A friend I recently met through Geocaching grew up in Switzerland and was very helpful answering questions as we planned parts of our trip. Based on something she described in one of her emails, the plan for our last full day was to head south. South to the Italian-speaking region. South to the hottest part of the country…

It was kind of a whirlwind tour. We checked out of our hotel in Lucerne around 9am, then caught a pair of trains to take us through the Gotthard tunnel under the alps to Lugano. From there we dropped our luggage in a locker at the station and caught a different train over to Melide to visit Swissminiatur.

Mom, you would love this place! It’s full of over 100 scale models of famous sites around all of Switzerland. There were many we didn’t recognize, but about a half a dozen were for places we did visit during the trip. We tried to look long enough to appreciate the effort of creating it all, but we also didn’t linger since most of the sites weren’t significant to us, and because the temps were already in the mid to upper 90s with heat index closer to 110.

It was lunchtime when we finished, but neither of us were hungry due to the heat. So we did the best thing we could think of and bought some ice cream bars. When we were finished, we realized we had just missed the bus that would have taken us to our second stop of the day: Italy!

Campione d’Italia is an exclave of Italy completely surrounded by the Ticino canton of Switzerland. It’s just over one square mile in area, so why bother to go there? Two reasons, really. First, to be able to say we did it and that we actually returned to a foreign country for the first time. Second and most importantly, to make up for the fact that we knew about geocaching when we went to Italy in 2010, but completely forgot to make it a part of the trip.

Yes, there is one geocache inside that square mile, and that was our destination. The next bus after the one we’d missed wasn’t for another hour, so we decided to walk about 20 minutes to get there instead. This was the hottest walk of the entire trip, but we were able to find the cache and get to an appropriate stop for a bus to get us back to Melide.

Except once we were on the (wonderfully air conditioned) bus, I was just a little too slow on the stop button. So we ended up riding partway into Lugano but away from the train station. We walked from there, but this time we were able to find shaded pedestrian alleys. I spotted someone with a slice of Focaccia pizza and suggested we get some even if we weren’t hungry. We found the shop that sold it, and I was reminded of one our our walks in Italy 9 years ago (minus the heat). We ate them on the rest of the walk to the train station, then retrieved our bags, and caught a train towards Zürich.

That’s where we are now as I write this. The train is mildly air conditioned which would probably make me miserable on any other day, but it feels pretty good right about now. I’m sure we smell pretty ripe, so hopefully no one to sit next to us. We’ll be to Zürich in just over an hour for our last night in Switzerland.

Edit: We ate at our hotel in Zurich tonight and both had Raclette for the first time. We both agreed it was far better than the fondue we tried a few days ago. Also, our room was air conditioned and had a nice mural and a balcony cow!

To escape the heat wave from Africa that has overtaken Europe, we decided today would be a good day to visit a mountain top. We started by sleeping in until 7:30 (but when your room is 25° C (75° F) there’s not a whole lot of sleeping happening.) After breakfast, we caught a bus that took us to the gondola that took us to the cable car that took us to the top of Pilatus where the view was hazy and the sun was… hot.

Once at the top we didn’t know where to go. So in an attempt to follow the signs to the bathrooms we ended up walking through a dark, cool cave with window cutouts. At the end of the tunnel the trail continued up along the side of the cliff. Not knowing exactly where we were, we just continued forward until we reached the top! From the top the views were beautiful; in one direction snow capped mountains in the distance, in another direction Lake Luzern and its surrounding cities, and in a different direction green rolling hills. Despite the hazy skies the views were fantastic.

Also from up top, we were able to get a sense of how to navigate around the top of Pilatus and see where all of the various trails went. So, we picked another peak, Esel, and started our walk over. On the way, we were treated to an alphorn performance.

After listening to a couple songs we continued up to our second peak of the morning, Esel. Lots of steps and a cache later, Carson learns that there is another cache (with a high difficulty rating) at the far end to the long and winding trail that leads to the top of the third peak. We are both hot, wearing tennis shoes, and the trail is along a steep and rocky cliff, what could go wrong!

A mile later we finally make it to ground zero and begin the hunt. After twenty/thirty minutes, we concede the find and continue up the switchback trail to the top of this peak. Once again, the view up here was impressive, but could have been better if the haze wasn’t quite so bad. From here, we hike back the mile and head straight to the cave trail we previously walked to cool down a bit.

By now it was time to head down the mountain and continue on with our day. This time we took the cogwheel train down the 48% slope to Alpnachstad where we grabbed some ice cream and started our train trek into Lucerne. We had previously talked about spending the afternoon exploring the city, so why let a little mid-90° heat keep us from our plans!

Our first stop was the Chapel Bridge where we found the answers to a letterbox cache that we would attempt later. From here, we walked through town to the Lion Monument for another, wait for it… you guessed right! Another cache!! (Insert Amber eye roll here…) now it was time to find the final for the letterbox from before.

For finding this final, I think we subconsciously wanted this one to last as long as possible. To achieve this goal, Carson put the coordinates into Google Maps and we started on our way… straight into a private drive. So we re-evaluated the map and ended up in another private drive. So we re-evaluated the map and decided this time to stick to the larger roads and take the long way around the big fortress wall to the tower at the top of a hill. With the cache finally in hand, we headed back to the hotel for a couple of sorely needed cold showers.

We were out of the hotel before 8:30 this morning to catch a…you guessed it…train. Only for the first time on the trip, this train took us to a boat! That boat took us to the small town of Bauen so we could hike from there to Seelisberg along the eastern portion of Lake Lucerne known as Unersee.

This was probably our last significant hike of the trip with a duration of a few hours and a climb of about 1400 feet. The weather has turned very warm in the last day or two with highs in the mid-90s, so we tried to start a bit earlier to avoid the hottest part of the day. Most of the climb came in the first third of our route, so that part was pretty challenging. Things leveled off somewhat after that and even started descending as we got closer to Seelisberg. It was 80° when we started our climb around 10am and temps topped out in the mid-80s before we were done. The elevation and the fact that much of the trail was in the shade both helped us stay relatively comfortable despite the weather.

We had our choice of transportation back to Lucerne once we reached Seelisberg. We could either take a bus and a train to get back faster, or a funicular and a boat which would take longer but would undoubtedly be cooler. Which do you think we chose?

We bought funicular tickets shortly after we got to the station and boarded almost immediately to head down to Treib. There we had a late lunch at one of the busiest restaurants of the whole trip. I had something basic, but Amber tried a really interesting deconstructed salad that included a variety of different items including sausage. most parts had some kind of vinegar finish, but she really liked it.

Our waitress was running herself ragged in the heat (did I mention all the tables were outside?), but she seemed to enjoy coming to our table (in fact she told us so) because we weren’t dissatisfied with the speed of her service like everyone else. So after we split a giant ice cream dessert (hey, we already hiked four miles), I made sure to leave her a nice tip. All I had was US dollars at that point, but she seemed thrilled anyway. Tipping is not expected here like it is in the US, so we’ve only done it when the service was really good and this certainly qualified despite the attitude of her other patrons.

Our ice cream finished, it was time to board the boat back to Lucerne. It took almost two hours, but we were able to stand and then sit outside in the shade where we could feel the cool breeze over the water. It was definitely the right choice for a hot day!

The boat ride ate up the rest of our afternoon, so we went straight back to the hotel to shower and figure out where to have dinner. We settled on an Italian place called La Cucina, and made a reservation with the plan to splurge a bit. We ordered a bottle of wine and each got different veal dishes. Amber’s was better, but mine was still good. For dessert, Amber got mango-passion fruit sorbet and I got Lindt chocolate mousse. Yum!

Today is a travel day, so we spent the first little bit of our morning trying to get all of our stuff back into our bags, grabbing a quick breakfast, and checking out. From the hotel, we went directly to the train station and headed off to Grindelwald for our next adventure.

We made it to Grindelwald around 9:45. Then, dropped our luggage & bags at the station and bought our First (pronounced feerst) Adventure Packages. From here we hiked farther into town and up the hill to the gondola that took us to the top.

While at the top of First, Carson found a cache and we walked the Cliff Walk. Then we finally got to the reason we were there: the zip line 🙂 After signing the I-promise-not-to-sue-you-if-I-die forms, we clipped into the seated harnesses and waited for the countdown. 3… 2… AAAHHhhhhh!!!!! This specific ride was 800 meters long while 50m above the alpine meadow and can reach a top speed of 84kph. Also, you can ride up to 4 people at a time, so Carson and I got to ride side by side (at least until I picked up speed and zipped ahead!)

After dismounting from the zip line, we moved onto the mountain carts. These carts are basically tricycles for adults that are built for off-roading. However, these do not have any pedals nor an engine and rely on down hill momentum for speed & hand breaks to slow down around the curves. THESE WERE AWESOME! The route for this portion took us about halfway down the mountain. The first two thirds of the route was roughly maintained trails and roads, while the last third was concrete lattice, think old school patio. At the end, we traded our carts for trottibikes.

These scooters are exactly what you are thinking: two wheels, one in front of the other, with a platform in between and handlebar breaks. The route for this activity took us down hill along asphalt trails and country roads. However, the last little bit of your ride took us back into Grindelwald and up hill a bit. Then uphill a lot to return the scooters to the gondola station at the beginning.

From here we decided it was time for lunch and there was a restaurant that I had read about earlier in our trip and was pretty excited to get to try it. So we walked to the edge of town and discovered that Onkle Tom’s is currently closed until July… Well, booger! Plan B was C und M, and this was a winner! They have a pretty small menu that is very seasonal, so we both ended up getting the same dish: tomato/mozzarella and pesto ravioli with an oil/diced tomato/basil dressing.

Our afternoon was not nearly as entertaining… it involved getting our bags from the luggage check, loading into another train, switching trains, and checking into our hotel, just in time to go to dinner. Everything here in Luzern seems more upscale than what we have been privy to so far. So, we picked out a restaurant that was close to our hotel named Stern and asked the lady at the front desk if we were dressed appropriately for this place. In her sweetest, noncommittal voice she said, “ummm… well?…” In layman’s terms, no, but we went anyway! This turned out to be a great choice. We sat outside and our waitress was in jeans, so we didn’t feel so out of place in our attire. Then, we ordered wine with our dinner and splurged for an assorted dessert.

Finally, back to the hotel for bed!

Waiting on the weather finally paid off! We had plans to go to at least two mountaintops during our time in Lauterbrunnen, but the forecast has been cloudy at higher elevations for our first three days here. Today the weather finally cooperated with sunny skies pretty much everywhere in the region so we took the opportunity to go up to Jungfraujoch.

But the story actually starts last night when I was trying to purchase the tickets. Our travel passes don’t cover this, though they do get us a discount. I was trying to buy the necessary tickets, and the first credit card I used wanted to send me a text for verification. Ok, I’ve received texts while in Switzerland already, this shouldn’t be a big deal. Except the text never arrived. So I tried a second time with the same result before switching to another card, only to have it declined due to fraud protection. After about 40 minutes and a conversation with two different people at Chase and Visa, I was I finally able to get the purchase to go through. Luckily that meant I had nothing to worry about this morning.

So what is Jungfraujoch? It’s the highest train station in Europe at 3,454 meters (about 11,332 feet). It sits on a saddle between the Mönch and Jungfrau summits. It took us two trains to get there, with the second one traveling mostly through a tunnel in the side of the mountain. Once you get up there, it’s a really over the top experience designed to get tourists to spend more money (as if the tickets weren’t already enough), but it’s also a really awesome experience, too.

We started by going outside on the platform at the observatory. It was pretty chilly up there, but nothing we haven’t experienced at home. Lots of people were milling around taking ridiculous photographs, and we might have been two of them. Next we went back inside to find our highest elevation cache ever. (Every Switzerland cache up to this point had probably broken our previous record from somewhere in Nebraska, but this crushed it.) Next we walked through the ice palace. We originally thought this was all man made, but the further we went the more it looked like the space had actually been carved out of the glacier. Our last cold attraction was the chance to walk up a rather slippery slope to the plateau area which is visible via the weather webcam.

We had a few more things to take care of before catching a train back down. First was a quick cafeteria style lunch (nothing special). Then we intentionally allowed ourselves to be sucked into the tourist trap that is Lindt Chocolate Heaven. I’m not telling how many truffles we bought…

With our chocolate desires taken care of (again), it was time to catch the next train out of there. The altitude wasn’t making either of us too uncomfortable, but we did feel a little off. The halfway point of a our journey back to Lauterbrunnen was the Kleine Scheidegg Station. We stopped here for a little extra time in order to complete the Grand Tour cache highlighting Jungfraujoch. It turned out to be further away than we were expecting, so we got a nice little walk in. I think this is when we both got a light sunburn. We decided to take a different route back from there, so we stopped in Grindelwald to explore a bit. This was mostly uneventful, but we’ll be back tomorrow for some more adventurous stuff.

We capped off the evening back in Lauterbrunnen with dinner at Weidstübli. We had our first cheese fondue experience, but we were both a little disappointed because it didn’t exactly impress. The Lauterbrunnen sausage, on the other hand, was quite good.

Well, you read that right, laundry day… After a week away we were running out of clean socks and shirts. So, we loaded our dirties into two small bags and headed down the hill to the laundry mat. While the laundry was running, we (I really mean Carson) worked through a few caches until our timer went off. At this point I said “See ya!” and went to finish the laundry while Carson finished a cache. Unfortunately, the clothes were not completely dry when the cycle was finished, so I hefted them back to the room, spread them out all over, and put the do not disturb sign on the door. (I could only fathom what the cleaning lady would have thought if she could have seen it!) Then we left to pursue the rest of our day.

We spent the second half of our day on the far side past Interlaken exploring the St. Beatus Caves (pronounced be-at-us). We started with lunch at the restaurant there (slow and not worth writing home about), then proceeded into the caves. You have the option to go with a guide or complete the tour on your own; we opted for the self guided tour which turned out to be pretty nice. At the first stop on our tour, there was a sign that directed us to the caves’ app. This app provided detailed information on the formations inside the caves as well as the systems known history. The cave was well lit (for a cave) and the paths and stairs were well-maintained, despite being paid for only by donations and entrance fees. It took us about an hour and a half to get through it all. Once outside again, we grabbed an ice cream bar and sat in the shade until our bus arrived.

Once back on the bus, we headed into Interlaken to grab one more Grand Tour cache and dinner. This too was pretty good, but nothing special to write home about.

Most of our trip is through regions of Switzerland that speak German as their primary language. But one of our options from Lauterbrunnen was a day trip into the French-speaking region for cheese, a castle, and chocolate. After the hiking yesterday, we wanted something a little less intense, and this day trip seemed to fit the bill. We planned out the timing for the trains we’d need take the night before, and decided to take advantage of our hotel’s picnic lunch service so we didn’t have to specifically schedule a stop and could just eat whenever we got hungry. We grabbed a quick breakfast in the morning, picked up our lunches from the front desk, and then hit the road. Er…train.

A few hours later, we arrived at La Maison du Gruyère to learn about (and taste!) their cheese. Our travel passes got us in free. The visit started with an audio guide (a cow named Cherry) who told us all about how humans ensure she produces quality milk so they can turn it into quality cheese. There were smelling samples of many of the things cows eat that ultimately affect the way the cheese tastes. Some of them were quite pleasant (mostly flower varieties) and others were kind of gross on their own. We got to see the machines and highlights of the process to make the cheese, then things wrapped up with a view into the aging cellars where they can store up to 7000 wheels of Gruyère AOP. We each got three pieces of different ages to sample. I liked the oldest best (it was the saltiest), while Amber liked the middle option.

With the cheese portion of our day complete, next we climbed up the hill to Gruyères village. Our destination was the Château de Gruyères. On the way up, we worked out the details for a letterbox cache that’s part of the Grand Tour series of caches at popular destinations across Switzerland. (The one in Appenzell that gave us so much trouble was also part of this series.) We got stuck at one point looking for a date required to open the cache box. Amber finally decided that some squiggles must be it, and it turned out she was right.

With the cache found, we continued to the castle. It was cool to see the inside and learn a little bit of its history. The castle was home to many different artists over its last couple hundred years, so most of what was on display inside was artwork. That might be ok to a point, but it was mostly from the last few decades, and some of it was really weird (think flowers-with-hands-for-stems-that-are holding-a-baby-faced-sun sort of weird). Not exactly our cup of tea. (And we liked it so much we forgot to take a picture.)

By this point we were hungry, so we settled down in a small park and broke out our lunches. Ham and cheese sandwiches, apples, candy bars, and water. Butter probably wouldn’t have been our first condiment choice for the sandwiches, but it was better than expected. We discovered that the water was “with gas” which is kind of gross, but we were pretty pleased overall considering how easy this was for us.

Then the chocolate! A quick two trains after lunch took us to Broc to visit Maison Callier. The tour started with a humorous elevator ride that took us down approximately 18 inches. Yes, really. It continued through a series of eight rooms, each with a portion on our audio guides supplemented by interactive displays, and the door to each subsequent room opened automatically when it was time to move on. Every person on the tour had their own audio unit in their own language. This initial part on the history of chocolate was a bit cheesy (wait, wasn’t that earlier?) but it was also really well done. The audio units were pretty cool because once this guided part was over, we were able to go to our choice of individual stations and hold the unit near a scan point (probably NFC) to hear the relevant content.

We listened to most of the optional audio stops and tasted a few ingredients like almonds and hazelnuts, before we broke down and skipped to the reason we were there: the chocolate tasting! Seven or eight flavors later, there was only one we didn’t like very much (marzipan and orange). The rest were delicious! Finally we had to decide what to buy to take home (or at least out of the store). We managed to limit ourselves to just six chocolate bars and two boxed assortments.

The last few trains of the day where uneventful, but gave us time to pick a spot for dinner in Interlaken. Amber chose a place called Hüsi Bierhaus. We tried a couple of local beers on tap, and the food was pretty good, too. Amber had mac and cheese with bacon, and I had the “mega bratwürst” which was extremely tasty. After dinner, we caught the last train of the day back to Lauterbrunnen.

The forecast for today indicated rain, so we were pleasantly surprised when we woke up to sunshine! This also gave us a sense that our plans for a hike today may not be a wash after all.

So, after breakfast, with our hiking gear and rain jackets on our backs, we headed out to catch the cable car to take us up to Grütschalp. This cable car was pretty interesting in that it had a cargo hold that hung underneath to easily move construction materials up and down the side of the mountain. This time it was hauling lumber.

Once at the top, we checked our map and started the 2.6 mile track to Mürren. This hike was considerably easier than our hike a couple days ago as it was fairly flat and well maintained. Along the way, we were treated to a walk through cattle, (I really wanted to pet one, but didn’t…), slugs as fat as your thumb, and waterfalls.

Shortly before arriving, with distant rumbles of thunder in the air, Carson took a moment to pause and reflect on his actions… What action is he reflecting on, you might ask? Well, the action that he made that caused him to delete all the pictures from the good Camera… it was a pretty grumpy walk into town…

After accepting that the pics were gone, we ventured into town and started to get sprinkled on. So we paused to gear up for rain; rain jackets, pack covers, and prayers. Not two minutes later, the sky opened up into a pretty good shower. Unfortunately we were on the far side of town from our next stop the cable car to Gimmelwald, so we cranked our feet into a higher gear and hassled through! On a positive note, we have decent gear and stayed dry underneath it all 🙂

Due to the rain, we tweaked our plans a bit from Mürren and instead of hiking we took the cable car down to Gimmelwald, then another down to Stechelberg, and finally a bus to Trümmelbachfälle for lunch. As we sat down to have sandwiches, the rain let up and the sun started to peak out again. We then headed over to explore Trümmelbachfälle. This is a massive waterfall that traverses mainly along the interior of the mountain with several viewing platforms along the walk up. There is an option to take an elevator from the bottom to half way up. We opted to walk all the way up but took the elevator back down.

With the sun peaking out, we spent the last part of our afternoon hiking through the Lautrebrunnen Valley, taking pictures and finding geocaches along the way. Hey!!! He found them! While taking a picture of a snail, Carson found the pictures that he thought had been deleted.

We topped off the day with dinner at Hotel Oberland with a couple of tall local brews, schnitzel for me, rösti for Carson, and chocolate fondue for dessert.

Goodbye, Appenzell! There’s a very slim chance we’ll ever see you again, but we took lots of photos to remember you, so don’t feel bad, OK?

The agenda for today was all about Liechtenstein, but it was a travel day which required strategic planning to make sure we did not have to haul our suitcase and the two hiking packs around while exploring the city of Vaduz on foot. So we took a series of trains, one of which included a crazy guy ranting at everyone in German. We really had no idea what he was saying, but I think we looked at each other like, “Is this guy off his rocker?” And honestly, the answer seemed to be yes based on the reactions of other people around us. Amber: “Now our experience is complete.”

Once we split from crazy guy, we stopped at Sargans train station. Why stop in Switzerland when our destination was in Liechtenstein? Because that station has luggage lockers where we could stash all the big stuff and transfer a few key items to a more typical backpack for the day. From there we took a bus from Sargans into Vaduz to go exploring.

One of the first things you notice in Vaduz is the castle part way up the mountainside to the east. I had forgotten that it’s not open to the public because it is the actual home of the current prince, but we decided to climb up anyway. Some of these slopes rivaled our hike from yesterday, but this climb was over much quicker. We were able to get close enough for a good look at the castle as well as some great views out over the top of Vaduz and the valley on either side.

We spent more time walking around the city finding some caches. Nothing too complicated today, but the most interesting took us to a covered pedestrian/cyclist bridge over the Rhine River between Switzerland and Liechtenstein. Imagine that…a bridge between two countries where you can freely walk back and forth with no fence to pass through and one to approve your presence!

Next it was time for lunch. We picked a place called Made in Italy, partly just to see if it measured up to what we remembered from 2010. The owner was clearly Italian, so of course it was great!

By then it was just about time to leave Liechtenstein and head for our next hotel. But before we left, I wanted to get a pressed penny. Well, of course it wasn’t a US penny, it was a €0.05 coin. And rather than costing $0.51, it set us back €4.05 (about $4.50)! With that taken care of, we caught the bus back to Sargans, grabbed the rest of our bags, and boarded a series of hot and crowded trains that weren’t much fun. By the last train of the day, we were finally starting to cool down again when we met another couple from the US on their 18 day honeymoon. And I thought 12 days was going to be expensive…

We wrapped up the day with dinner at our hotel in Lauterbrunnen. Pizza for me and Rösti for Amber. Very tasty! We also realized the weather outlook for the next few days doesn’t look great for visiting mountain tops, but that’s why we came prepared to be flexible. It looks like the agenda for tomorrow will be more hiking, this time around Lauterbrunnen Valley.

Amber said she wanted to do several hikes during this trip, so I made sure to come prepared with multiple options. My choice for this morning was of moderate difficulty and was supposed to take around two and a half hours. We’d hike up to a summit, then catch a cable car back down. Doesn’t sound too bad, right?

What if I told you the route from Schwende Station to Ebenalp included a climb of 2,500 feet? That sounds a little scary, and it probably was a bit more than either of us were originally expecting. But the trail was well-maintained and we made good time despite some sections that had us huffing and puffing. We were on our own for about the first half, then we caught up with some other groups and played leapfrog the rest of the way up. We had some great views over the valley, and passed through a cave near the end. We were pretty well spent by the time we got to the top, but we can look back now and say it was a pretty reasonable hike for us.

The climb ended at the Berggastgaus Guesthouse where we had an interesting lunch to help us refuel. I played it safe and got a breaded pork cutlet with french fries, while Amber took a risk and got something I can’t remember how to spell. It was a pasta dish with sausage, but the pasta was a little too onion-flavored for her liking.

With lunch taken care of, we had one last objective before catching the cable car back down. We worked on a multicache that required gathering numbers from nearby hiking trail signs. This was a little tricky with the translation from German, but we were able to get there and make the find without too much trouble. We watched a few paragliders take off as we came back toward the cable car station, then bought our tickets down so we could catch a train back to Appenzell.

The rest of the afternoon was spent finding all those caches at which we’d failed so miserably the day before (and dodging raindrops). It’s amazing what a full nights sleep will do for your geosenses! We even managed to work our way through that field puzzle, though I’m not sure we actually took the intended route to get there. We also visited the Appenzeller Bier brewery, and while we weren’t able to do a tasting as we’d hoped, we did get to buy beers and drink them while we listened to their audio tour.

We rounded out the evening with dinner at our hotel since it was supposed to have one of the better restaurants in town. We opted to sit outside despite the rain which was mostly pleasant until it picked up just before dessert and started coming in around the edges. This was probably our best meal yet with both of us really enjoying our selections.

One last thing…