Switzerland Day 6 - Männlichen & more
Most of the path was uphill. The lovely views of the village and a dream about a nice breakfast pushed me up.
The village center was very commercialized with a lot of hotels and shops. It was still too early for most of the cafes or restaurants to be open as usual but we knew at least two bakeries were already open.
The other one was at the east end of the village. The walk for breakfast We needed a breakfast anyway.
We checked one in the middle of the village center but their baked goods didn't look nice and the tiny outside eating space in front of the shop was exposed directly to the car and the tourist traffics. Nope. We walked extra 15 or so minutes to the other one, which was located at the east end of the village, outside of the busy center. The bakery looked much better.
We grabbed a table outside, which was cozy and quiet. I had a Crèmerolle, a sweet bun with custard cream. That was tasty. J had a savory cheese tart and a croissant. We also shared a little almond cake, which was pretty good.
Then we walked all way back to the Terminal. We got to know Grindelwald very well by the time we came back to the Terminal.
The Terminal has two cableways. One is to the Eiger Glacier (2,320 meters high) and the other to the Männlichen (2,230 meters high). Our destination was the latter. It was a gondola (a small cable car) system. Each gondola has 10 seats. There were only a few other people who were going to Männlichen at that time. We could easily secure a gondola to ourselves.
It was a smooth and enjoyable ride all the way with the lovely scenery and the peaceful sound of cow bells.
Männlichen, an over 2,000 meter mountain above the Grindelwald valley is a winter ski slope and a summer hiking spot. We were going to do a mountain hike there, but not so soon.
The bottom of the west side is the Lauterbrunnen valley. There is the village of Wengen nested in the Lauterbrunnen valley, sitting above the village of Lauterbrunnen. We went down to Wengen first. We used a different cableway from Männlichen to Wengen. Let's go down through the clouds.
Ta-da! Wengen is another car-free small mountain village like Gimmelwald and Mürren on the other side of the Lauterbrunnen valley. We wandered around the village for a while. The sky was getting bright.
We could look down and find the village of Lauterbrunnen and the Staubbach waterfall from the garden of a small village church.
We also found a local bakery, Bäckerei Konditorei Vincenz on the main street. It was our snack time.
We bought a Pfaffenhuettli, a crispy biscuit with sweet hazelnut filling and a sausage roll, which was mainly for J. We found a picnic table in the small park in front of the bakery and enjoyed the treats. Both the sweet and the savory were very nice.
After exploring the village well, it was already a lunch time. J chose Ristorante Da Sina, a family run restaurant that has been serving Italian and Swiss cuisine for over 35 years.
Cool beer for J!
We shared a pasta and pizza combo: Mushroom Ravioli with the Chef's Bolognese sauce and "Sina La Vegetariana" pizza with tomato, mozzarella, and four kinds of vegetable, which were Zucchini, mushrooms, green beans and broccoli.
Our waiter came back with Parmesan cheese. Both pasta and pizza were delicious. Another successful pick, J!
Our tummies were so full. It was time for a mountain hike. We took the cable car up to Männlichen. There were some options of hiking trails that starts at the Männlichen station. We chose the Panorama Trail, a 4.7 km (about 3 miles) one way to the top of the Kleine Scheidegg mountain train. We didn't go all the way to the end because we had round-trip tickets of the gondola to Grindelwald and also it would be a little too much.
It was cloudy pretty. The trail was supposed to present the panoramic view of the Berner Oberland mountains including the Eiger, Mönch and Jungfrau, but we could only peek some of them between clouds sometimes. In fact, that was fine. We have already seen the Big Three and other beautiful mountain peaks very well and those clouds provided us with a nice shade and cool air, which was so comfortable to hike.
Rocks and green grassy hills and lakes. The scenery from the trail reminded me of Scotland. A big difference was there was no sleep.
It was a wonderful hike. It was time to catch a gondola to the Grindelwald Terminal.
While we were floating above thousands of flowers, we spotted not only some relaxing cows and also a couple of marmots. I haven't seen marmots before. The alpine marmots are one of several species of giant ground squirrels. I tried to take a photo of the fluffy chubby animal but couldn't. We saw many holes on the green field. They are probably their nests.
Hello again, Grindelwald!
On the way back to our Airb&b, we visited the town of Interlaken. It's a resort town situated between Lake Thun and Lake Brienz. Our Airb&b was located in Ringgenberg, a small village along Lake Brienz, just a 10 minuet drive away from Interlaken. Since it was our last day in the Berner Oberland region, it was the last chance to see the town.
Hello again, the Aare! The river runs across Interlaken, from Lake Brienz to Lake Thun. Colorful paragliders were above the river. Where are they coming from and going to?
The center of the town was quite busy with lots of people. We shopped some chocolate at Läderach, one of the high-end, artisan chocolate maker in Switzerland. How could we go home without Swiss chocolate?
Also we visited a pastry shop, Confiserie Rieder and bought Bündner Nusstorte (Swiss walnut cake).
Then we happened to find a small wooden craft shop. We decided to take two tiny wooden mushrooms home with us. Finally we were all set and left the town with all goodies.
To be continued...
