Nature beauty of Switzerland

Weekend road trip to the beautiful Switzerland, it's really one of our favourite country. Hubby says driving in Switzerland is not tiring at all because everywhere is so beautiful. This time, we drove through the Furka Pass and Grimsel Pass to the Jungfrau region.

Furka Pass

It's a winding road up the mountains, and I really meant up, up and up. 

1/4 way up.. It says this road appeared in James Bond film - Goldfinger in a car-chasing scene. Wah, car chasing on such winding road, so dangerous.

Half way up 

3/4 way up?! The winding lane along the mountains was the road that we drove. I must give credit to hubby. I can never ever drive on such winding roads even though Switzerland really did a good job in maintaining the roads.

And we reached a landmark along the Furka Pass, Hotel Restaurant Belvedere.

The highlight is not the Hotel la. From this hotel, you can walk to the Rhone Glacier and the Ice Grotto (an ice tunnel)! It's really near. But we chose the wrong time to go. The path to the glacier and grotto is only open from May till mid October. It was closed when we were there. So sad :'( We could only take pictures from afar.

Rhone Glacier

A beautiful turquoise color lake we saw near the glacier. The photo didn't bring out the real beauty of the lake. In this picture, not so nice leh.  

Grimsel Pass

We planned to continue to Grimsel Pass to admire beautiful scenery along the way to the Jungfrau region but we turned at the wrong junction and lost our way. We were delayed for an hour plus and it was already dark when we reached Grimsel Pass. It was only 5 pm, it gets dark really early. Along Grimsel Pass was the Tottensee lake which was a lake up in the middle of the mountains, and some dams and reservoirs. Anyway, I think Furka Pass was more awesome than Grimsel.

Although it was dark, I could still see glimpses of the magnificent mountains surrounding us. The mountains gave me different feel in the day and at night. In the day, I could see the magnificent mountains clearly and it gave me a happy and shiok feel like 'Wow! That's spectacular and the scenery was so pretty!' But in the night, I felt sad and sorrow looking at the surrounding mountains, it's like the mountains had untold stories. I always have such thoughts when we're in the mountainous areas. Dun ask me why I got such weird feelings. I also dunno.

Lauterbrunnen - Staubbach Falls

The next day, we drove to Lauterbrunnen, a small town in the middle of the mountains. The surrounding was so serene and beautiful. No wonder almost all hotels were sold out and we didn't get to stay here :S

We parked our car at the Lauterbrunnen Railway Station and walked to Staubbach Falls. It was very visible from Lauterbrunnen, just a 15 minutes walk to get to Staubbach Falls.

The path to go up the cliff and behind the waterfall will only be open until mid October again. But we were lucky this time as the weather that day was superb so the path was open.

Although it's not a difficult hike up, I was still panting when it was only half way lol. I long time no exercise already. Be prepared to get wet at the last part of the path, lucky my jacket got a hoodie. It was damn beautiful! We were lucky that there's strong sunlight and we saw a rainbow! The rainbow doesn't last very long, only for that mere 3 minutes, after that, the rainbow started to fade.

Perfectly curved rainbow!

Me happily hiking down. Actually legs were already aching lol.. Hubby say I old lady Jia. >:(

Klein Scheidegg

Since hubby and I have already went Jungfraujoch before, we decided not to waste money to go up because it was super expensive. From Lauterbrunnen to Jungfraujoch,  it's 177 CHF per person. So we chose to go Klein Scheidegg instead, it's cheaper at 56 CHF per person. Klein Schediegg is the interchange station where people change train to go Junfraujoch. At Klein Scheidegg, it's already 2061 meters above sea level. 

We had our lunch at a restaurant in Klein Scheidegg. Love the feel of chilling out and having a hot yummy meal facing the awesome snow mountains. The food served was really good.

Bratwurst with Rosti and sauerkraut

Macaroni and potatoes with cheese. The chef added some apple sauce to this dish. The apple sauce complemented the dish so well, it'll be too creamy and rich to finish the whole plate if not for the apple sauce. Oh, at the top of the dish was scallions,  which we put in our dried or soup noodles as garnish one. Surprising that this traditional Switzerland dish uses scallions too. 中西合并! 

After lunch, we roamed around Klein Scheidegg and followed a hiking trail towards Eiger Glacier. It was really steep at some point and tired die me after 45 minutes of hiking, my legs went a bit wobbly and I had a hard time catching my breath. Lousy Jia because I saw ah ma and ah pek hiking that route as well -.-'''

Tired die me..

Rewarded with spectacular views after 45 mins of hiking. The sky was bluish and pretty that day. Hubby kept lamenting that his camera didn't do justice. Lol..

Eiger Glacier

We're still a distance away from the glacier. I was too tired la and it was running late so we didn't continue walking. And we took the train back to Lauterbrunnen. 

Beatenberg and Lake Thun

We drove to Interlaken and decided to roam around and find some nice spots to enjoy the view of Lake Thun and Lake Brienz. Interlaken was situated between these 2 lakes, hence the name.

So we anyhow drove around and eventually went up the mountains again. This time we're at Beatenberg and we are able to see the top down view of Interlaken and Lake Thun. Haiz, but it's getting dark.

The snowy mountain behind us was Jungfraujoch

Trummelbach Falls

The next day we went Trummelbach Falls. Trummelbach Falls was a series of waterfalls inside the mountains, and we're able to walk around and in the mountains to see the 10 waterfalls. Trummelbach alone drains the mighty glacier defiles of Monch, Eiger and Jungfrau. It was an amazing experience and we have to salute the people who built the pathway and the elevator in the mountains.

After buying the ticket (11 CHF per person), we took the elevator up into the mountain. Hubby was amazed by the engineering and idea of building this elevator.

Elevator moving up in the mountain

Oh, the guy operating the elevator told us that the day we went was the last operating day of Trummelbach Falls, after that it will be closed for the winter months.

We got out of the elevator and started climbing stairs to see the series of waterfalls. The water flows really fast and furious. When we were in the mountain, we could only hear the thunderous sounds of water. Hubby had to shout in order for me to hear what he was talking. Below will be the bunch of photos we took at Trummelbach.

Tiny Jia in this pic

Pathway built in the mountain

The shadow looks like a human head hor? Dunno why got this shadow leh, it was quite dark in the cave, only some sunlight shone in through some gaps.

The down jacket make me look so fat.. Arghh

Flight of steps we climbed

The waterfall is like a cinema screen.. Lol..

Aare Gorge and Reichenbach Falls

Reichenbach falls is the place where Sherlock Holmes fell and died in the story. I didn't read Sherlock Holmes la, so I also dun really know exactly what happened at Reichenbach Falls. Anyway, the Funiculare to Reichenbach Falls was closed when we were there, it opened only until mid October. Otherwise, there's combine tickets for Aare Gorge and the funiculare up to Reichenbach Falls at 13.50 CHF per person.

Hubby with Sherlock Holmes

So we drove back to Aare Gorge, it's just 3 minutes drive away, and we had our lunch at Aare Gorge restaurant. Woo.. Yummy.

Pork with mushroom sauce and Rosti. I must say Switzerland Rosti tasted really good. 

Pumpkin soup, it's sweet and has a tinge of curry flavour in it. Didn't think that pumpkin and curry could blend so well together! Delicious.. Nom nom..

After lunch, we started exploring Aare Gorge. It was also the last day of operation when we were there, after that it will be closed for winter months. So cannot miss it ah. Paid 7.50 CHF per person for the tickets and off we went for the Gorge walk.

It's again an amazing experience to walk through the Gorge. Hubby was fascinated by the idea of building pathway along the cliff so that people could walk through the Gorge. It took us 45 minutes to get to the other end of the Gorge. Along the walkway, there're water dripping from the rocks at certain points, so a hoodie will again be useful. Again, a bunch of photos of Aare Gorge below.

Before we enter the Gorge

Start liao..

The other end of the Gorge. This is the East Entrance, it was already closed in mid October. Otherwise, usually in the summer months, you could choose one of the entrance to visit Aare Gorge.

People are so tiny as compared to the Gorge

Beautiful lights in the darker part of the Gorge. Was told that certain days during the summer months, the Gorge would be open at night and lights would lit up the Gorge.

Okie, and it's time to drive back to Italy. Our original plan was to drive through the Susten Pass which again was a winding road up the mountains to see spectacular views. But the Pass was closed as the previous night was snowing and the road was blocked by snow, so we took the longer route back. Along the way, we stopped by some lookout points and took pictures.

It's getting dark after we started driving for a while. There're no street lamps even on highways so the surroundings was super dark. I looked up the sky and saw many twinkle twinkle little stars! Hubby found a car park to stop and we star gazed for a while. It was so cold, and the surrounding was so dark, but we were so happy because the sky was really full of twinkle stars!

Love the feeling of star gazing. I dunno how to describe how I felt at that time, but it's the feel of happiness, romance and I just hope I could lie down and watch the glittering stars forever.

Anyway, we had to continue our journey home after admiring the stars for half an hour. Hubby had booked an appointment with the Astronomy Observatory at Sacre Monte tomorrow night. Hee, so we will be star gazing again. I hope the weather will turn out great for us to see stars.


That's all for my Switzerland trip! Oh one last thing, Switzerland according to our standards, is really expensive. But we spend until very happy and we still love Switzerland! Lol.. Planning another trip to Swiss soon. ^-^