Bernese Oberland Trip: May 1

May 1 was a holiday here so we took advantage of Brian's time off and hit the road. Destination: Grindelwald.

On our way there, we stopped in the Lauterbrunnen Valley to go see Truemmelbach Falls.
Betti needed to eat when we arrived so I sat down with her while Marion and Brian ran around. We quickly became part of the tourist attraction. People stared at me feeding Betti and took pictures with Marion. I've never experienced this before; next time we will take a hat for donations.

After Betti ate we made our way to the entrance of the falls, bought our tickets, and got on the lift to take us up to most of the chutes.
When we left the lift I was stopped by the lift operator who informed me that I shouldn't take Betti up to the chutes at the top because it was "too cold and loud, just like you shouldn't take a baby that small to Jungfraujoch."

Uhhh, what? I thanked him and then quietly panicked. Our plans for the following day included Jungfraujoch.

So Brian and Marion continued up the mountain to see the chutes above us. They didn't last very long. Apparently it was so cold and loud that Brian couldn't hear Marion crying hysterically while looking at the waterfalls. I never guessed she would have reacted that way. Luckily, the chutes below us (numbers 1-5 I believe), were all accessible from the outside of the mountain.

We walked down the mountain enjoying all of the views of the falls. It really was amazing- the melting snow water from the Eiger, Mönch and Jungfrau peaks cuts through the rock and has created beautiful formations.

The walk down the mountain was neat too- Marion enjoyed going through the "tunnels".

Marion grew tired quickly of the walk so we used one of our many disciplinary tactics: bribery. We told her if she walked all the way to the entrance, we'd buy her a special treat.

It worked. She ran to the entrance and the souvenir store.

Once we caught up, we got her a little cowbell with her name on it. We also found one with Bettina's name on it. It helps to have daughters with German names.

We then drove a couple of minutes into Lauterbrunnen to have lunch outside in the beautiful weather. The view was amazing; we quickly lost count of the water falls in the valley. However, there was no way we could miss Staubbach Falls.
After lunch we drive a half hour to our destination for the night, Grindelwald. Marion fell asleep in the car for a bit and we tried to keep her up, hoping that she'd take a nap once we arrived and settled in at our hotel. Didn't happen that way. As soon as the car stopped at our hotel, Hotel Spinne, she was up and ready to go.

We decided to explore Grindelwald a little bit instead of forcing a nap that wasn't going to happen. It was a cute town with small playground near our hotel. Not much to do though. We weren't prepared or up for a hike and we couldn't take Betti up the mountain. Also, we were there during a downtime between seasons so some shops and the sports center were closed. So we spent our time at the playground and then went to the terrace at our hotel. It was a relaxing afternoon, as long as we focused on the view and ignored the overtired toddler with us. Focusing on the view wasn't hard at all...




Bedtime came early for us that night. We settled in and tried to ignore the incredibly loud tourists in the hotel who insisted on partying with each other with their hotel room doors open. Despite the noise, Brian and Marion quickly fell asleep. I hopped on the computer and started searching for something to do that Saturday since the lift operator (and some googling) had killed our plans to explore Jungfraujoch.

To be continued...