Gimmewald!

Sorry these posts are long overdue...

We took the night train from Praha to Interlachen and we actually slept! It was pretty amazing actually. After 16 hours on the train we got on a cable car (gondola) and took that 3000 feet up to Gimmewald. We lugged our bags up a steep, looong flight of stairs and arrived at Walter's hotel. We were greated by a wonderful Englishman named Tim (who would turn out to be our savior of our stay) and shown to our room. The hotel only has about 10-12 rooms, is very old, and the stairs creaked just the right way. We settled in, enjoyed the beautiful (almost fake) view from our balcony, and then asked Tim (like we would every single day) what a good hike would be to go on.

That first day we decided on an "easy" hike that Tim helped us pick out of a book. We would hike up the mountain to the tree line, then across to a big waterfall that we could walk behind. Now when you see "easy" next to a hike you usually think relatively flat, easy hiking... this was no such hike. It was basically straight up. But it was totally worth the effort. We got to the waterfall, took our pictures, and decided to keep going up. We got up to the top and had a great view of the Schiltbaun (or something like that) and the Jungfrau. I wont attempt to describe what this all looked like because, well, you will not believe me. So you will just have to wait for the pictures.

That night we had dinner at Walter's hotel (soup, rice with mushroom\shrimp sauce, spinnach, ice cream) and met some really great people who were also staying at the Hotel. Went to bed early since we were tired from the train ride and hiking. The next day we woke up and couldn't see the tree outside our window, which kind of ruined our hiking plans. So we asked Tim what a good hike would be and we decided to stay low and hike along a river down in the valley up to an open meadow. This was probably our favorite hike. We went along the river and came to the most beautiful valley we had ever seen (again, just wait for the pictures). It was full of flowers and waterfalls, too many to count. Luckily it cleared up by this time and we were able to see Gimmewald on the side of the mountain where we came from. We spent some time sitting here for a while and then went back just before dinner to enjoy our view again. We had dinner at the Hotel again (spahgetti) and met some more great people.

The next day we were once again faced with questionable weather, and once again Tim came to our rescue. Another amazing hike with amazing views (we can't wait to show you our pictures!) and this time we got to see the town of Müren which is a 30 minute walk up the mountain from Gimmewald. That night we went down to the Hostel in Gimmewald to have dinner (pizza and chocolate fondue) and hit the sack early again.

I should say that Walter's hotel is owned by an 80 year old man named Walter. He is very cute and makes you believe that his english is not very good (but it is). He is the nicest old man and gets along with everyone and likes to tell jokes. We loved our stay here and would recomend it to anyone going to this area of Switzerland.

The next day we went down and stayed in Interlachen. We went for a boat ride on one of the lakes there and did laundry and made dinner. We also had a lot of rain that day... well most of out trip had been like that actually. A lot of rain. We have heard that it is really not normal and Europe has not had this much rain for a long time. Lucky us! We really enjoyed our time in Switzerland. It is beautiful, and very unique. If you come to Europe, you need to come here!