OUR FIRST CLOSE UP VIEW OF THE ALPS.
Fritz and Gabi are the owners of Gafri Chalet. They used to manage the Baren Hotel in Wilderswil and built this B&B about three years ago. There are photos of it in the Accommodation section on the web. We have a lovely big room with a comfortable lounge, a writing desk, table and chair plus an en suite bathroom with everything included. There was a welcome bowl of fruit plus chocolates, and an invitation to collect a Swiss Souvenir Cowbell at a shop in Interlaken - haven't done that yet, but the fruit is disappearing and the chocolates were gone very quickly!
Staying here when we arrived were an English couple who have been coming to this area for years for their holidays. Penny and Martin are their names and they together with Fritz have given us lots of information about what to do and see here. They all recommended that we take the opportunity to go to Schynige Platte on the train from Wilderswild on a fine day and Saturday was a beautiful sunny day - the only drawback was that it was about 30 degrees!
Following their advice we got an early start and arrived at the Station around 10.00 am - there were lots of people milling around, but the railway people were well organised and there were about six cog and rack trains operating. There was also one being operated by a steam engine, but we didn't get to see that until we got to the top.
It takes two hours to get to the Platte and the views on the way up and down are fantastic. Brian took some photos in an attempt to show how steep it is, but it is really difficult to do so successfully.
In the brochure there is a code which indicates the environment through which the train travels and there is one that the railway employees have called the "ooh ah" tunnel. As you emerge this is the view you get, and yes there were lots of ooh ahs in our train as well.
Schreckhorn, Eiger, Monch and Jungfrau are the peaks you can see.
This is taken from a viewpoint which forms part of the walk around the Alpine Botanical Garden. Brian was looking at the possibilities of using some of the plants in Canberra.
In the foreground you can just make him out sitting under the conifer in the right hand corner. When he tried to take some photos he discovered that the camera was full. So while he deleted them, I walked up further and took more photos on the phone.
We wandered around the top for a while, but didn't do any long walks. It was just too hot. We checked out the hotel and sat under a shady umbrella and listened to two men in traditional costume play the alpine horns. There was a lady with a dog near us and the dog didn't like the sound of the horn at all.
Brian took more photos on the way down:
Went to the Baren Hotel for dinner that night. Good meal and not too expensive.
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