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.