On Saturday we spent the afternoon wandering around the city itself starting with Hofkirche St. Leodegar, the parish church of the city and the remarkable Lion Monument, carved into the side of a cliff wall.
Next – the city walls with some fantastic views but an awful lot of steps!
Every corner you turn in the city reveals incredible buildings, often with amazing decor on the outside. The decor on the inside of the Jesuit Church was just gob-smacking,
We finished the day with a meal in a very typical Swiss restaurant – meat followed by more meat! Very tasty though.
We decided to make Thursday a rest day (especially as it rained all afternoon!), although some essential housekeeping tasks (e.g. laundry) were fitted in.
Friday we left Lauterbrunnen and headed over some rather exciting mountain roads to Lucerne – stopping at the Camping International Lido campsite situated on the lake just to the east of the city centre.
The campsite was next door to the Swiss Transport museum, which I had been to 30 years previously but could not resist another visit.
It’s one of the best museums I have been to with a huge collection of transport related exhibits, all very well displayed. There were vintage trains and wagons, a steam powered funicular and it’s ultra modern replacement:
The automobile section included an Aston Martin electric racing car and a big collection of Red Bull F1 cars:
The Aviation and Space section was packed with full size aircraft and helecopters but I liked this full sized model of the yet to be launched Exomars Rover (mainly because the real thing was built in Stevenage!):
I also got lost in a mirror maze – I asked these four blokes for help but they were no use! My favourite exhibit was this ‘Tourism Flipper’. The description says: “The path of the ball in this giant pinball machine illustrates what holidaymakers encounter when they visit Switzerland”:
For our last excursion in the region we took the cable up to Piz Gloria, perched on the top of Mount Schilthorn (elev. 2970m). It was famously chosen as the villain’s lair in the 1969 James Bond film ‘On Her Majesty’s Secret Service’ and it really fits the bill. The views, again, are quite spectacular, you could even see all the way down to Lake Thun, next to Interlaken.
Needless to say, there is a big James Bond exhibition here, but it very well done with lots of inside information on the making of the film. The only drawback on the visit were the slight delays caused by yet another huge ongoing engineering project – replacing the entire cable car system.
On our way back we walked through the delightful village of Murren, built on a mountain ridge above Lauterbrunnen.
In an attempt to make the most of our 3 day travel passes, we also took a train into Interlaken and then the funicular railway up to Harder Kulm with it’s excellent views over the town and it’s two adjacent lakes, Thunersee and Brienzersee.
We’re on top of the world! – well, not quite, but Jungfraujoch is billed locally as ‘Top of Europe’ and at 3454 metres elevation it’s pretty high and the air is noticably thinner.
To get here we took the train and the route itself is an engineering marvel. Construction started in 1896 with a long tunnel being built inside the Eiger and Monch mountains. The 9.3 km route finally opened in 1912.
We were lucky to have reasonable visibility from the top, with views of the Aletsch glacier (the largest in the Alps) as well as across to the surrounding peaks and down to the valleys below.
If you look closely at the picture below you can spot one of the maddest people in the world, jumping off the mountain with a paraglider!
You could get outside and hike across the snow if you wanted or visit an ice cave containing some unusual ice sculptures.
We took a slightly different route back which involved riding the area’s newest cable car, the Eiger Express down to Grindlewald. Each of the 44 gondolas are huge with seats for 22 people.
Today started with a train ride from Lauterbrunnen to Grindelwald, one of the biggest towns in the area. From there, a 25 minute cable car trip up to First (2168m altitude), a mountain top activity centre with spectacular scenery and options such as zip-wires (fully booked – honest!) and karting down the mountain (queue too long!). I did convince Mrs H to do the cliff walk, but she didn’t look too happy about it!
Back down to Grindelwald and up another cable car, the other side of the valley, to Männlichen (2222m), passing some cows on the way up and a huge wooden cow (!) in the playground at the top. The location has incredible views both back to Grindelwald and down the other side to Wengen (halfway down) and further to Lauterbrunnen. After a stop for drinks and some apple pie, we briefly considered hiking up the steep path to the summit (2345m) but decided to take the other cable car down to Wengen (1282m). It looks like a very old-fashioned mountain town which we need to explore later. We completed our round trip with a ride on the cog railway back to Lauterbrunnen.
After a slow start on our first full day, we took the cable car from Lauterbrunnen up to Grűtschalp (elevation 1400m). We then took the scenic path along the mountain ridge to the delightfully named Winteregg. From the path we could see down into the valley, across to Wengen on the opposite side of the valley and up to the mighty Jungfrau above us (all whilst listening to the tinkling of cowbells in the distance)
We took the little train that runs along the ridge back to the cable car. In the photo you can almost see the three main peaks of the region: the Eiger, Mönch and Jungfrau (unfortunately, the Eiger is behind a cloud!).
The drive from Dijon to Lauterbrunnen in Switzerland was hard work. We lost time as we had to take a major diversion due to one of the motorways being closed. Just 15 minutes from our final destination a van driver coming in the opposite direction decided to take a wide swing around a curve and took most of one of our wing mirrors with him! I think a partial repair is possible if I can find some tape!
Our campsite is Camping Jungfrau in Lauterbrunnen, just south of Interlaken in the Bernese Oberland. We’ll start exploring tomorrow but the views are spectacular – here are some photos taken from the grounds of the campsite with a video showing the view from the front of the van:
After a one night stop, we headed south on a five hour trip through a rather wet France to Dijon where we booked a two night stop at an Aire adjacent to the campsite at Lake Kir on the west side of the town.
We spent the next day walking around a very hot and sunny town……
We stopped at the amazing Les Halles food market and the impressive Palais des Ducs, which now is home to the Musée des Beaux-Arts.
Our lunch was at a recommended restaurant called ‘Dr Wine’ (good name). The starter just had to come with local mustard. The main course was a mind-blowing combination of fish, cous-cous, orange, grapefruit and turnip! I liked it but Sue wasn’t convinced!
We’re off to Europe again, heading south towards Switzerland. About an hour south of Calais is the town of Arras. We seem to have stumbled upon an excellent new Aire just north of the town centre. It’s next to a river with big pitches, electricity and WiFi included in the very reasonable price. I think we’ll be back in the not too distant future. The vans parked here range from huge 9 metre twin axle palaces to a delightful vintage Citroën campervan.
