Tales from the road – Switzerland Teaser

Beautiful view while on the Murren-Blumental trail

As I sit in the guesthouse here in Murren Switzerland with the Alps filling the view out of the window, I wanted to take a moment to share a picture from the road. For those that have not been to Switzerland, I have to say that the scenery is beyond description. Words cannot do it justice. It is a painter’s and photographer’s paradise.

After a couple days in Bern to recover from the long ride and change in time zone, we hopped on the train to Interlaken Ost bound for Murren. To get to Murren, we took two trains and a cable car! The Swiss have moving people down to a science and it does not matter what elevation. They will get you there with maximum efficiency.

Murren, which is about 2000 feet above the Lauterbrunnen Valley, is a small, traffic-free alpine town filled with quaint bakeries, restaurants, shops and hikers. There are only 400 permanent residents here and it is not very busy with tourists. Quite a difference really from the tourist crush that we have seen in other places like Rome and Venice. I think most of the business here is in the winter when the skiers come to the Alps for their winter fun.

There are well-marked hiking trails galore. Our first afternoon here, we took a two-hour hike that was filled with sights of the Eiger, Monch and Jungfrau peaks as well as Alpen flowers and Swiss farmhouses. This shot was taken about one and a half hours into our hike on the Murren-Blumental trail. The Swiss gentleman in the photo kindly asked if it was OK to keep going across the shot. I said absolutely! I think it really brought some relevance to the photo. We can tell that hiking is a way of life here and, as he is proving, it can be done at any age!