Hike from Uetliberg to Felsenegg

The weather here for the month of July has been pretty awful.  It has rained just about every day.  This is  not the kind of rain that just rolls in for an hour or two and then it's sunny skies again.  It will rain all day long on most days.  Though, apparently, this weather pattern can be quite normal for here because July, on average, is the wettest month of the year.  Anyways, it usually ends up only being nice about one day a week, so you have to run out and do something on that day even if it's not during the weekend.  So a couple weeks ago, one nice day was coming up on a Tuesday, therefore I decided to go hiking by myself.  I went up to Uetliberg again, but this time I walked farther along the ridge to a place called Felsenegg.

The view from the trail

A farmhouse along the trail

The view from halfway through the hike, walked all the way to that communications tower

Lots of green because of all the rain

I've decided cows are cute from a distance because they are very smelly

The Swiss flag

A lonesome tree

An often-photographed view

It took about 90 minutes to walk from Uetliberg to Felsenegg.  At Felsenegg, there is a cable car that takes you down from to the mountain into a town called Adliswil.  The cabe car is completely automated.  Right at the time it is scheduled to leave, the door beeps, it closes, and you descend down the mountain to the other station.  When you get to the bottom, the door opens and you leave.  Not a single person was operating it!  So fantastic.

The Felsenegg cable car station

Looking down from the station to the lake

The view from the cable car ride

Me and my fellow passengers enjoying the automated ride

Looking north towards my house

Because of efficient Swiss transportation, after you get off the cable car, you walk down a couple of blocks to the train station and take the train home, right where you left!  This was a great little loop to do.  Hopefully the weather improves for August when we have visitors.

Robison Family Swiss Adventure: Gruyéres and Lausanne

For the last part of our Swiss adventure, we traveled down to the French part of Switzerland that is near or around Lake Geneva (called Lac Léman by the French).  Our first stop was the small town of Broc where the Cailler Chocolate Factory is.  Cailler is a brand people in the US are not familiar with, but Francois-Louis Cailler was actually the first person to open a chocolate factory in Switzerland in 1819.  He, along with Charles-Amédée Kohler and Henri Nestlé, were the pioneers in Swiss chocolate.  Cailler introduced the idea of chocolate bars, Kohler invented the hazelnut blend, and Nestlé's condensed milk was mixed with chocolate to create milk chocolate.  Nestlé became the largest company of the three and eventually bought the other two out in the 1920s/30s.  So even though the Cailler brand still exists, we are more familiar with its parent company, Nestlé.

The Cailler Chocolate Factory

Cute Lauren at the factory

We had heard about a great tour at the chocolate factory, but we weren't sure what to expect.  All we knew was that, at the end, you could sample as much chocolate as you wanted!  So we paid for our tickets and waited around the chocolate store until it was the time for the English tour.  The beginning of the tour ended up being so hilariously cheesy.  It was like a Disneyland attraction where we had an automated tour through several rooms that explained the history of chocolate and of the Cailler brand.  We all had a good laugh at how weird it was.  After the automated tour, we were able to see and touch different cocoa beans along with seeing a small part of the chocolate-making process in the factory.

Who knew there were so many different kinds of cocoa beans?

One example of their production lines for making and packaging the chocolate, so cool!

The sample room!  You could eat as much as you wanted! Of course we felt sick after so many...

We had a great time at the factory even if part of the tour was cheesy.  Speaking of cheesy... our next stop was the historic town of Gruyéres. ;)  This is where the Swiss cheese called Gruyere originates from.  Since it was lunch time, we headed up to the town and found a place to eat.  Even though it was hot outside, I convinced everyone to eat some fondue!  Swiss cuisine is not very diverse and sometimes not very interesting, but they have just a few things that are worth eating, including fondue.  Another favorite dish of mine and Darren's is Älpenmagronen, which is basically macaroni and cheese.  I also have a huge obsession with the mixed salads served in Switzerland.  They use delicious butter leaf lettuce instead of boring iceberg, and they top it with lots of delicious vegetables or chopped hard-boiled egg.  The French dressing they have around here is also vastly superior to any I've had in the US.  Who knew a salad could be so good?  Anyways, I made everyone order these things and luckily they liked them, too. :)

The view from Gruyéres, which sits up on a large hill

The cute town of Gruyéres

Part of our lunch: the fondue, and alpine macaroni

 After lunch, we walked around Gruyéres, which is actually pretty small.  At the end of the hill in the town is Gruyéres Castle, which was built in the 13th century. We walked all the way around the perimeter of the castle, but didn't go inside because we had heard from guide books that it wasn't worth it.  The view around the castle was very pretty, though.

The swiss flag flying at the Gruyéres castle

The view from the castle

A great picture Macy took of me and Darren

After touring Gruyéres, we went down the hill to see the cheese factory.  We got free samples of Gruyere cheese and listened to an audio guide about how cows produce milk and how the milk is turned into cheese.  We were able to see where they actually make the cheese and where it is stored to age for a while.  It was really fascinating!

We forgot to take any pictures except of where the cheese is stored to be aged

After our day of enjoying lots of dairy, we drove to the town of Lausanne (on Lake Geneva) to settle into our hotel and to eat some dinner before getting some sleep.  The next day we went to the lakefront promenade of Lausanne and it was beautiful!  Lausanne is the headquarters of the International Olympic Committee, so we visited the Olympic Museum, which highlights the history of the games and the achievements in each sport.  We couldn't take any pictures inside, but it was a fantastic museum and it gets you excited for the Olympics next year in London.

The beautiful lakefront promenade in Lausanne

Us at the Olympic Museum

After the museum, we took a quick tour of the old part of Lausanne and were able to see the largest cathedral in Switzerland.

The inside of the cathedral in Lausanne

Part of the outside of the cathedral in Lausanne

A view of Lausanne from the hill the cathedral was on

 The final part of our tour of the French part of Switzerland was to see one of the most popular sites in the country, Chateau de Chillon.  This massive castle is built on a rocky spur on Lake Geneva, so it is naturally covered by water on all sides.  The castle is well-preserved so you can walk through all kinds of rooms, passages, and generally explore wherever you want.  The views from the castle are beautiful.

The natural moat that separates the castle from land

Dad and I in one of the castle rooms

An old fireplace and old decorations displayed

We climbed up lots of flights of stairs to reach the top of the highest tower

The view was fantastic from the tower

Me, all sweaty from walking up lots of stairs to get to the top

The castle from the road across the moat

After visiting the castle, we headed back to Zürich and finished the Swiss trip off right by eating at Zeughauskeller!  The next day Dad, Macy, and Lauren headed back to the US.  It was great to have them here!

Robison Family Swiss Adventure: Luzern and Interlaken

On Saturday, I took Dad and Macy to the beautiful town and lake of Luzern.  My plan had been to take them to another great mountain on the lake called Pilatus, but the high clouds were covering the peak, so we went to Mt. Rigi instead.  We took the same mountain train and cable car as I did with Mom and Steve.

Dad on the train up to the Mt. Rigi summit

Cute family!

Someone was tired of me taking pictures of her

Me and Dad being silly at the top

It was a bit chilly and windy at the top, but the clouds parted for us as we explored around the top.  Dad and I walked down a mostly-safe path from the top to a grassy outcrop.  Macy stayed up top with Lauren and took our picture, which turned out great!  Switzerland is so beautiful!

The great picture of me and Dad by Macy

When we got back to Luzern from our adventure on Mt. Rigi, we found ourselves in the middle of a summer festival!  It had been all set up in the time that we were gone!  We weren't able to explore much of Luzern because the festival, but we loved listening to some of the bands, eating delicious food from the stalls, and watching an air show!

The summer festival we came upon in Luzern

Dad and Macy in Luzern

Me and Macy with the famous covered bridge in the background

The great air show we watched

After spending a little time at the festival, we headed home to get some rest.  On Sunday, we woke up to sunny skies and warm temperatures!  The great weather had finally arrived.  I decided this was the perfect opportunity to go to Interlaken, so after attending church, we ate a quick lunch and drove to the Interlaken region.  

Heading into the Jungfrau region, I think the Mönch is in the distance

As usual, the area was BEAUTIFUL!  I love love the Jungfrau!  This time we did not go into the Lauterbrunnen valley, but went into the other valley, instead, to the resort town of Grindelwald.  We parked at a ski gondola station, got out of the car, and just stopped to admire the beauty all around us!  We then took the gondolas way up to the top of a mountain ridge that separates the two valleys.  One of the peaks on the ridge is called Männlichen, so that's what the stop is called.

The gondola station in Grindelwald that takes you to the Männlichen area up top

There were tons of paragliders out, it seems to be a popular sport with all these mountains

The ski gondolas we took from Grindelwald

The gondolas take you from 3,400 feet at Grindelwald all the way up to 7,300 feet at the mountain ridge!    We arrived at the top and just marveled at the view.  It was so beautiful!  I love it!

Dad, Macy, and Lauren with the Eiger in the background

Looking over the other side of the ridge at Wengen and Lauterbrunnen

I'm in heaven!!

From Männlichen, we took an easy 90-minute walk along the ridge over to Kleine Scheidegg.  You could probably do the hike in a shorter amount of time, but we kept stopping to take amazing pictures.

Some rock towers hikers have built up over the years

Me and Dad on the trail

This little fox trotted right past us with a huge piece of stolen cheese in his mouth

A great shot I got of the reflection of the Eiger

The view from our trail as we were nearing Kleine Scheidegg

We took the train from Kleine Scheidegg back to the Grindelwald Grund station to head home.  Because of weekend traffic, it was stop-and-go to get out of the Interlaken region.  It was around dinner time, so we were hoping just to stop at some restaurant along the way and get something.  But most places in Switzerland are closed on Sunday and we kept passing lots of restaurants that weren't open, so we started to worry.  We saw that a gas station was open and decided that this was our best chance of getting some food.  But this is a Swiss gas station and we were able to get fine Swiss salami (at 54 CHF/kg!), cheese, crackers, and a fresh salad.  We felt like white trash by buying dinner from a gas station and eating it in the car, but it was far from that with our expensive salami, fine Swiss cheese, and the amazing view we had from the gas station parking lot.  It was pretty hilarious how great this meal was even though it was from a gas station.

Our view during "dinner" :)