Into the 'Frau again

Sidebar - Saturday night at the movies

Interestingly or not, Baslers seem to love their cinema. There's about six or seven of them in town. Most movies are shown in English with German and French subtitles, but they do also have dubbed versions. We had an interesting time watching Iron Man 2 the other month as the Russian stuff that Mickey Rourke was speaking, which would have been subtitled in English back home, was only subtitled in German and French! Anyhow, I love the cinema and we go quite often and fairly recently we saw the third installment of the Twilight Saga - Eclipse, I think. The locals were very amused when Bella enforced her neutrality in the Cullen / Wolfboy pissing contest by saying "I'm Switzerland." However, that's not what I wanted to mention. As I said, the movies are subtitled into German and French so it's actually kind of useful for picking up the odd bit of language and, when Bella and her dad were having that conversation, we noticed that the translation of "I'm a virgin" is "ich bin jungfrau". Which is the point of this sidebar. I mean, I kind of assumed it just meant "young lady", but it appears not. So this little post is mostly about our going into the virgin again. I thank you.

Family matters

But first, there's a bit more preamble. Claire's sister and her family arrived on Saturday and then Claire worked Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, so there's a bit to talk about first. The weather had been terrible and it was still pretty dreary on the Sunday, so we took a walk into town and just wandered a bit along the river - I'd been hoping to take a Rhine ferry because I knew the boys would love that [I know I still haven't told you about those ferries, but I will, I promise!] but there had been sooo much rain that the river was too high and so they were all closed. So we wandered up towards St. Alban, where very excitingly the fire brigade were out clearing all this flotsam that had accumulated on some of the chains in the river, forming a great big damn. The lunatics were stood on the damn, in the river, poling stuff downstream. And then they brought out a chainsaw! We had to drag the kids away from it in the end. Strolled up to the old city wall section that's still standing and then went and took a look at the big water wheel at the paper museum (which was turning very fast) and had a beer or two in the cafe beside it. In the afternoon we walked down past the zoo, checking out the elephants and jumped on a number ten tram at Zoo for Dornach at the end of the line, where I'd been before and it's quite nice. Only problem was, my usually completely reliable sense of direction was all out of whack so we went the wrong way! Oops. Still, we didn't actually have anything we particularly wanted to see there, so we got off at the other end of the line where the sun was actually out and had another beer or two before coming back again.

Monday and Tuesday the visitors went off on their own - they climbed the Munster and went to the zoo whilst I mostly chilled. The zoo is apparently quite good. One night, we ate at Aeschenplatz (the restaurant is situated on the platz just underneath the "hammering man" thing and has the same name as the platz); a traditional Swiss place, very reasonable, superb food and wonderful service - they were especially good to the kids, bringing their food asap and then bringing them books and paper and pencils once they'd eaten. Highly recommended; probably the best restaurant we've eaten at since I got here.

Wednesday us boys went off to Dreilandereck, which was very cool, mostly because it was a working day so the port was in full action with massive cranes lifting stuff and barges coming in to dock and trains running and everything! [Girls just don't get it, do they? Dawn stayed back packing and stuff.] We met Dawn in Marktplatz where us grown-ups had a kalbsbratwurst mit brot und senf whilst the kids had hot-dogs from the excellent sausage stand there. Have I mentioned Swiss hotdogs, by the way? They don't split the bun down the middle; they impale it upon a spike, squirt in the ketchup and or mustard and then slide the dog on in there. Cool. A few last minute bits of shopping for the essentials: wine, beer and charcoal and we were ready to head off for the mountains again.

Hotel, motel, Holiday Inn?

None of the above. We'd hoped to get into the camping jungfrau again but they were fully booked so the only place available at Lauterbrunnen was, basically, a youth hostel. The Valley Hostel, to be precise. There were six of us in a four-bunk room and fortunately we didn't have any mystery guests the first night but we would for the following two. I called topsies even before either of the two boys! We'd planned a BBQ for the first night but let's say the weather wasn't conducive to grilling. We still had the sausages and things, but they were cooked in the very well-appointed kitchen facilities. Wine, more wine and then bed.

The following day, after breakfast, we headed for the train station at Lauterbrunnen and purchased four of those 200CHF six-day passes I mentioned before. It turns out that kids under the age of 16 (it might actually be 18) can get the same thing for 20CHF. Which is an absolute bargain! So it was a train up to Kleine Scheidegg, look at the Eiger and Jungfrau for a while; it was quite a cloudy day so it was very atmospheric up there. Then down the other side into Grindelwald, a spot of lunch in the Rendezvous restaurant about halfway between the train station and the cable car station, then up to Mannlichen on the four person cable car. Claire and I were lucky enough to go with the boys whilst mum and dad got a car all to themselves. Actually, it was pretty lucky that Eagle-Eye Owen was with us because he spotted what we thought was a beaver (actually a marmot) down on the ground there. Then it was the gigantic cable car down from Mannlichen into Wengen. Have I mentioned I'm not great with cable cars? And then a very pleasurable walk down into Lauterbrunnen from Wengen. I say pleasurable, but it was pretty steep going, nice views most of the way (it's route 58 on the wanderweg maps). There was an hilarious interlude when Claire picked up this big brown pine cone and threw it at the boys, shouting "giant slug!" Which of course then became a running theme all the way down. We rewarded our efforts with a couple of beers before heading back to the hostel, and then going out for Fondue; actually my first fondue since arriving in Switzerland. You know what, let's call a spade a spade here. It's cheese soup! That was also the sunset were the Jungfrau turned pink, which the not-fantastic photo at the top of this post tries to show.

Weather Witch

Next day was breakfast and sandwich making for our assault on First and Bachalpsee. Call me unimaginative if you like, but it's such a lovely walk and such a lovely place to get to, that I'd happily go there every weekend. It's right up there with High Street or the back way up Old Man Coniston as far as I'm concerned. We'd sussed the previous day that it's actually much quicker to get the cog to Wengen, then the Mannlichen gondola and then the cable car down to Grund on the other side than to go up to Kleine Scheidegg and back down on two seperate cog trains. So that's what we did. Sadly we weren't with old Eagle-Eyes so we missed out on about six marmot/beavers.

First cable car up to First, everyone got quite excited about maybe doing the Trotti-bikes, which are basically big scooters, from Bort back down. We saw a few people going down the First Fleuger, which is a big zip wire from First to the next cable car station. I sometimes think I fancy it and then I actually look at how far off the ground I'd be and think, "naaaah". From First, the walk up to Bachalpsee was as lovely as last time, although all the snow had gone and there were still some cloud floating around. When we were nearly at Bachalpsee, we met a wizened old lady who was clearly about 80 and out for her regular afternoon constitutional and told us to be careful - she didn't like the looks of the cloud above Bachalpsee. She might have been a weather witch...

Sarnies at Bachalpsee, which was a little chilly it must be said, followed by macaroons! Now I couldn't tell you how long it's been since I had macaroons but I am re-hooked on the things. A little taste of heaven. Back to First, damply pursued by the rain as predicted by the witch, onto the cable car at First, off again at Bort. We were going to go on the Trottis! Except there was noone manning the booth and a massive long queue and it started raining. So we nipped over the the cafe by Bort for a swift coffee and to see what happened to the rain. Whilst there, we worked out that we'd run out of time to do the Trottis, to much mithering and discombobulation. In fact, we'd nearly run out of time to get back to Lauterbrunnen!

In the cable car on the way down again, we worked out that we could get back to Lauterbrunnen via the Berner Oberlander Bahn. And that would be everyone's first go on a BOB, so it had to be done! We duly went down to Zweilutischen, where the train (8 cars long) would be continuing into Interlaken, while we would wait for a train back up to Lauterbrunnen. And then the coolest thing happened; the train from Lauterbrunnen met up with the train from Grindelwald and joined together into what we felt obliged to describe as a MEGABOB. Trains are very very cool. Back to the hostel again, possibly via a bar, and dinner. Schnitzels fresh from the butcher in Grindelwald. Be warned when schnitzel-cooking in hostels that don't have grills: they don't take long to fry!

Trotti Day!

Last day and we'd decided on two action items. Firstly, we wanted to get a good look at the big waterfall just behind Lauterbrunnen. Secondly, we wanted to go up the other side of the valley for a change, to Murren, and see how pretty it was there. Chris and I had come up with a third, secret objective, which was to get back down from Murren early enough that we'd be able to drive to Zweilutischen and then BOB to Grindelwald for the Trotti bikes from Bort. What we didn't realise at the time was that Saturday was the day of the Inferno Triathlon and half-marathon. For those who are click-averse, here are the facts:

• Swim: 3.1km


• Road bike: 97km (2.1km vertical)


• Mountain bike: 30km (1.1km vertical)


• Run: 25km (2.1km vertical)

Lunatics!
So there was plenty going on and the cable car up to Murren was very crowded. We walked halfway back, stopped for a very nice lunch and then got the train the rest of way back.

Yes, we were in time to get to Bort to do the Trotti bikes and yes they were worth the effort. They were tremendous fun, only hampered somewhat by some extremely nervous riders in front of us. If anyone ever asks you if you want to try some trotti bikes, your answer should be yes. They're cool. Seriously cool. End of.