Day 4, Hiking in the Berner Oberland, Switzerland, 2021

But first, my morning. It started out slowly, a little Alp cheese and sausage for breakfast and some fellowship with other travelers at the guest house.

Every morning I’ve been waking up and poking my head out the skylight to see the view.

I finally ran into the owner of Esther’s Guest House, Tobias. and met his daughter. She was just born the last time Mike and I were here.

I brought three Folkmanis finger puppets for their daughter, a monarch butterfly, a turtle and raccoon. In the picture above Tobias an his wife are looking up how to say “raccoon” in German and Matilda is playing with the turtle. They are incredibly lovely people. I will be back.

Around noon I caught the gondola up to Mürren.

One of my goals for my time in the Alps was to go for an easy hike. I’m not really a hiker. Every time my brother and sister-in-law go to Hawaii and go for hikes Mike and I just shake our heads. It’s not our idea of vacationing.

Even so, I wanted to experience more of the Alps and hiking is the way to do that here. I made a friend back at the Guest House named Johannes. He’s from Tennessee via South Africa and he visits the Berner Oberland regularly, always staying at Esther’s Guest House. He IS a hiker, big-time, and he had lots of suggestions for me knowing that a) I am a complete novice and b) I have a blister on my little toe. He suggested The Mountain View Trail. And gave me a bandaid for my toe.

A quick and steep ride up a funicular brought me to the beginning of the trail. I had no concept of how long or how far the hike would be. Frankly, I was intimidated.

I was on my way, no turning back. No turning back because the first 15-20 minutes were downhill and I sure as hell wasn’t going to climb back up! Being by myself was also a little intimidating but there was the occasional hiker either coming from the other way, or passing me, or me passing them.

I did bring provisions. I had a full bottle of water, a pretzel and an apple….Damnit. I’m going to die on this hike…aren’t I?

It was all worth it. At one point I teared up on the hike. I was just so grateful for the beauty I was witnessing, grateful for all of the swimming I’ve been doing this summer, grateful to be not be carrying the pounds I’ve lost this summer (thank you NOOM), and grateful for the courage to be on that hike.

So I enjoyed the hike. Here’s a highlight reel of some of the video I shot on the Mountain View Trail.

I took this little train back to Mürren.

I asked the conductor if my pass would be acceptable for this train and she said, “not really” and then hustled me on the train for free. ❤️

I shot Steve and Ash a message letting them know I was headed to Mürren for a bite and they decided to join me for coffee and dessert.

The view was incredible as was the meal.

Lunch/dinner was Rosti, the most Swiss meal I’ve had so far. It’s shredded potatoes, slices of ham, all covered with melted cheese and a fried egg. It was sizzling when it came out. It was so rich I couldn’t finish it, though I really wanted to. Very tasty.

Soon these two yahoo’s showed up.

We swapped stories from the day and had a mediocre Apple strudel. At least the coffee was good.

It started to rain so that was our queue to leave. I took the gondola back down to home base and showered off all the hike funk. I ran into Johannes and thanked him profusely for the great hiking advice. And the bandaid.

I ate my hiking provisions for a light dinner and am calling it a night.

Thanks for reading!