Hiking - Tellenburg Castle and

 The weather was predicted to be foggy and rainy again so we decided to hike in the valley. we headed down to Frutigen to hike up to the Tellenburg castle. As it was Saturday we found a parking place in a factory just below the castle and hiked up the hill. The Castle is in ruins but has been renovated in some places such as the stairs. The stairs did give me the heebie-jeebies as they were narrow and steep, although there was a barrier railing. The views at the top need to climb all worth it. They were spectacular panoramic views on all sides of the castle. It was the typical Swiss countryside that you think of when you think of Switzerland - Chalets, mountains with snow, a winding river, Cowles, alpine pastures. after taking photos I headed back down the horrible stairs and this time was rewarded with cows at the backside of the castle. We hiked farther up the path and soon passed the shooting range. We found that interesting as they were shooting crossbows. It was starting to rain and we were happy to see that the path went under the train track and let us back towards our parking lot.

 From there we drove up the mountain the ways to Hangebrucke Hostalde. This bridge was built privately and it’s supposed to be one of the longest suspension bridges in Europe. It is 153 m long and 38 m above the river. It is supposed to be able to hold 100 people. For the second time in a day I felt the heebie-jeebies. I started off with baby steps, but realized I need a bigger steps to get across quicker And that’s what I did. On the other side of the bridge is a family run restaurant that owns the bridge. The restaurant is big enough to hold two long tables sitting 12 people together. There is already two hikers and a family inside and we join them at the table. We ordered a charcuterie board with 2 local meats, the thinnest sliced cheese we’ve ever seen and homemade bread along with Radlers. It was a delicious for lunch and so gemutlich! It was such a unique place for lunch and thoroughly enjoyable. We hiked back across the bridge and down to the water where we could look up at the bridge. Guess what, it still looked scary. 

We headed back to the lodge and after a while ventured into the village to find a bank machine. For the first time on the trip we need to exchange money because Switzerland only takes Swiss francs and not always a Visa card. Mission accomplished and then we headed to the Kandersteg Oktoberfest. It was a small tent, definitely a true Oktoberfest tent that brought back many memories. We each got a bratwurst, mine was a pretzel and Scotty’s with french fries. We ordered Franziskaner weiss biers and they were excellent. The two performers played the typical oompah music and we loved it.

Hiking - Blausee, Switzerland

 We were disappointed to wake up to a sky full of fog and clouds. We decided to make it an easy day and hike down to the Blausee. The hick went through the village of Kandersteg which is very charming with lots of typical Swiss homes and cows everywhere. The hike went up a path onto the Hohweg (high path). As we hiked we really enjoyed watching an unusual event. We saw a helicopter drop a package in front of a Swiss chalet high top the mountain where a man picked up the package and took it into his home as a helicopter flew away. Then the helicopter came back And picked up but looked to be a box near a tower on the mountain. We watched as he flew away with the box hanging from the helicopter to a short distance up the valley. He dropped off the box and flew back for another pick up and this went on for about three hours. We had all kinds of guesses as to what he was doing, but said they will probably never know. we got to the Blausee where admission was now half price, five francs instead of 10 because the Blausee was no longer Blau (blue). apparently there has been a drought the lake is low and it’s affecting the limestone. So today it was the Grunsee (green lake). It was still pretty with the backdrop of the mountain. What surprised us was how long it took us to get down to the lake, 5 1/2 miles rather than the three we had expected. So after walking around the lake, we headed back to Kandersteg. We looked at the map to see if there was perhaps a shorter route but no we had taken the direct route down to the lake. About halfway back, my right knee really started to hurt. It was an extremely long hike back to our lodge. Along the way we did stop at a bakery to buy some pastries and we stopped at the grocery store to buy meat and cheese for dinner. Once we were in our room, we took showers, rested our legs and ate our dinner. Our easy day turned out to be not so easy.

Driving to Switzerland

 We left in the morning from beautiful Cinque Terre and headed out on the wild road. The roads in and out of these villages are truly amazing as they’re so twisty and have such steep drop offs. But the boy from Iowa did a great job of driving. When we got to Switzerland we found a restaurant and had a light lunch. I had a delicious cauliflower soup and salad and Scotty had schnitzel and fries. We had a beautiful view of the mountains from our table. As we drove we noticed the mountains were dusted with snow and we were driving among the clouds. A few hours from Kandersteg we encountered a road closed sign. we had to turn around and it looked like it would’ve been a 5 Hour Dr. or we could take the train which we weren’t too sure about as we didn’t know what the cost would be. Switzerland is known to be very expensive. We headed towards the train and were pleasantly surprised to find out that the ride was only Fr.27 or about $27. it was a 15 minute drive through the tunnel rather than a three or 4 Hour Dr. around the mountain. It was actually really kind of cool as we drove the car up onto the train and put it into park. We we were going through the tunnel we’re guessing at about 50 to 60 mph. when we came out of the tunnel we passed cows and Swiss homes and there we were in Kandersteg. Amazing. We checked in at Kandersteg international scout center where we had a room in the lodge. It’s a basic room but quite comfortable. There are the typical two twin beds with duvets. There’s one lounge chair and a table with two chairs, it shrunk and a bathroom. We slept well in our newest home.

Touring - Manarole and Riomaggiore

 We hiked down the steps to the train station and went to our first Village, Manarola. It was slightly overcast, but still a beautiful day for photos. We hiked up the trail above the village into the vineyards. It was a very very steep trail and I’m glad we didn’t hike the whole trail. It was enough to get a great overlook of the village. It’s amazing to see how the vineyards are positioned on the hill and the farmers have built steps onto the different terraces to get to their grapes. As usual it almost seemed harder coming back down the hill. We wandered around a lot of the village and then walked out beyond the harbor so that we could look back into Manarola. This is the beautiful picture that is so often seen of this village, and I was excited that we were not seeing it. we were slightly amazed at the boats in this town as we were trying to figure out how they got them into the water. We did see a winch but the boats would’ve had to maneuver through the rocks and today the waves are really rough so we didn’t even see any boats in the water. In fact we didn’t see any boats in the sea the whole time we were here in Cinque Terre. within got on the train to ride up to Riomaggiore, a whole two minutes on the train. This village is the brightest colored village of the five. we first hiked out past the harbor and took a picture or two looking back into the village. It is gorgeous. From there we walked up the hill and went into a church when it started to lightly drizzle. We had lunch at II Pescato Cucinato. They advertise street food and give you cones of fried food. We chose fried calamari and fried shrimp. They were excellent. We again hiked up the hill to the castle and although we didn’t go inside the castle we could once again look down upon the village. We were also able to see the hill where the workers were fixing the path between this village and Manarola.

Corniglia

 We drove from Florence to Pisa and only stopped for the obligatory piece of tower photo. it really was quite amusing to see everybody posing as if they were holding up the tower. The lines to get into the tower and the Basilica were long and timed so even if we had wanted to go inside it would’ve made for a long day.

 We continued on to Corniglia and that’s where we encountered to drive from hell. Scotty did a really good job on roads that were narrow and had steep drop offs to the land and see below. We had to stop several times to let other cars pass. 

And we got to Cerniglia we called Donatello and she met us in the Square. We followed her directions to her House where her sister showed us where to park our car. We then went back to the apartment and Donatello in her limited English told us about the apartment and how to visit the five villages. The apartment is very nice and consist of a bedroom a living area/kitchen and a bathroom. we walked around the village of Cerniglia and settled on a Dinner Pl., Matteo‘s Café. I got a Radler Scotty got a beer and the drinks came with snacks (chips, peanuts, and olives). The restaurant was really busy which was kind of funny because the restaurant next-door had all empty tables as the waiter watched our restaurant. I had fish and vegetables which was really good and Scotty had spaghetti with shrimp.