gimmelwald, switzerland

We had read all about Gimmelwald in Rick Steves' Europe Through the Back Door book. THIS is what I had been waiting for! We had to take a cable car up into the mountains because it is not accesible to cars. Right now as I'm typing this I have no idea where to even begin! This place is absolutely incredible and I think the highlight of my trip thus far. It's VERY tiny, with one main road and only 100 or so residents. The post office is only open for a couple hours a day, and there is no grocery store, we had to hike to the next town, Murren. We were only planning on a few nights, but ended up staying 5.. and we still didn't want to leave!

We walked the 20 meters to our hostel, and signed our names down for beds, there is no reception here during the day. It was cloudy when we got here, but we heard from other guests just how beautiful it was here and we could't wait for it to clear up. While we were waiting to check in, we met one of the cats that roams around here. He dive bombed my leftover lasagne I was eating. It was so cute, he had sauce all over his little chin! I fed him some of the cat treats we've been carrying around, and he ate them right up. We found out later that he also has a sister, and they aren't anybody's cats, they just roam around here. We instantly fell in love with them both and would feed them and give them milk everyday. There are two people our age working here that said we should take them with us. We are seriosly considering stopping by here again on our way home and adopting them! We named the girl Joey (like from Dawson's Creek) because she would climb in our window everynight and sleep with us (ok fine, Mike would snatch her in, same thing! haha..) The boy, Roger, knows he's not allowed in the hostel, so he was a lot more hesitant.

Anyways, we woke up the next morning in awe. There were white, snowy mountains, ALL around us! We decided to take the cable car all the way up to the top of the Schilthorn, and hike down from there. It was gorgeous up there, blue sky and huge mountains all around. There was a layer of clouds, but on a clear day you can supposedly see all the way into France and Germany as well. A James Bond movie, On Her Majesty's Secret Service, was filmed in the restaurant at the top of the Schilthorn. We started the hike down just as the clouds really rolled in and we couldn't see much. Mike's knees were really bothering him, so we only hiked down to Birg, and took the cable car from there. We stopped in Murren to get some groceries, and loaded them into our packs for the rest of the hike down into Gimmelwald. We had food for 5 days, so our packs were quite heavy. We saw this farmer with his little tractor pulling a flatbed trailor, and we stuck out our thumbs and he stopped. It was so awesome! he towed us all the way back down, bumping along, and we were so grateful!

The next day we hiked through the Sefinental Valley and back. Again, it was absolutely gorgeous. At one point we had to pass through a group of cows that were grazing and blocking the trail. It was so funny! We were actaully a little scared, because they would just stare us down. It was a lot different than seeing them behind a fence in a barn! They all had big cowbells around their neck, and that was all you could hear as you passed through and off in the distance. On the way back we had to go through them again, except this time they were blocking the gate..hahah.. it was an experience to say the least! Time really flies when your out hiking all day. Before we knew it we were back at the hostel cooking a dinner of pasta.

The next day we went on another hike, this time to Sprutz waterfall and then on from there. There are endless hikes and trails that are so well marked, you can really go anywhere! On the way back it started to rain, and there were more cows! The trail was a lot narrower this time, and these three cows seemed to have strayed from the rest of the heard. There was no way to climb around them like before. We waited awhile under a tree, but they weren't moving, just staring at us. We made some noises, said some different commands (mach schenll!), and they finally started to move. It was hilarious, it was like we were little cow herders, herding them along the path! Finally the path widened and we were able to pass them. As we came out of the woods above Gimmelwald, there was a beautiful rainbow over the whole town. We couldn't believe it. It was like a fairy tale. This whole place is like fairy tale! When we got back we hopped in the hot tub. What a great day!

The next day we took the cable car up to Murren, and went on a hike from there. This took us farther in the opposite direction from our other hikes, and we got some more awesome views. We also stumbled across the "children's adventure trail" which had a little zip line and a rope swing. It was so much fun.. hehe. After a lunch of chicken sandwiches and a snickers bar (the usual!) we made our way down.

The next morning, our last day, was a bit dreary and we were glad we had gotten in as much hiking as we did. We were so sad to be leaving! We spent the day at the hostel, and planned to take an evening train down to Interlaken and stay another night or two there, where hopefully we would get some nice weather again to go skydiving!