Switzerland vacation: Tuesday in the Interlaken area and evening arrival in Zermatt

 Tuesday started with a wonderful, simple Swiss breakfast at our hotel. Although breakfasts in Europe can't hold a candle to the traditional American eggs and bacon breakfasts, there is definitely something to be said for a breakfast of freshly baked croissants with Nutella spread, fruit salad, homemade cheese from the neighboring farm, hard boiled eggs, and fresh OJ (all served on adorable plates adorned with Swiss cows of course).

With fully bellies, we headed into the mountains in our hiking gear.  After finding out that the trip to the top of the Jungfrau mountain cost a whopping 198 Swiss francs (!!), we opted to go to the peak of the Schilthorn instead, which was one of the sites in the James Bond movie 'On Her Majesty's Secret Service' and our hotel concierge claimed that it had better views than the Jungfrau anyways. We took a variety of trains and cable cars to the peak.  The cable cars are used in the winter to transport skiiers to the various trails while in the summer they transport tourist view-seekers to the various peaks.  All of the cable cars in this area played the James Bond theme song over the loudspeakers while on the rides (it was cute the first time, but by the 4th and 5th time it got a little old!).  Cheesy music aside, the view from up top was amazing, it provided a full 365 degree panorama of the surrounding mountains and the 50 degree temperature on the summit was also welcome as the temperatures in the valley below were approaching 90 degrees. As with all of my past pictures of the mountaintop views, pictures just don't do this spot justice - I could have stayed up here for hours taking in the sights, basking in the sunshine, and watching the world go by in the valleys below.

The building contains a restaurant that rotates 365 degrees once every hour to allow visitors to take in the views

After dragging myself away from this peak, we rode a different set of cable cars down to the little village of Gimmelwald, one of Rick Steeves' favorite spots in Europe.  The popular tourist saying about Gimmewald is: If heaven isn't what its cracked up to be, send me back to Gimmelwald! And heavenly it is, it is a slice of Swiss alps perfection with outstanding views, pastures dotted with alpine flowers and cows, mountain chalets, and a quaint way of life.

Benches in town 

Heidi braids in full force

Filtered glacier water that you can use to fill up your water bottles

We had lunch at a hostel overlooking the mountains. Lunch was a "croute fromage", basically a big slice of toasted bread with cheese and an egg on top -- do you notice a pattern yet with Swiss food? :)

The hostel where we had lunch

To give you a better feel for this adorable mountain destination, below is a video from Rick Steeves on the town:

After lunch, we took another set of cable cars down all the way to the valley floor (known as the Lauterbrunnen Valley) and proceeded to hike down to one of the lower train stations on our way back to Interlaken. This valley is often called one of the most beautiful in Switzerland because of its dramatic cliffs and waterfalls. We managed to get close to one of these waterfalls to cool off in its mist.

Feeling the temperature of the river (FREEZING) and skipping rocks

After a rewarding and steamy day of hiking and adventuring, we went back to our hotel in Interlaken and grabbed our bags and hopped aboard a 1.5 hour train to Zermatt.  I had been to Zermatt previously in the winter season and if you remember from a previous blog spot, I named it one of my "happy places" in the world, so I was excited to check out all that it had to offer in the summer to see if it could live up to my expectations in this season as well.  Our first order of business once arriving in town was to find a hotel.  Apparently summer is the "low season" in Zermatt (which is the opposite of Interlaken, whose ski slopes are lower than Zermatt, so winter tends to be its low season), which meant that we found an awesome deal at a swanky hotel in town, complete with a "wellness" spa area that we took advantage of.

After relaxing in the wellness spa, we grabbed an Italian dinner in town and caught a good night's sleep in preparation for more alpine adventures the next day.

Here is how we met our cheese/chocolate/wine requirements for the day:

Cheese: Home made cheese at the hotel for breakfast and cheese on our croute fromage
Chocolate: Nutella on croissants, mmmm and chocolate on our pillows in our hotel in Zermatt
Wine: Glass of white for lunch and red during our Italian dinner