Day 3, Gimmelwald, Switzerland, 2021

Like clock work I woke up at 1:30am after three good hours of sleep. The good news is I got a little nap in today! But I’m getting ahead of myself. The nap was just one of MANY enjoyable moments.

Alp cheese and sausage with an espresso was my breakfast. I’m going to miss that cheese!

The last time I was here I didn’t do the main tourist attraction, the Schilthorn! This mountain peak is something to be done in the morning since clouds tend to roll in later in the day. It couldn’t be more clear outside so I started the journey up the mountain.

The assent was terrifying and exhilarating. I’m not a huge fan of heights and couldn’t help think about the very thin and hopefully strong cables our heavy gondola was hanging from. The video above shows just the first leg of the assent. There was a equally steep and high assent after that one. The entire journey took me up one mile. Was it worth it?

Yes. Yes it was. For perspective, Lake Tahoe’s altitude is 1897 meters. Gimmelwald where I’m sleeping is at 1357 meters. Schilthorn is at 2970 m.

The views were spectacular.

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You can see from the pictures with clouds that if it weren’t clear you just be in a fog bank seeing nothing. That was not the case here.

In addition to the views one of the draws of the Schilthorn is that it had been a filming location of a few James Bond movies. There’s a little museum about that. I skipped it. I was just here for the stunning views.

I spent around 45 minutes or so enjoying the views and helping others take pictures with them in the views. It was just great.

I made the ear popping decent down to Mürren, a resort town just above Gimmelwald and grabbed a snack at the CO-OP.

I wanted to go for an easy hike so I decided to take the 35 minute walk down to Gimmelwald instead of riding the gondola. The following video shows clips from that beautiful walk, my time on Schilthorn, paragliders and a cow parade. Enjoy.

The video starts with a bird (a little larger than a blue jay) harvesting something off of the tree in front of my hotel. I watched him do this repeatedly this morning. The cow parade was really just some farmers moving their cows through the town to get to a different grazing pasture. Notice how that third heifer stops and gives me some serious side eye.

The walk down took around and hour or so since I took my time soaking in the views.

Back at Esther’s Guest House I sat on the porch and had some carrots and an ice cream cone for lunch. (The one cancels out the other. Look it up.)

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I spent some time editing the pictures and video I’d taken and started to get sleepy so I headed up to take a nap. FYI, here’s what my room looks like.

I threw the skylight open and the fresh Alp air made the nap glorious.

I was up in time to head back to my perch on the porch and log into one of my favorite Zoom meetings (8:30am Pacific Time, Sunday morning). The meeting ended at 6:30pm local time and I had dinner reservations for three at 7pm.

For three you ask? (Go ahead. Ask. I’ll wait…)

Yes! For three!

I love this. Steve (who inspired me to start travel blogging) and his boyfriend Ash just happened to be in the same part of Europe at the same time as I was. We initially were just supposed to have lunch in Interlaken as I was leaving the area and they were arriving but a few crossed wires and changed plans later led to this gathering.

I see Steve all the time in Sacramento so it seems a little silly that I’ve been looking so forward to “running into them” here in Switzerland but the truth is I’ve been stupid excited about it for months. Also, I’ve gotten shoutouts in Steve’s blog from time to time (which I love…both the blog and the shoutouts) so it’s neat to actually include him in mine! (And, I assume, get a shoutout in his…?)

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It was a joy to eat with these guys and our friend Tracy made a hilarious (virtual) appearance via video speaker phone.

I showed Steve and Ash around Gimmelwald (the place is so small it took all of 15 minutes) and got them to take some alp cheese back to Interlaken with them. I walked them down to the gondola station to see them off. What a lovely way to end a lovely day.

The dessert at dinner was a little disappointing. Fortunately, I’d picked up a little something at the CO-OP.

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A few squares of this delicious chocolate wrapped up another great day in Switzerland. Thanks for following along.