Day 16 & 17

Our 8-9 hour drive today started with a walk to the train station.  We took the train back to Levanto and met up with Alfonso, our bus driver, and the bus.  The lunch stop was at another Auto Grill except this one was operated by a different company.  The restaurant was really nice and they have so many freshly made foods to choose from it is unbelievable.  They actually bake their own bread here.

The ride into Lauterbrunnen was twisty and several people on the bus were having problems with car sickness.  I happened to get a front seat today, we all took turns sitting up front, where I could look out the front windshield so I didn’t have a problem.  The countryside was beautiful and we started to see the snow covered mountains. The buildings were mostly stone on the bottom and timber on the top, and again we see lots of flower boxes at the windows.

We arrived in Lauterbrunnen late in the afternoon.  Our hotel, Hotel Oberland, is an old Swiss looking building.  Our room was on the third floor with a cute little balcony overlooking the town.

After dumping our luggage in our room, we took off to see the town.  There is a huge waterfall very close to the hotel and we walked up there to take pictures of it.   Once we returned to the hotel, we found the other members of our group sampling the local "brew" so we decided to join in.  We ended up on a patio off the third floor with a great view of the waterfall!!

This evening our group had dinner together in the hotel.  Their specialty is cheese fondue and they prepared a couple of large pots of the fondue and we all got up to try it.  We dipped fresh pieces of bread from the local bakery in the cheese and it was VERY good.  Since we are in the German speaking part of Switzerland we had SAUSAGE!! and something called a “rosti” which is basically a big hash brown patty with gravy for dinner.   

Switzerland is kind of divided into three sections – Italian, German and French.  They do have a language of their own, Romansh, but it is only spoken in the more remote areas of the country and usually by the older generation only.

After dinner, Paul and I walked up to Staubbach Waterfall again to take more pictures as it is lit up at night.  Once we got our pictures, we headed off to bed.   Everyone in the group had agreed to meet early in the morning to catch the first lift so that we could start our journey to the Shilthorn.  A few of the more daring young people have decided to give hang gliding a try in the morning also.