Europe Day 18: Goodbye Switzerland

So, after a day of frolicking in the Swiss Alps ...

... the plan was to drive to Lucerne, a city the size of Zurich, but with a little more atmosphere, a suggestion made to us by our hotel clerk in Interlaken.
We took the leisurely 68 km, hour and a half  drive through the Alps to get there, and when we did, we quickly realized it was going to cost us a fortune to stay the night. The hostels in town were asking 180 Swiss Francs a night, which is over 200 CDN, a price that we were just not willing to pay. After some searching the best we could do was a room in the next town for 140 Swiss Francs. It was at this point we decided to hell with crazy expensive Switzerland, we saw what we wanted to see, it was time to get back in the car and head to Germany to find a cheaper place to stay for the night.
But, I was starving, so we decided to stop at McDonald's, we like to do when we travel for a number of reasons.
1, if you are unsure of the food in the place you are in, you can always count on McDonald's to have something familiar and safe to eat.
2, it gives you a look at what the local cultures favorite food is by the different menu items.
3, if you are unsure of the value of the local currency, you can compare the price of a Big Mac meal there to the price of a Big Mac meal back home to get a sense for how much things cost.

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... we should of just kept on driving and waited until we hit Germany.



All part of the experience ...

Europe Day 18:Trummelbach Falls

Our next stop, 10 minutes down the road was Trummelbach Falls, which is a series of 10 glacier-waterfalls inside the mountain that is made accessible by tunnel lift that was built into the mountain and then illuminated.

The Trummelbach Falls drains glacier water from the nearby Eiger, Monch, and Jungfrau mountains and carries up to 20,000 litres of water per second.

It is the only glacier-waterfalls inside a mountain in Europe that is accessible to the public ...

... and it was pretty damn cool.

Europe Day 18: Stechelberg, Schilthorn Mountain

After checking out Interlaken, it was time for a little mountain climbing, Swiss style.

We hoped in the car for the half hour drive to Stechelberg, to catch the cable car that would take us to the top of Schilthorn Mountain, 2,970 metres or just under 10,000 feet above sea level, supposedly the highest point in Europe you can get to by cable car.

To get there you start in Stechelberg on the valley floor below, and get in a cable car that takes you to the first stop, Murren.

From Murren, another cable car takes you to Brig.
Then its on to the top, with one more stop mid-way up to get on the fourth and final cable car ...




... which takes you to the panoramic restaurant on the top of Schilthorn mountain with a view that is out of this world.

On the way back down we got off the cable car at the Brig stop and decided to hike down the mountain to the Murren cable car stop.

And I even found a place to stop for a beer and enjoy the view.

Then it was back onto the cable car back to Stechelberg and the valley floor below.