European Adventure: Switzerland

We spent the last few days of our trip in Switzerland, which we both loved.

We stayed in a gorgeous little town called Lauterbrunnen, which is nestled between two sets of mountains and which has lots and lots of waterfalls.

 This is the view from our hotel balcony. Beautiful.

We decided to spend our first morning hiking up in the mountains...but those clouds didn't exactly burn off like we'd hoped.

 In fact, it started snowing. In the end of June.

 But towards the end of our hike it did clear up a little, so we got some decent views.

Yay! The top of the mountain is peeking through the clouds!

 Now, you'll forgive me for posting a zillion pictures of this magical place.

 This picture is taken from Wengen--you can see Lauterbrunnen down in the valley.

 Murren

 Cows

 We hiked up behind Staubbach falls

We spent some time in nearby Interlaken, where we attended a chocolate making show, and got to dip a few of our own. Loved the chocolate, didn't love the other tourists who kept crowding us out so we couldn't see. Sometimes it's no fun being short. :(

 Interlaken is a decently sized city, but gorgeous in it's own right. It's situated between two lakes, which have the most remarkable color.

 Chase says this looks like my first-day-of-school picture.

 There, do you see that color? I've never seen that in a lake before!

 Our last morning it was finally clear up at the top, so we hurried and hopped a gondola up to the Schilthorn. Here you can see the three main peaks: Eiger, Monch, and Jungfrau.

 Possibly my favorite shot of this trip, especially since I didn't know he was going to throw a snowball at me at all!

 We grabbed some hot chocolate in the rotating restaurant at the top, then headed down via Gimmelwald.

 If you watch Rick Steve's at all, you know how he feels about Gimmelwald. We loved it, too. It is the most peaceful little town I've ever been privileged to visit. I even took a nap on a bench with no problems, it was so quiet.

 The view ain't bad, either. The only bad part was I managed to get altitude sickness when we were up at the top of the mountain, and by Gimmelwald it was in full force. So I was actually trying really hard not to puke in this picture. See? You never would have known that. We had planned one more adventure for the afternoon, but had to skip it since I was so sick. That just means we'll have to go back again, right??

 Oh, I nearly forgot the best part! Chase and I each took a morning/day in Interlaken to have an adventure. He did the Chli Schliere canyoning, and loved every minute of it.
 

 I was undecided up until a couple of days before, but ended up going paragliding, which basically means they get the chute up, then you run off the cliff and fly on down. It was both peaceful and exciting, if that's possible. I went tandem...here's my guide Domi.

And here you can see my view of Interlaken.

Our last afternoon we took the train to Zurich and walked around for a bit and got dinner.

 And ice cream.

And then the next morning we flew home! It was a most incredible trip.

Moments in Switzerland:

• I accidentally got off at the wrong stop while Chase was canyoning, and it ended up being the tiniest little stop ever, with not a single soul in sight, and I had to wait two hours for a train to come pick me up again. :( On the whole though, I loved the public transportation in Switzerland.
• Chase accidentally turned the shower in our hotel on full blast. That thing has crazy water pressure. It whipped the shower head around, blasted open the shower curtain, shot Chase (who was still standing outside the shower, dressed) in the face, and soaked a full 5 feet into the carpeted hotel room. I heard a yell and ran, and the absolutely stunned look on Chase's dripping wet face left me helpless with giggles for a full 10 minutes. Ah, if only I could have captured that one on film!
• Amazing chocolate fondue in a restaurant in Lauterbrunnen
• Our hotel staff was amazing, and so helpful, and I loved them.
• We discovered that we really don't know any German. At all. This wasn't a problem in Interlaken, but we were at a loss in Zurich!

Video!