Our trip to Switzerland - Part 5

A long, long time ago I watched a show on the Travel Channel, and they featured the highest train station in Europe. I forgot all about it until I was planning our trip and, lo and behold, it's in Switzerland! Since we were traveling by train it made sense to add that train station to my bucket list.

After doing some research I found another area that sounded like a fun place to visit, with a lot of appealing hikes. So off we went to Mürren, and I didn't tell Bob that getting to Mürren would envolve taking the train to Interlaken, transferring to a cog railroad, transferring to a cable car, and taking another train to Mürren.

We did it, and without getting lost, so we were happy. Mürren is a pretty little town that is set on the side of the mountain, and it has a few hotels and shops.

Of course we filled our water bottles at one of their fountains. I really wish we could do that at home.

The hike we chose was fantastic! It was not a sunny day, but the trail made up for the lack of sun. We hiked through cow pastures, around homes, through meadows, and under ski lifts, and we enjoyed every minute of it!

The cows were so pretty, and they didn't mind us hiking through their fields at all. They just stood still and watched us walk past.  The red and white marker on the rock marked the trail.

We had to pass through many gates, and I think every gate was different. Some were metal, some were wooden, and some were a simple wire strung across the path.

This cow bell was pretty darn big. A doorbell maybe?

The Swiss don't go into the mountains to milk their cows and haul the milk down the mountain. Instead, they milk their cows and make cheese on the spot. After passing several barns we noticed one with a few tables outside so we stopped for lunch. The menu was bratworst and tomato soup, and it was delicious!

They feed the leftover milk products to their hogs, and make bratworst with the hogs. How efficient!

Another cow. I couldn't resist.

We took a cutoff on the trail and went to Gimmelwald, and Gimmelwald is even smaller than Mürren.

I just loved the houses in this region. They all have balconies, and pretty flowers.

Many of the houses were surrounded by their winter supply of firewood.

We were hungry after our long hike, and I noticed this self serve dairy, so we stopped in to buy some cheese for a snack.

They had a sign on the door with instructions to just walk in, open the refrig, buy what you want, and put your money in the little box. Look at all those axes lined up!

Apparently this farmer's cows are all down from the mountain for the winter and he lined his cowbells up on his house.

Jungfraujoch - The Top of Europe! We found it! It actually wasn't too hard to find, but I won't bore you with the details. We went by train, of course, and we were so glad we took the trip.

It was cold and foggy up there, but we went inside and hoped the weather would clear.

This part was great! They had a cave carved into the ice with ice sculptures and exhibits about the area.

We waited, and the weather did clear!

We went outside for a little while, but most of these pictures were taken from inside, where it was much warmer and much less windy.

When we left Murren our trip was almost over and we took the train to Zurich. I read about Zurich's fat blue guardian angel and I wanted to find her. We looked and looked all over that train station and just couldn't find her. Finally we looked up and there whe was. How could we ever miss her?  She certainly didn't look like any of the angels pictured in the books we had at St. Peter's!

When we visited Switzerland's larger cities we were impressed with the number of people biking to work. Zurich took the cake with this huge double decker bike parking garage.

Look at this guy's broom! He needs to buy a new one from Tony Campbell!

Another fountain, another filled water bottle.

We walked and walked and really enjoyed Zurich.

We found clocks like this all over Switzerland.

This is the dessert Bob had after our last dinner in Switzerland. It looked terrible to me, and we saw the same kind everywhere we went, but he said it was delicious.

So that's it for our trip to Switzerland. We had a grand time, and we'd recommend it to anyone!