Switzerland 2022 part 2

(Switzerland part 1 link)

Wednesday 7 September 2022

I went out for a jog this morning along the riverside. 

I felt rather old and slow, but I did have a nice swim in the Limmat afterwards😳

I explored the Landesmuseum national museum, which is a fantastic building

 with moderately interesting content...

And some cool ancient crossbows

I took a bus tour to the Rhine Valley. We crossed into and out of Germany.

We saw cookoo clocks at Lake Titisee.

And then I went out on a gentle boat ride on the lake.

Then the bus headed to see Rheinfall, where the very large Rhine river plunges down 23 meters. This was rather neat. 

Our tour group took a boat out for some close up action.

We actually got quite close (see video) and quite wet!

Thursday 8 September 2022

I caught a tram out to Tremli Station and ran up Uetliberg hill.

Fortunately there was a woman also running up, or I would have never have found the best path.

The climb took me up to the highest point near Zurich, and the views were great.

The weather forecast had been for solid rain, so a sunny day was a bonus.

I jogged down and hiked back up again to practice with my running poles.

There were some cool art thingies.

I went back to the hotel for a shower etc and then headed into town to visit the Grossmunster cathedral.

The tower climb was hot and narrow, but it was nice and cool at the top.

This bad boy was in the crypt.

After, I wandered around and did some shopping and laundry.

Friday 9 September 2022

An all day bus tour today to Interlaken and Grindelwald in central Switzerland.

We got to the beautiful town of Interlaken, which just happened to be hosting a famous mountain marathon named the Jungfrau Marathon, including different length options and kids runs etc. The entire town was taken over by it.

I reckon these dudes are beatable:

I dared to consider whether I could stay the night here and run the marathon tomorrow... But decided I needed rest, not an ultra at this point in my life...!

The buildings in Interlaken were impressive. I reckon this hotel was only about the 10th coolest one:

Maybe we stay somewhere like that if we re-visit, Nikki?

We went on to Grindelwald, which is what you always imagined a perfect Swiss village to be. Like really.

It is surrounded by the Matterhorn and the north face of the Eiger and other higher peaks. 

I befriended Kyle from my tour, and we spent the day together rushing from activity to activity. It was very enjoyable having a kindred spirit.

We went up a super super long gondola to Grindelwald First, where we walked the bridge...

The scenery was amazing, with clouds that never quite reached us all day😃

We descended the mountain via two fairly hair-raising techniques. Firstly by luge:

and then by a funny bike/scooter thing:

(See videos soon...)

Both of these modes of transport involved rather reckless speeds and at times collision avoidance techniques.

Kyle and I had booked ourselves onto a parapenting trip in the afternoon, but this was unfortunately cancelled due to wind at the last minute😭

A long (12.5 hour) and fun day.