A Winter Tour of Switzerland - Take Six – Train and bus ride to the Gurnigel Area (Bern-Fribourg Alps)

Guess what? This is the final instalment in a series of posts featuring Swiss scenery at the end of last December/beginning of January. My friend M.B.'s last full day visiting was to take us by train to Schwarzenburg and from there by postbus to Gurnigel via Schwefelbergbad. It was a less than perfect morning, but beautiful enough. And up at Gurnigel the sky streaked with foehn cirrus and contrails actually provided some spectacular views without completely obstructing the peaks nearby and in the distance.
M. and I were kitted out for the weather and the snowy ground: good boots, warm windproof jackets, warm gloves and caps; walking poles; good quality goggles to protect the eyes from the glare (too much exposure and you can get snow blind, even at this rather moderate altitude; too many episodes of snowblindness may lead to cataracts in later life). I'd brought some food and water for a picknick. The plan was to take a leisurely walk in the snow, one of those many "Granny hikes" one can take in the Gurnigel area; have a bite to eat in the sun; and come back down to the Gurnigel restaurant in time for dessert and coffee before catching a postbus down to Thurnen, where we would have a fairly good connection to the train back to Bern. And that's how we did it. Perfect!
Brilliant! We're enjoying a lovely, even almost warm day in the sun, while the Mittelland and Lakes Thun/Brienz languish beneath a thick layer of cloud, the Nebelmeer (sea of fog).The sun produced a bit of a halo or mini-rainbow in the cirrus above the Nuenenen. To the left, the aptly named Krummfadenfluh (the Crag of the Twisted Twine).
The white peak below and in front of the Nuenenen is the Bire, very popular with "skinny skiers", ski hikers out for a quick run up and down that easy mountain.Stierenberg. Time for our lunch break.View from Stierenberg, ca. 1650 m asl. (There's a fantastic photo from the same area, but taken a little over a year earlier, at http://www.fotouristen.de/foto/21162/ist=date&cf=Lw==&bl_save=1 -- well worth a visit!)
It's a very popular area, with tracks prepared for traditional cross-country skiing and ski skating. Kids and dogs don't have a lot of respect for the tracks, though. Not sure I want to go there on a Sunday to do any serious cross-country skiing.The sun is almost gone.
Gantrisch (left), Nuenenen (centre), Ochsen (dark peak, right).
Further west, some of the Fribourg Alps; I'm not very familiar with that range, or with the names of individual peaks.
We're heading back to Gurnigel Berghaus, but take a quick detour into the woodland below, where a surprise awaits us:
It's the teepee set up by Berg-Event, the local snowshoeing guides I featured in my post of December 22, 2007 (see also http://www.berg-event.ch/html/sch-tage_w_gantrisch.html). A few steps ...
... to enjoy one last look at one of my favourite mountain ranges anywhere.
And then it's back to the Berghaus for that dessert:
Ah, yes, that was exactly what we had planned: a huge meringue and coffee. We shared this one...
The sun dips down beyond the Fribourg Alps as we stand waiting for the postbus to take us down into the "normal" world:
It just so happened that on the bus we sat next to a young father with his very young baby. We were deeply impressed by the way he soothed and pacified the infant during a fairly long drive downhill and with many bends in the road. The baby's Mum must have had a good, long break -- good for her!
And on the train back into town, I chanced to meet a friend from college, the leftwing political activist Ron Ganzfried of the Grünes Bündnis Bern, whose example encouraged and inspired me all those years ago to become politically active, albeit in a much more modest way than he. It was good to chat and catch up, Ron!

The next day, M. bought her last bus ticket at the stop near my house.
Farewell, my friend, travel safely. Here's hoping we'll meet again very soon!
And may you, dear Reader of this blog, come back soon to enjoy some more photo souvenirs of Switzerland, Bern, and Scotland. :)

A Winter Tour of Switzerland, Take Five – A visit around Bern and a trip to Münsingen

Hello again!
Sorry, it's been a while. I was maxed out with work before taking myself off for a quick visit to Oban in Scotland (photos of that trip later). I went to see a friend before she takes herself off on a six-week voluntary stint at an orphanage in Malawi, Africa. How cool and committed is that?! Travel safely, M.C., and have a great time. I look forward to swapping notes once you're back.
But now, a look back at the first day of this year, which saw me and my English friend M.B. -- yes, I do have a lot of friends and family members who share the same initial M. for our first names -- taking a bus out to Zentrum Paul Klee.
We got off the bus one stop early, which is where the Alps and the three parabolas of ZPK can be seen to their best advantage. Here is M. taking a photo of the view. The weather was quite misty, pretty cold, too.
An old barn "decorated" with graffitti; the first "hill" of ZPK rises bottom right. In the background, left, the Bantiger with its communications tower.
A pretty dismal day, the Alps not very visible on the horizon, and the sun struggling to penetrate the cloud layer.
Later, M. and I took the train up the the Aare valley to Münsingen. That's where one of my brothers lives with his family. My lovely sister-in-law, M.A., is Colombian by birth, and she had some of her family visiting. Absolutely wonderful people, whom it was great to see after quite a long time.
Here are some photos of the sky at sunset on January 1st, 2008, above the floodplain between the railway line and the Aare river at Münsingen. Stunning, or what?
Impressions of an exquisite spread laid on for us. Fantastic finger food "a la Colombia-Suiza", presented by the hostess and her daughter, my lovely niece. My friend is speechless ... ;)

Dessert:

A Winter Tour of Switzerland – Take Four: Lake Brienz, Meiringen, Grindelwald

Hello again

On a lighter subject than recently, and while the U.S. are casting some dies on Super Tuesday, a few more visual memories of a fabulous train excursion with my friend M. up to Lake Brienz, on to Meiringen along the Aare canal in a landscape magical with fog and hoar frost. Later in the day, we travelled down again to Interlaken and up to Grindelwald.
Hope you'll enjoy.

Dreamy Lake Brienz in the winter sun -- views from the train waiting to continue on its journey upriver to Meiringen.
Date: December 30, 2007; time: about 1:30PM. We didn't actually set off all that early. The weather in Bern wasn't that great, so we slept in a little. Sometimes I can even hold my camera straight…
Soon we were off and into a misty, hoar-frosty winter wonderland shot through with sudden glimpses of blue sky. There were patches when the fog was thick on the ground so that we felt as though we floated in the clouds. Fantastic!
Next, some views of Meiringen, which attracts a lot of Sherlock Holmes lovers. Me, I prefer its other speciality, the "Meringue", a yummy confection made of egg white beaten stiff, a little sugar blended in, baked lightly in a warm oven, and served with lots of real whipped dairy farm cream. Taken in moderate doses it's no more fattening than coke and a burger, say...
Every now and then, the clouds ripped open to reveal a snowy peak. After a lovely meringue dessert – M. has all the photos – and a short walk about the village, we head back down…
… to Brienz, along Lake Brienz, and to Interlaken before we head up another valley to Grindelwald. The late afternoon sun paints a shiny path into the icy waters of the lake. Across the lake, above the mist, is the famous Giessbach Hotel and waterfalls. And right at the top of the mountain, left, is Axalp, a small, family friendly skiing resort -- great for spring and summer hikes, too. The snow reveals some impressive landslide areas that are much less prominent in the summer. Nothing much grows there, and there are no dwellings at the foot of that wedge, because the mountain is constantly on the move.
Someone's decided to leave their boat in the water -- perhaps they're hoping for a mild winter and early spring. Next, a few shots taken from the train chugging along the shore of Lake Brienz:We're almost in Interlaken now. The setting sun is adding a rosy hue to the clouds. Time: about ten to four.

More than an hour later, we're in the "real" mountains, swiftly riding up the valley of the Schwarze Luetschinen (the black Luetschinen, or slippery river). We've travelled westwards, almost catching up with the sun.
The train kicks up a storm of freshly-fallen powdery snow as we head up the valley. I wonder how much longer there will be enough light for me to keep snapping pix...
Well, there's a lovely mackerel sky to distract me:A fairly typical modern train station in the Bernese Oberland, complete with station clock, maps and timetables, yellow letter box and phone box. And, of course, the name white on dark blue.
The fog rises from the Schwarze Lütschine -- here it is: an innocuous stream … but it can kick ass in the snowmelt and thunderstorm season. (Some of you may remember the disastrous canyoning accident a few summers ago. Such raging torrent episodes have been getting more frequent -- an impressive photo can be found at http://www.jungfrau-zeitung.ch/artikel/?cq_*e5458b3d=ivxPU=879877bl )
But today is harmless, if cold.
At Schwendi, the snow's getting thicker on the ground, the road is white -- real winter. That's what we've come to see.The setting sun really is pulling all the stops out to paint the clouds.
To actually see the famous peaks of the Bernese Oberland – Eiger, Moench, Jungfrau – the village of Grindelwald itself is not the best spot. But who cares when they can observe this kind of spectacle (views taken at Grindelwald-Grund, an area I knew quite well when I was about six: my paternal grandfather was a joiner and posted there for a few summers building a whole series of identical chalets for holiday makers -- building boom/tourist boom of the late 1950s -- and my Grandmother sometimes took me along on her visits):I was strongly reminded of an early morning view in the Scottish Highlands, when the rising sun cast a fiery glow up the clouds above Ben Etive to make it look as though a volcano was erupting. Sadly, that day last October, I couldn't stop the car and get out -- no safe spot to stop. Maybe next trip -- coming soon!

But back to Grindelwald: the village was in darkness, very busy with holidaymakers, cars, buses, coaches. M. and I enjoyed a fabulous dinner at one of the lovely restaurants in the older, higher part a little distance from the train station. We made our 8PM train by the skin of our teeth, and were back in Bern at about 10PM. A good day!

Next in this series: Take Five – A visit around Bern and a trip to Münsingen; Take Six – Train and bus ride to the Gurnigel Area (Bern-Fribourg Alps) -- don't hold your breath, though. I may be gone a few days...