Hipskind European Adventure: Last Day

I forgot to talk about the great cow encounter we had while we were leaving Giessbach Hotel.  Along the narrow road that leads out from the hotel to the highway, this strange-looking cow was galloping down the hill to come check us out.  We stopped to look at him and his family, and they all mooed at us.  These cows had long hair and could have been Highland cattle, though we aren't sure.  All we know was that they were interesting to see.  The funny thing was, some black and white cows on the other side of the road heard the mooing and they, too, walked up to the fence to check us out and started mooing, too.  Another car was coming so we had to leave, but I'm glad Mom was able to get a picture of the funny-looking cow.  Yeah, I'm a little obsessed with the cows here.

The funny-looking cow that was mooing at us

After we got back to Zürich, Darren had to go to work, so I took Mom and Steve out to see the sites in Zurich.  It rained on and off that day, so I don't have a lot of pictures of what we did, but I took them to the usual sites that I have highlighted in this blog before: Grossmünster, Fraumünster, Bahnhofstrasse, etc.

Eating the famous Sprüngli treats: Luxemburgerli

I think they like them!

Enjoying the hazelnut Luxemburgerli on Bahnhofstrasse

Mom and Steve in Zürich

That night Darren left for a business trip and Mom, Steve, and I went to a restaurant called Brasserie Lipp for dinner.  This place is an exact replica of the famous Parisian eatery, though I don't know if the menus are exactly the same.  We all enjoyed some seafood and then headed back to mine and Darren's apartment to call it a night.  Then the next morning, I took Mom and Steve to the airport and the Hipskind European adventure was over. :(  We had a great time with them and saw some breathtaking things, and really lucked out on the weather.  The next round of parents gets here on Wednesday, so there will be more to post after that trip!

Hipskind European Adventure: Interlaken

On the Monday my parents were here, we went to Interlaken and it was BEAUTIFUL!  I am in love.  Interlaken is a town just 90 minutes south of Zurich that is nestled between two long lakes, Brienzersee and Thunersee (thus the name of the town: Interlaken).  However, when most people talk about Interlaken, they are actually referring to the whole region around the town that includes the two lakes, several other adorable lakeside towns, and the beautiful mountains surrounding the lakes.  The most famous mountains in this region are three peaks just south of Interlaken called the Eiger (Ogre), the Mönch (Monk), and the Jungfrau (Maiden/Virgin).  These mountains, besides the Matterhorn, are usually what you see when you look at pictures of the Swiss Alps.

To reach the mountains, you travel just fifteen minutes south of Interlaken into either of two valleys.  The first valley, which I don't know exactly the name of, has the popular resort town of Grindelwald.  The second valley, the one that we went to is called Lauterbrunnen valley because the town at the bottom of the valley is called Lauterbrunnen.  The geography can be hard to picture, but this train map helped me sort it out in my mind.

So we began the day with driving straight to Lauterbrunnen and stopped at the grocery store across from the train station to pick up things for a picnic.  I highly recommend doing this because there are amazing picnic spots all around and it would be a shame to waste your time inside a restaurant while in the area.  We then took another fantastic Swiss mountain train from Lauterbrunnen, all the way up to a train stop called Kleine Scheidegg, meaning minor watershed (you can see it on the map I linked to).

The view from the train as we climb up from Lauterbrunnen

Looking south through the Lauterbrunnen valley

Mom and Steve on the mountain train

Me and Darren on the mountain train

Winding our way around a smaller mountain to reach the base of the Eiger, up ahead

The Eiger is the peak covered by a cloud on the left, the Mönch is to the right, and the Jungfrau is not in this picture

The train was slow-going as it climbed up 4,000 feet, but the view was amazing.  We finally arrived at Kleine Scheidegg, which is at 6,700 feet.  This is the last stop for this train, but another train that leaves from this station actually goes even higher to an observatory at 11,000 ft in between the Eiger and the Mönch.  That station is called Jungfraujoch, and is the highest train station in Europe.  As you can see in the picture below of the observatory, it is always cold up there because it is a glacier, so you have to be prepared with warm jackets if you go up that high.

Kleine Scheidegg station

Jungfraujoch observatory captured with 35x zoom

After we arrived in Kleine Scheidegg, we hiked up the hill toward the base of the Eiger a bit and I found the most perfect picnic spot.  For those who are not familiar with the Williams/Hipskinds (my mother's family), a perfect picnic spot is a family obsession and we really feel like we took the crown with this place.  Our spot at the base of the Eiger had a full view of all three peaks.  We could also see down into the Grindelwald valley and across the Lauterbrunnen valley.  The scenery was so amazing that it felt like it wasn't even real.  I could not get enough of looking up at seeing beautiful green hills and the Eiger in the background.

Our perfect picnic spot

Our view of the town of Grindelwald

Us with the Mönch peak in the middle, and the snow-covered Jungfrau on the right

Me and Mom running down the hill pretending to be in the Sound of Music (yes we know that was Austria)

After our amazing picnic, we went on a hike around the area for an hour or so.  We took a less-traveled trail and it was fantastic!  We felt like the only people on the mountain and stopped every few minutes to enjoy something new.

Steve and the Jungfrau

The popular resort town of Mürren on the other side of Lauterbrunnen valley

Taking the train back down to Lauterbrunnen

After our amazing picnic and hike, we took the train back down to Lauterbrunnen to pick up our car and then we drove to the eastern part of Brienzersee to our hotel called Giessbach Grand Hotel.  This hotel sits on a hill that overlooks the lake and is next to the Giessbach Falls.

View of Brienzersee from the hotel

Giessbach Falls

Us next to the waterfalls

The beautiful hotel we stayed at

Darren and I hiked up part up the falls

That night we all got cleaned up and had an amazing French dinner at the hotel with an amazing view of the waterfalls from our table.  We had a long meal and watched as thunder clouds rolled in from the west, but never quite made it to our side of Interlaken.  We were lucky we picked a hotel on the eastern part of the area.  The hotel was beautiful and the view was amazing, but the beds in the rooms were pretty bad and most of us didn't sleep that night.  We didn't regret staying there, but we were all a bit tired the next day.

Steve, Mom, and I at the Giessbach Grand Hotel restaurant

The beautiful breakfast room on the next morning

Darren and I in front of the entrance to the hotel

As we made our way back to Zurich, we stopped at one of the many castles that surround the other lake, Thunersee.  We walked around the grounds of Spiez Castle as it was lightly raining and admired the old buildings, the well-maintained gardens, and the incorporated winery where they were bottling.  Apparently it's very popular in Europe to have wineries attached to castles!

Spiez Castle

The cute town of Spiez

In the next post I will talk about our quick tour of Zurich and wrap up the Hipskind European Adventure!

Hipskind European Adventure: Appenzell and Rheinfall

On Sunday, Darren and I attended church for a bit while Mom and Steve had a great brunch at a restaurant called Rüsterei, which was near their hotel.  After that, we met up and headed out to see more sights in Switzerland.  Darren and I had picked out some sights to see,  but we didn't know if they would be fun.  However, Mom and Steve were good guinea pigs and went along for the ride.  First, we drove an hour or so away to the little town of Appenzell.  This is where the Swiss cheese Appenzeller is made.  I really enjoyed the drive through the countryside to reach the town because it featured verdant hillsides, sunny skies, and of course, pretty Swiss cows!  

We toured the little town of Appenzell and discovered it wasn't really that interesting, which was surprising because so many tour books recommend it.  We still had fun walking around on a sunny day, but we were glad we hadn't planned a whole day trip around this town.

Me and Mom in Appenzell

Cute Appenzell buildings

Us by the river that ran through Appenzell

The beautiful countryside we drove through around Appenzell

Since Appenzell didn't take us that long, we still had some time left in the day before we needed to head back for dinner, so we hemmed and hawed about what to do and finally we decided on going to see the Rheinfall.  Rheinfall is a group of waterfalls on the German and Swiss border and is actually the largest in Europe. Darren and I had first seen it on a train on the way to Stuttgart and I remembered it being pretty impressive, but we didn't know anything about visiting it.  We just followed the signs to the waterfalls and were led to a parking lot for Schloss Laufen (Laufen Castle), which is Renaissance castle that overlooks the Rhein (Rhine in English) river.  We found out you had to pay to get in to the castle to see the waterfall, which we were unsure about since we still didn't know how the view of the waterfall would be.  We ended up paying and going inside anyways and we were handsomely rewarded! 

Rheinfall, waterfalls on the Rhein (Rhine) river

The entrance fee went towards a great trail that has been built along the side of the castle that winds all the way down from the top of the falls to the bottom.  We can view the falls from all kinds of angles from multiple platforms along the trail.  It was fantastic!  I have never been so close to such a power waterfall!

The waterfalls were really impressive, but were not up to their usual strength.  You can see in the picture below how lots of rock is exposed on the other side of the river.  Usually all that is covered by water, but we had a dry second half of winter and a dry spring (don't worry, it's been raining the whole month of June, so we're getting the water back).

Me in front of the Rheinfall

The powerful falls churning up the water below

Boat cruises to get up close to the falls

Boats drop people off in the middle of the falls on that rock formation for a close-up look

The view as we walked down the trail, with water coming right at us!

Me and Steve next to the falls

Us at Schloss Laufen

The Rheinfall was a great surprise and we really enjoyed it.  As we were driving back from the falls, we stopped along the side of the road to admire the clear view of the Alps and take some pictures.  Here are some shots that Darren got.

Beautiful day in Switzerland

View of the Alps from Northern Switzerland

After we got back from our adventures, Mom and Steve came over to our house and I cooked for them!  I got to use all my new cooking skills I've been working on since we moved here and it was a great success!  So to everyone reading this blog, as an incentive, if you come visit us, I will cook you dinner!

Hipskind European Adventure: Luzern, Switzerland

Before I left to go down to Italy, the weather forecast had said that it might rain the whole time Mom and Steve were in Switzerland.  I was worried about rain because all of our plans involved walking and hiking around Switzerland's beautiful landscape.  I tried to rearrange the schedule to avoid the rain, but there was only so much I could do.  In the end, luck was on our side and the weather and the schedule rearrangement worked out perfectly.

On Mom and Steve's first full day in Switzerland (Saturday), Darren and I took them to the adorable city of Luzern (Lucerne in French, Luzern in German).  Luzern is just everything you imagine when you picture a perfect Swiss town, which is why it has been a major tourist destination since Swiss tourism really began in the 19th century.  Luzern is located about 45 minutes south of Zurich on the western shore of a lake (informally called Lake Luzern, though the more long-winded, real name is Vierwaldstättersee).  Part of the town also runs along the beginning of the Reuss River, and looks out onto the beautiful Swiss Alps.  The city has been around since the Middle Ages and has a picturesque old part of town that lies on north side of the river.

Part of Luzern that sits on Lake Luzern

We spent the first part of the day exploring the old part of town and stopped for an early lunch at Restaurant Fritschi.  We all shared some typical Swiss dishes beginning with a mixed salad of different kinds of lettuce, shredded beets, carrots, and other vegetables.  We also enjoyed a Swiss dish called Rösti, which in it's most basic form consists just of shredded, fried potatoes (like hash browns). However, this Rösti was a tastier version with tomatoes, cheese, and other things added to it.  Finally, we all shared some cheese fondue!  It was delicious!

We sat outside for a delicious lunch at the restaurant ahead in this picture

Steve, Mom, and me in Luzern

After lunch we walked along Luzern's famous Chapel Bridge, which was originally built in the 14th century as part of the town's fortifications.  However, some of the bridge was reconstructed in 1993 after a fire broke out.

Chapel Bridge

The oldest wooden bridge in Europe

Some of the triangle paintings underneath the roof were destroyed in the fire

Later in the afternoon we set out for our adventure to reach the top of one of the mountains next to Lake Luzern: Mt. Rigi.  You can see Mt. Rigi below on the left with it's two peaks connected along a ridge.  The leftmost peak is the tallest (at 5,900 ft) where you can almost make out the communications tower that is there.  To get to the top of Mt. Rigi, we first took a fantastic boat cruise to the cute lakeside town of Weggis.

A view of Mt. Rigi from the boat cruise

The type of boat we took

Me on Lake Luzern

BEAUTIFUL!

The cute town of Weggis where we got off the boat

From Weggis, we walked up a hill to reach a cable car station.  We took a short ride on the cable car to almost all the way up the mountain.

Steve looking out of the cable car

Looking back at Lake Luzern, the mountain covered by clouds is Pilatus (7,000 ft)

The cable car was a bit scary!

The cable car did not take us all the way up to the peak, so we jumped on a mountain train, which took us the rest of the way.  This mountain train opened in 1871 and is the oldest rack railway in Europe.  It is just crazy to watch these trains climb up the mountain with such steep grades.  What a feat of engineering.

The amazing Swiss mountain trains

From the train station, we walked up to the top of the peak and just marveled at the amazing view.

Darren at the top of Mt. Rigi

Looking back at Luzern, which is at the end of that finger-like part of the lake

Beautiful view from Mt. Rigi

Gliding planes and paragliders around Mt. Rigi

All of us on the top of Mt. Rigi

We decided to do a short hike back down part of the mountain and catch the train at another station further down.  All along our hike down the mountain we ran into pretty Swiss cows with the traditional bells hanging around their necks.  I love Swiss cows!  I think they are much cuter than American cows, so I really loved seeing them every time we passed by them.

Pretty Swiss cows!

A view from our hike down the mountain

The train coming up the mountain

Lovely cabins to rent on Mt. Rigi

We took the train all the way down the mountain where it ended right at the waterfront in the town of Vitzau.  We then took a boat ride back to Luzern and had dinner in Luzern before heading back to Zurich.  I can't wait to go back to Luzern again some time soon!