Sunday, April 6
I realize now just how sleepy the little berg of Lauterbrunnen is: my hotel/restaurant closed at 8pm last night and didn't have any employee handling the hotel this morning. The checkout system is simply putting the physical key in a letterbox 😂 I'd hoped to leave my luggage at the restaurant and do a bit of exploring in the morning, but then I decided to simply hold on to my room until I left around 10:30 😆 I guess the hotel saves on labor by working completely online while guests get to benefit from honor system checkouts.
My room came with a surprisingly nice balcony from which one can enjoy the view of the sleepy little town or admire the play of light on distant peaks and massifs.
I managed to snag a cable car up the valley wall on the opposite direction of yesterday: from Lauterbrunnen to Greutschalp. I wasn't the only person, there was a ton of people with snowport gear going up too and we all snagged the train from the télécabine station to Mürren. I wouldnt be able to spend more than 40ish minutes atop the valley but I wanted to take full advantage of my last full carte journalière and use multiple lines of transport. And I think the trip in the morning was worthwhile, even if only for 30 minutes of mulling about: the view onto the three peaks was spectacular!
Mürren is a pretty small town nestled atop the south rim of the Lauterbrunnen valley, it's impressive the difference in views you get of the surrounding mountains by scaling some 400m. Definitely less smell of cow pies up here too 😂. Apparently, the big thing at Mürren is to go to the Schilthorn a little further to the south but I didn't have the time to do that this morning.
Sadly the angle from Mürren didn't allow for an unobstructed view of the three big peaks; here's the Eiger and Mönch. I liked the flurry of snow kicked up by the wind on the Mönch, it felt like a special morning secret to me akin to the mountain knowingly tapping the side of its nose.
Here's the Jungfrau with a parachuter taking full advantage of the early morning drafts; I had to rub my eyes to be sure but some madlad really did throw themselves into the valley.
Et voila, the three peaks captured from the train back to the telecabine for returning down into the valley. The only others in the train were a British mother and her adolescent son; I think she was on to something when she said "looking at tall things is good for our souls". Innit, guvna?
If I didn't already have plans for the afternoon back in Geneva, I would've been tempted to stick around and visit another panoramic peak: the weather this morning was clear of clouds (as far as I could tell) over the Berner Oberland though humidity in the air seemed to have an effect on visibility. But there's more than one way to benefit from a sunny day and there's no guarantee that clouds wouldn't manifest like they did yesterday in the time I actually ascended to Jungfrau.
While waiting for the next train back to Interlaken, I had time to enjoy a coffee and an apple rosemary blondie (I highly recommend and will be researching a recipe for making later).
It's impressive to think of the forces needed to tilt tons of layers of rock 60 degrees.
Hmm, dent du leon or pissenlit?
I took my lesson from yesterday's arrival trip and was sure to face the lake on the return trip. I find the Thunersee is impressive because of how much the landscape shifts as one traverses the perimeter.
I'm not entirely sure which mountain that is, but rounding its point and seeing a valley cached away was pretty mind blowing.
And the mountain only gets more dramatic the further along the train goes. Gosh, do I need to think about doing a hike there?
A final, hazy goodbye to the Eiger, Mönch, and Jungfrau.
I'd tried a pretzel/bretzel one of my first days in Switzerland that had involved the pretzel being halved and slices of cheese inserted; to me, melting raclette cheese over the pretzel makes much more sense.
Back near Lac Leman, the wind was really ripping. The cloth over these fields caught my attention as instead of waves of rolling grain, I noticed white waves propagating along the length of the field.
In total, returning from Lauterbrunnen to Geneva takes just shy of 4 hours; fortunately, the trains are scenic and comfortable. Looking out the window, I spotted a ton of cows lounging in sunny fields while cyclists pass them by. The Berner Oberland is very lovely, I saw many more farm animals on this weekend trip than I did around Neuchâtel and Fribourg, though I imagine the Swiss compagne remains very agrarian all over.
The Carouge market square was bustling with people and activity this sunny, Sunday afternoon
Not so much from produce and produits du terroir but with la brocade and curiosities.
I'd made plans with a coworker to meet in Russin at 5pm. This is a small little village along my route to work and he wanted to take some time to show me around the French part of Jura. When we'd previously met in NYC, he told me he was from Haute-Savoie and is currently living in his natal village. Given scheduling difficulties, we opted to skip exploring Jura and simply walk around the area and have a meal together with his family.
From Russin, we drove a bit further down the road and then walked around
for a bit. It was a pleasure to meet his family and stumble upon an
equestrian facility. Dinner was a fun event with a novel heat source
and we wrapped it all up with me teaching the kids "Up high, down low,
too slow" 😆
On a previous lunch hour footing, we'd passed by this farm but this time I got to savor a few minutes of watching the chickens, rabbits, and guinea fowl.
There's truly no shortage of vineyards in the Geneva canton. I really enjoyed my time here but think of how picturesque things would've been if I'd arrived near harvest time instead?
I'd seen the Saleve from this train stop many times but never without the train's window before. How freeing it is to simply step off the train and discover this stepping stone of my daily commute.
The town of Russin is very small, with maybe one park overlooking the valley with two restaurants in the main "plaza", if it can be called that.
Stumbling upon an equestrian center, we took a few minutes to watch a lady trot her horse around and poke our heads in through a barn window. It wasn't until she'd thought we'd left that she started to attempt a few jumps with her horse; I get it, the sudden pressure of an audience would have me a little nervous too.
There were signs saying people aren't allowed to take fruit from the vineyards and to stay out of the rows but it seems it's still perfectly acceptable to walk along the access roads between plots.
The restaurant featured a neat quirk of roasting all their meats over grape vine wood. I don't think I could taste a difference in my steak but I think it was a cool experience. I'd also never thought about what happens to all the excess vines after vineyards trim things back after the harvest and restart with new grafts in the spring.
I'm down to my last week in Geneva, which means that I need to start
packing up the apartment. The tricky thing will be ensuring I have
clean clothing for 2 weeks of vacation travel. 😅 Maybe I'll have to
get creative like a college student and begin using all 4 sides of my
underwear 😂
I
snuck a quick peek in the laundry room and was amused at the new washer
instructions posted; oh how I could have used such instructions a month
ago.
A friend at work had loaned me his weight scale (I need to purchase one myself) and I started the packing process. With the majority of my souvenir chocolate/booze packed up, I'm at 19.5 kg out of my 23kg allotment. I guess I'll need to carefully consider any other items I purchase from here on out.
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