out to a reasonable climb and on top of the ski run we had great views of the three famous mountains - Eiger, Monch and Jungfrau (also visible from the Schilthorn).  By the way, for all of those people back home that are still getting snow, we encountered some at the top of our trail as well.

May 13

This morning we packed our bags again and headed towards inner Switzerland to the 'true outback'.  We pretty much stuck to the autobahn on our way up here, and were corralled through parts of the autobahn with temporary barriers.  We made a few stops along the way to check out the local weather, hikes, bikes and transportation before parking our car and  taking the cable car up the mountain to our home for the next several days.  Here are some preliminary pictures of our means of transportation, view and the B&B we are staying at.  Hope the weather holds out and we can really get around to visit the many falls, mountains and trails.

Chur (May 11 - 13)

We drove from Hall, Austria to Chur, Switzerland via many tunnels and back roads - but both enjoyed the scenery along the way, and of  course planned our trip to take us through the small country of Liechtenstein.  Arriving at Chur, we promptly made our way to the train station to confirm our reservations on the Panoramic scenic train for the Bernina Pass.  

Tuesday morning we were up bright and early to board the train, along with many other tourists and British train buffs.  We soon discovered that these cars have the most spectucular views of the passing scenery (but not so good for picture taking due to the window reflection).  Scott continued with his Swiss Alps training, focusing on the exercising of his right index finger (which suffered minor cramping) and managed to go through 3 batteries and almost 2 memory cards snapping pictures!  We were also glad that we 'splurged' for the deluxe panoramic train vs. the economy, no frills option.

There was snow along the way and we did see one downhill skier, but generally signs of spring were everywhere with the melting snow, flowering meadows and the most intense shades of spring  green everywhere.  We had to laugh as once again the most frequently shot bridge was under restoration (starting to become a theme on our trip) and was colorfully drapped in bright red Unesco tarps to cover up the scaffolding and even had a clear sign 'no pictures' over the Landwasser viaduct.

Once we arrived at the final destination (Poschiavo), we departed the train and were planning on looking around a bit, but soon discovered the whole town shuts down for a 2 hour lunch.  Fortunately, a few restaurants were open, so we had a light lunch before heading back. 

We decided to take the regular train back down, versus waiting around for the Panoramic train, and boy did we luck out.  We virtually had our own train car, and Scott could happily move from side to side and open the windows for as many pictures as he wanted (his movements back and forth were kind of like those happy dogs in vehicles moving from window to window in the back seat of a car :).  By the way, we noticed many trees cut down to improve the view - so we were wondering when did our friend (and fellow train buff) George S. make it up here?

Fortunately it was laundry night, so we had plenty of time to download the many pictures and select a few shots for the website.  Tomorrow we head off to the real back country and mountains further into Switzerland.