Eiger Dreams

Nidau to Grindelwald and back by train

Day 51 - Tuesday - August 2
We got up at 6:00 and walked the 3 miles to the train station in Biel so we could catch  an early train for the 2 hour trip into the Alps. We bought breakfast food at the market in the station and ate it on our way to Bern. The trains run every 20-30 minutes so you just buy a ticket for the destination and hop on whichever train is leaving when you are ready.

Thunner See (Thun Lake) from the train window

We arrived on one of the few clear days they have had in the Alps for weeks.

Eiger Glacier

The legendary Eiger

Part of the village of Grindelwald

The cable car we took up the mountain.

Drinks were NOT served on the way up!

The lighter colored, younger trees came in after the glacier receded over the last 100 years. In 1860 they were afraid that the glacier was going to flatten the town of Grindelwald.

As a young man, Doug dreamed of climbing the north face of the Eiger based on youthful self-confidence, a vivid imagination and reading every book he could find about the mountain. Now he's really happy to just be looking at it from across the canyon.

And taking lots of pictures of it too.

This waterfall didn't exist in 1860 as the glacier filled this area at the time.

These cows are TOUGH.

Donna's candidate for most artistic toilet seat so far. (For one thing, it actually had a toilet seat!)

They are "raking" the hay with a leaf blower. It seems to work really, really well on these steep slopes.

They are hard to see but those little black dots in the clouds are not dust on the camera lens. Those are paragliders. We saw dozens of them.

This guy is using a real rake....a big wooden one.

One last look to the peaks before we head back down out of the Alps. We are  very glad we took the train instead of riding the bikes here. It would have meant another week in very expensive (but beautiful) Switzerland and our thighs would have really gone on strike.

Her dad reports that she is 2 going on 12. He also told us that Switzerland's train system makes it possible to go anywhere in the country without a car. Not so in England, his home country, where they have eliminated the train service to most of the small villages and towns. We were on 3 different trains and the arrivals and departures ran like Swiss clockworks.

We ate dinner in Biel, then walked back to the campground. This is the lake next to the campground. It was a long but amazing day and we slept well......no fireworks tonight!