Day 3--A Day in the Alps

I told you yesterday that I was a bit sleep-deprived. This morning Ferrell read my blog and pointed out that I had a major mis-type in yesterday’s post. I am really smart enough to know the difference between, UBS and UPS (especially since my son-in-law, Daryl works for UPS!). It is UBS that is headquartered in Switzerland…not UPS. Please overlook any other spelling/grammar errors. We correct only the “biggies”.

Breakfast this morning was on the seventh-floor terrace of the hotel, where we had eaten dinner last night. From our tables we could view street scenes in Lucerne below us, and the mountains near the hotel. Is this a dream, or what?

View of Lucerne from the terrace.

The skies were still overcast when we left Lucerne, and of course I was hoping for a sunny, cloudless day. We traveled from Lucerne to an area called the Bernese Oberland, a beautiful area in the Swiss Alps. While we were on the bus headed in that direction, Ferrell mentioned that this was his mother’s 96th birthday, and we all sang “Happy Birthday to Vera”. It is also Olen’s mother’s birthday, and I hope Mom had a good day, also.

We drove through the Bruenig pass, which took us through several tunnels. Finally there was a place where the bus could pull off the road so we could take photographs. While we were making photographs and taking in the breathtaking scenery, Elizabeth asked me if I knew why there were so many tunnels in the area. I attempted a reasonable answer, but she said the “real” reason was that humans would not be able to take in such an overload of fantastic scenery and they had to have black-out areas on the roads in the form of tunnels for our sanity! Hmmmm.

We made a stop in the small village of Brienz at a woodcarver’s shop. The shop had been in his family since 1835, and had been in operation ever since. Four years ago an avalanche covered the little village and completely destroyed the shop, but they built back and are continuing in business. The carvings were beautiful, but unfortunately very expensive.

Janet and Ann posed beside one of the woodcarver's creations

We went to Truemmelback Falls, which is 10 glacial waterfalls inside a mountain. We were told that 5,000 gallons of water go over the falls every second. We took an elevator inside the mountain to one level for viewing and then we walked several levels above that. Very interesting.

Lunch stop was at a lovely village of Lauterbrunnen. By the time we arrived there, the sun had come out and the weather was beautiful. We were given a little over an hour for lunch, and were told there were several little lunch choices along the single road that went through Lauterbrunnen. I really wished for my husband, whose attitude in situations like this is always, “We can eat at home. Let’s walk around and see what there is to see here.” Going on the assumption that would be what he would want me to do, I broke with the group and walked all over the little town, munching on my peanut butter crackers as I walked along. I explored areas that probably weren’t meant to be explored, took an abundance of photos and just sat and viewed the typically-Swiss postcard-views. I stopped at a small bakery and bought a drink and some Swiss dessert (chocolate, of course!). I had a very special lunch break!

Views of scenes during the lunch stop

After lunch we drove to the town of Grindelwald. It is one of the most popular destination in the Alps, and has views of the snow-capped mountains and glaciers in the distance. Grindelwald is said to be the village located at the highest elevation that can be reached by car, and in my estimation it can barely be reached by bus. Those roads were narrow and steep for our big bus.

Scenes of Grindelwald

We drove back to Lucerne for the night. On the drive back, I reached across the aisle in the bus and tapped Janet on the arm. “When we were students together at Florida College, did you ever dream that we would be touring Switzerland together nearly 50 years later?” It is hard to believe the amazing turns and twists down the pathway we take in life, isn’t it?

We had dinner on the seventh-floor terrace again, and are about to call it a day. It has been a great day. I hope all of you have had a memorable day, also. This is a beautiful world we live in. Be thankful for it today…and always.