day 7: Rest Day

Day 7 Rest Day!

Whilst Ian went off on a cycle ride to Grosse Scheidegg, 1962m, a total climb of 1450m , crazy fool, I had a potter! I cleaned the loo, sink, tidied away clothes and boots, did a bit of shopping and got on with the blog. Cloudy and sunny spells today. I wandered into Lauterbrunnen, which is only ten minutes walk away and bought some Toblerone swiss chocolate. I was horrified to read that the butcher was selling “Frischer Pferde Entrecote”. Now, my A level German is a bit sketchy but I’m sure that means horse-meat!!! Yuk, in this day and age!!!
Foods and gifts are hellish expensive. I’m so glad we stocked up on food, drink, frozen home-made meals etc before we set off, apart from three rosti meals out, and the odd applesaft juice, which is the staple drink around here, apart from the obvious beer, we’ve not been to the shops. Thank God!
The main language is a sing-songy version of German, and they then seem to prefer English to French, but then there are a lot of American and Japanese tourists. But they don’t say “Danke” for thankyou, instead they say “Mersay” with the emphasis on the second syllable, which I presume is the Swiss “Merci”.
Wilkie- we’re off for a meal tonight at “your” hotel, the Hotel Oberland. He’s full inside at 7pm. So we’ve got to eat outside, but looking forward to it. We can always stick another layer on! Opted for this over the pizza place you recommended in Wengen, Di Sana, cos the weather’s not just as good now, and we like to have a list of goodies to come back for next time!
The locals are very friendly. The transport service is phenomenal. Trains run approx every half hour and cable cars constantly throughout the day. They run to a generous number of stations dotted all over the mountains. You can go up in an infinite variety of ways, walk along, stay overnight in a number of huts of varying comfort, and return by a number of conveniently- located other lifts. It’s like a walkers’ playground! You can bite off as much or as little as you want! But there really is no excuse for not going up into this superb mountain panorama.
“Shopping List” of things still to do!!!
1. Schynigge Platte – Faulhorn-overnight stay-Schwarzhorn-Grosse Scheidegg or First
2. Isenfluh area
3. Ascend Schilthorn via Rotstock hut and down by cable car from Birg
4. Walk in the Kiental area
5. Bring mountain bikes, cos”there’s some good mountain bike trails”, or so Ian says!!!
6. Do the Jungfrau marathon from Interlaken to Kleine Scheidegg in four hours!
7. Scale north face of Eiger before lunch!!!!!!
8. Eat Pizza at Di Sana, in Wengen.
9. Visit Zermatt, Matterhorn, Reichenbach falls, Meiringen etc etc etc

Ps poem on wooden “Hut” near First, to be translated
“Allzeit Frohlich, ist Gefahrlich Allzeit Traurig ist Beschwerlich Allzeit Glucklich ist Unmoglich Eins ums Andere ist Vergnuglich/Bergnuglich”
???To always be happy is hazardous To always be dreaming is wearisome To always be lucky is unlikely One without the other is Ahhhhh! I don’t know what that last word means at all. I’ll look into it when I get back.
By the way, Wilkie, they’ve covered the whole roof of that new hut near First with solar panels. About 40 of them. They look superb and the roof with wooden shingles is nearly done!