Sunday 17th May - La Moselle, Nancy

There's not a lot to say about today.  This morning, after a wet night, we packed up, and left for our long drive home.  We've had such a wonderful time at Lauterbrunnen, we were a little sad to leave, but it will be nice to get home too. 

It's a long drive back to Calais, so we've scheduled a couple of stops.  The first was in France, at a little place called Liverdun, on the Moselle river.  It looked like a lovely little town, but we were only there for a night and didn't explore.

It was a lovely place,  a little dated perhaps, but really large pitches and very nice and peaceful.  We took a walk along the river.

Later, we found a Kebab House for our evening meal.  After the expense of Switzerland, it seemed amazingly cheap.  The food was good too. 

More driving tomorrow.  I've picked a place near to the beach and dunes in Belgium.  Fingers crossed, it looks good from Google Earth. 

Saturday 16th May - A walk in the Lauterbrunnen Valley

Towering mountains on the sides of the valley.  All those lines are rows and rows fence like projections which act as avalanche protection (we think).  Imagine the work involved?

We took a rest day yesterday, it chucked it down with rain, and we needed a rest after the amount of walking we'd been doing.  So it really was the most sensible thing to do. We spent the day in the van, catching up on blogs etc. Today we are going out for a walk.

Looking back at the small town of Lauterbrunnen as we start our walk upward 

Because of the time of year, like Bavaria, many of the cable cars and cogwheel trains closed for maintenance.  Which is a shame, because I sort of fancied walking along the valley bottom to get to the cable car at Stechelberg going up to Murren, walking along the top of the valley to Grutschalp and then getting a cable car from there down to Lauterbrunnen.  Unfortunately, the station at Grutschalp was closed, and we couldn't work out a route around the valley that would be similar.  Instead, Peter worked something out on Komoot.

Looking across the valley at the cogwheel train on it's way up to Wengen. 

I sort of thought it wouldn't be too difficult - it wasn't a long walk after all. I'd had a look at the elevation, we'd had a disagreement about slope gradients and what was doable, and Peter had changed the route accordingly.  So although I knew there'd be a few steep slopes I didn't think it would be too hard.  My muscles were still tired from our walks earlier, and knew that today needed to not be difficult. 

What I hadn't realised however was that we'd be climbing something like 1500 ft in total.  When I did, I got stroppy, Peter didn't know why it was a problem, and we had disgruntled discussion about how I just wasn't as fit and able as he was.  Blame it on male versus female physique, or my previous smoking habit, or me just not being as fit, but Peter is much more able to keep doing these walks day after day than I.  And I wasn't a happy bunny.

Looking across to Wengen, which is 4180 ft above sea level - Snowdon is 3560 ft high

But as usual, stubborness kicked in and I refused to be the cause of not continuing. We did the walk, got to the highest point, ate lunch at a view point that I couldn't sit too close to the edge of.......

Enjoyed the views and the waterfalls.........

And enjoyed the path turning into something a little more challenging on the way down.  We felt a sense of achievement when we reached the bottom.  

As we walked back to the campsite, we eyed the Staubbachfalls, we'd been looking at them and taking photo's ever since we arrived.   It is one of 72 falls in the Lauterbrunnen Valley, and one of the highest in Switzerland.  It's a very popular tourist spot, because you can walk behind it, and there are usually queues of people trying to do so.

But it was a wet day - rain may make the falls more impressive, but it also reduces the numbers of tourists, and since it was our last chance, we decided that it had to be done. Despite tired legs after the walk, made our way up to join the thousands of people that have taken photo's from behind the falls.  Very cool.

A good day in the end.   Tomorrow we have to leave.  I feel like we have 'done' Lauterbrunnen and Switzerland, and we won't need to come back.

Thursday 14th May - First mountain from Grindelwald

I should say, that when I booked the various campsites for our journey, I sort of thought the one in Lauterbrunnen (booked through the CAMC), was closer to Grindelwald, and I was sort of disappointed that we were in a different valley.  I'd seen everything you could do from Grindelwald, and thought that was were I wanted us to be.  In my head, if we were ever to visit the area again, I would make sure I found a campsite in the right valley. 

So I was excited that today we were going to have a look at what we were missing.  Once again we walked to Lauterbrunnen Station, and then brought train tickets to take us to Grindelwald.  We'd have to change at Zweilutschinen, but the overhead screens showed us exactly where we were, and Peter is beginning to accept that public transport isn't all bad. (£37)

At Grindelwald, we got off the train and took a little while to find our bearings.  We didn't really know what we were going to do whilst we were here and found the Tourist Information Office to get a few ideas.  I was thinking we'd take it easy, seeing as we'd already walked quite a bit over the last two days.  Grindelwald is quite a big town.  As I looked around, I decided I was glad we were stopping in Lauterbrunnen, I think I much preferred it. 

In the end, we opted for a cable car up to First, (£152), which is named for its location as a minor summit on the slopes of the Schwarzhorn.  There are a couple of cable car stations on the way up, and we watched with fascination the system of transporting bikes and scooters as they were attached the outside of the cable cars at Bort and Schreckfeld. 

The weather at First was a lot cooler than down in Grindelwald.  In fact it was snowing.  Good job we'd brought hats and gloves then!  There are a few things you can do from First, such as riding the scooters and cycles down the hill, or taking a "Flyer", which is basically whizzing down with your friends on a zip wire. 

After a good look around and loads of photographs, we opted for lunch inside before doing anything else.  We opted for burger and chips, - the portions were MASSIVE, and we sat down opposite a German couple on who I inflicted my very poor german. (I was determined to practice it somewhere).

After lunch, during a bathroom visit, I bumped into another resident from our campsite.  A single lass, with a toddler and a baby, who had travelled from the UK.  I was amazed at her resilience, as she took the often crying baby and her very patient little boy everywhere, such as the showers, the bins, the shops and up First mountain in a cable car, pushchair and all.  I told her so.

Next, it was time to tackle the Cliff Walk.  I wasn't sure, knowing my abject fear of walking over platforms where you could see the hundreds of feet of drop below through it.  This is why I hadn't been able to do it at Birg, on the way down from Piz Gloria.  But I felt I had missed out, and really wanted to try it.  This time I took it on, with Peter in front of me.  I thought if I didn't look down, I wouldn't find it so scary.  

Pfffft to that idea.  I was absolutely petrified.  I knew I couldn't look down, but I couldn't look out at the views either, I just wanted to get across as fast as possible.  So I stared at the back of Peter's head and willed him on.  We got to the other end, I regretted not being able to enjoy the views, and I wished my head could work the same as everyone else's and understand that the walkway was perfectly safe.

So, that challenge complete, we decided we'd like to walk to Bachalpsee, something we'd planned to do as soon as we got on the cable car.  According to all the write ups, it was quite beautiful.

When we had left Grindelwald far below, the weather was a bit glum, but not too bad.  When we had arrived at First, it was cold and overcast, with plenty of snow on the ground, but not too bad.  Now we were getting the odd flurry of snow, but it wasn't too bad.  We had hats and gloves, so we set off.

The walk to Bachalpsee is actually quite long, nearly two miles.  It's probably really lovely in the summer, surrounded by green and mountains.  Today everything was grey and white, and the odd snow flurries turned into extended stretches of wind blasted frozen sleet. It turns out a brolly is quite useful in such circumstances.  There were several couples also making the trek, one or two of which turned back.  I had to admit I wasn't sure it was a good idea to carry on, but Peter was sure it would be fine.  We ended up with a lad from China as company, because he didn't want to be in his own, (wisely), but he did talk a lot.

We got to the lake, which was disappointing because you couldn't really see it as it was frozen over (we had been warned), although the sky did clear a little and the sun showed through the clouds for a few moments.  We got our photographs, and then it was time to walk back. 

 The weather didn't ease at all.  Back at the cable car stations, and the adventure activities (flyer, cycles and scooters), had all been stopped.  In the cable car on the way down, we could see (or not see to be honest), why.  Visibility had reduced to nothing, with the cable cars and cables in front of us disappearing into the cloud. 

So from Grindelwald, it was back on the train to Lauterbrunnen, a visit to the COOP for a few more supplies (and chocolate) and then back to the van.  Bearing in mind I thought we would probably have an easy day of it, we'd walked around 9 miles.  Absolutely shattered!  But tomorrow the weather is going to be really bad, so we are going to have a quiet day in the van, just chilling. Phew!