Thursday, 4 September 2014

A room with a view: Grindelwald, Switzerland

This post was mostly written over the weekend, all it needed were a few final proof reads and some extra pictures (because you can never post too many pictures of this beauty of a place) before hitting the publish button and sending it into the world wide interwebs. Then, instead of being productive and getting straight to it, I plonked my butt down and started catching up on my bloglovin feed and came across Kaelene's post on her "Room with a view" which was linking up with Emma's September link up. Seeing as I have literally just returned from a long weekend which happened to have a room with the best view ever, I decided to bite the bullet and join in on my first ever link up.  Below are a few little bits and pieces we did during our short stay in Grindelwald, our room certainly had a view (hello Eiger?!) and the views from the car, train and every other aspect of our holiday were just about as spectacular.  So without further ado, a brief, by the numbers, recap on our time in  a mountain paradise.

1 Beautiful Chalet overlooking the Eiger and the Lower Grindelwald Glacier.


4 Breakfasts eaten on our little deck overlooking the most tranquil setting (we certainly won on the accommodation front). Below is what I woke up to for four days straight.... I know! 



4 Cable car rides on death-defying cable cars that are too steep and too high…hello sweaty palms.

1 Flying Fox ride down a steep stretch of a mountain at speeds of up to 84km per hour. I may have shed a tear of nerves as I was being harnessed in, Hamish may have laughed at this.


3 Avalanches seen firsthand – two in the Upper Grindelwald glacier and one on the train down from Jungfraujoch - these beasts grumble and roar like its nobodies business!


2 Trains taken to get to the top of Europe, aka Jungfraujoch.



1 Walk along the Jungfraujoch col at approx. 3400m resulting in a minor case of altitude sickness.




2 circuits walked around the Ice palace at Jungfraujoch (yes we liked this attraction, especially the slippery, slidey, smooth floor).



1 Cheese Fondue devoured in approx. 90 seconds. (You would of thought I would have learnt my lesson after the last time in Geneva!) 



4 Breakfasts eaten on our little deck overlooking the most tranquil setting (we certainly won on the accommodation front).



1 Game of chess played with Lake Brienz in the background.



3 Hikes up to stunning waterfalls, one of these walks also was not up an actual path but rather the steep (read sheer) debris of a rock fall. We discovered this at the top, but it’s okay, we lived.



1 Ride down the mountain on a Trottibike. No pedals are needed (hence the bike has no such thing). I think my hand was on the break 99.9% of the time and I was still going faster than I would have liked but I suppose that’s what happens when you scooter down a mountain.






1 Lunch eaten at a picturesque skiing town (Kleine Scheidigg) with the North Face of the Eiger as it’s backdrop.




1 Bazillion bells heard, just gently ringing from the necks of all the cows and goats, as they do in the Alps.




2 Times down the super slide with flashing lights at the Grindelwald leisure centre – this thing was like being in a euro-trash disco for 20 seconds a pop. (There are no pics of this, so you will have to use your imagination...)

1 Swim in the near empty indoor pool – with the glass windows and the view of the mountains behind us.

1 too many slices of Swiss cheese consumed (my name rhymes with the darn thing, I have no hope).

Cheese does this to me.

1 Unforgettable holiday to be repeated every single year.