Adventures with Annie... in Switzerland!

"Have you ever heard of a 'via ferata? It's like, a really sketchy hike but you're harnessed and clipped in the whole time, so that makes it less sketchy. Find one." The extensive researching brought us to Switzerland where Rick Steves made famous and touristy the little towns up the mountains from Interlaken.

After Annie & I  hiked in southern Germany, we spent the night in Innsbruck, Austria then took the train over to Bern. Michael was able to meet up with us there for more adventures.

View from our hostel window 

Bern is quaint, and SERIOUSLY expensive. I had to pay $2 to use the bathroom in the train station once I got there. That was an ominous sign of the expenses to come... ($6 for a cup of Starbucks regular coffee!! Bahhhh Switzerland...)

Our favorite part of Bern was joining the locals for a swim in the river that borders the town. The current lazily brings you downstream where you get out and start over. Or jump off bridges, if you're Annie and Mike (not the bridge pictured. That would be dangerous.) 

We bought tubes because I wasn't about to get in that alpine water. 

After a night in Bern we took the train down to Interlaken. The views of the lakes along the way were stunning (use your imagination-- no pictures) but Interlaken itself was slightly anticlimactic. It was basically a lot of shopping. With a expansive, looming mountain in the background.

A couple hours of meandering and it was time to head up to our weekend's destination-- Mürren! We took a train to Lauterbrunen, then a cable car up the mountain, then another tiny train (just one car) to get there. It's a small alpine town with ridiculous views and a serene feel to it. You go there to unwind, to savor where you are and to enjoy the beauty of God's creation!

We hiked, we ate lots of cheese. Because of the exorbitant costs, we hit up the grocery store for our meals of bread, cheese, and cold cuts. And chocolate.

We did the scariest hike I've ever done, which deserves its own posting. Mountain bike was also planned, but there was a crazy race going on that packed the little town (no wonder our hotel was ridiculously priced!) and took over the trails.

So we hiked some more, taking obligatory jumping and "the-hills-are-alive" shots. In the middle of one of the trails, we stopped at a small farm that makes its own cheese. It was spectacular, in a I-can't-believe-we're-here kind of way.

My attempt at a Sound of Music picture

Need more cowbell! 

At the end of the day, at the "Mountain Backpacker's Hostel" in Gimmelwald.....where we should have stayed for half the cost! Oh well. Next time. 

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On our final day, as if the via ferrata hike wasn't terrifying enough, we decided to do a guided canyoning adventure where you wear a full-body wetsuit, helmet, and life vest and basically jump off high rocks into small bodies of freezing cold water as you make your way down the canyon. Also involved are natural rock slides, rappelling down waterfalls, and leaping into slides do you don't kill yourself on the rocks below. It. Was. Incredible. And scary. No pictures, though, because at that point I was too cheap to pay the $50 per person for documentation. But here's an idea of what it was like:

As I'm looking up pictures online of what we did I'm feeling sick to my stomach all over again...

Exhausted & out of money, we drug ourselves home on the train to rest up in Frankfurt.

An entire week of exploring Germany with Annie was still to be had!