Wake up call

We were awakened by the sound of cowbells. Looking out of our “penthouse” window, we saw that three cows had been unloaded from a small truck in a nearby parking lot and placed in the meadow outside the hotel. The cows decided to make a break for freedom, jumping the fence and the farmers were last seen chasing their cows.

Not Pamplona

Later, there was a small herd of cows tied up across the street and had cow bells being attached, they were mighty unhappy about it too. I went downstairs and stood across the street from them and finally the people herding them came forward, while some others untied the cows. The cattle started moving this way and that, thwarted or directed by the people assisting until they crossed into the street in front of me. Then it was off to the races as each cow followed the others. The running of the cows

While waiting for the “running of the cows of Lauterbrunnen” I snapped this photo of the beautiful morning we have today. In the mountains, the weather is ever changing. As cloudy as it was yesterday, it’s a nearly cloudless day.

Across from our hotel, they are renovating the church steeple. This bell, from an older tower of the same church, shows that it was placed in the church in 1497 and remained there until 1952.

We’re taking a BOB (Berner Oberland Bahn) train from Lauterbrunnen to Wengen, higher up on the wall of the valley, debating about which side of the train to sit for the best views. We bought tickets from the machine outside the tracks; Touch to Pay is so nice. Almost like not spending money (until the bill does actually come). On this train, there isn’t a wrong side and since we’re coming back down later today, we can just switch if we need to do so.

At a certain point not too far up from the station, the cogwheels engage as we cross over the Lütschine and start up the mountain, leaving the view of Staubbach Falls in the distance. I’m sitting on the side next to the mountain and see a number of small waterfalls cascading down from above.

It’s not a long ride up to Wengen, but it’s possible to capture a few nice shots out the window.

The large waterfall in the center of the photo is near our hotel.

The station in Wengen won’t let you cross over the tracks any longer to get away from all of the overhead wires that clutter the view, but it’s stunning anyway. From here, you could continue on up to the Jungfrau if you wished.

We’ve just come to visit Wengen, though we’ve been up to the Jungfrau multiple times.

Wengen is both a summer and winter resort, with beautiful scenery and hiking paragliding and biking in the summer and the Lauberhorn downhill race in January, 2020 and other skiing. There are a huge number of hotels and apartments here, but no towering structures to steal the scenery. It’s apparent that it’s not full summer tourism season, as the streets are still rather quiet except for the few hotel and maintenance vehicles. Except for some few construction vehicles, gasoline engines aren’t permitted up here, it’s propane or electric.

From Wengen you can take the lift up to Mannlichen and then continue on down the other side of the mountain to Grindelwald.

Mannlichen. Notice the snow fences

We did some shopping in one of the shops we frequent when here, then went down to the Coop to buy something for a snack as we hadn’t had lunch. We ate, sitting out in the square near the station and debated about whether to go back down to Lauterbrunnen or walk around here. We decided we wanted to have a last bit of time to walk around Lauterbrunnen before we leave tomorrow.

The train that came into Wengen next from Kleine Scheidegg was fairly crowded, but we did manage to find seats.

In the early evening, we went for a walk past the museum (Talmuseum), out towards another camping ground, but detoured to take the walkway back towards the river, as after a certain point on this road, you’re just walking out into the valley. We took a path along the Lütschine that led past a wood covered bridge, then down the path back to town.

One last visit to the Staubbach falls and then we leave tomorrow.