The following is a rather lengthy summary of all our outdoor adventures while in Meiringen. Our family had some bad experiences with hiking two years ago when we went to Banff. I tried to jump in with both feet and pushed the kids way too hard to do mor…
The following is a rather lengthy summary of all our outdoor adventures while in Meiringen. Our family had some bad experiences with hiking two years ago when we went to Banff. I tried to jump in with both feet and pushed the kids way too hard to do more than they could handle. I learned my lesson: we took it slow this time and found ourselves rewarded.
Public Transportation - June 6
We took the first day just figuring out what was what. Navigating in a country where you don't speak the language, even if they are very tourist-friendly and most of the people speak better English than you speak anything non-English, takes a bit of orienting if you're going to do it yourself. Our flat came with a local visitor's pass that provided discounts to a bunch of activities and free rides to the closest stops on most public transportation. Our activity that first day was to test that out.
This was our one ride on a Swiss train. If you can travel by train in Switzerland, it is well worth doing. They know how good they have it, and their trains have enormous windows all the way up to part of the roof so you can appreciate the scenery. We opted to rent a car because we found the train passes prohibitive for a family of five. But we were happy to make the ten minute ride to Brunigpass, which took us up the side of a mountain - one of Jared's favourite moments.
At Brunig, we caught a bus heading to Reuti - back the way we came, but further up. The buses also had large windows and comfy seats, though the lack of air conditioning was noticeable on this sunny day. The downside for the kids of all the public transportation was waiting for it. And, since we were rather clueless about reading the timetables, there was plenty of that.
The last stage of this day's adventure was a cable car from Reuti back down to Meiringen. The two older children were very nervous about cable cars, which is why we started from the top with other transportation - if they really balked, we could walk down. When you really look at it, it's not surprising that the idea of a gondola is distressing to a young hindbrain, but we had read enough articles about the extreme safety of these vehicles that they tried it. This ended up being their favourite moment of the day.
Kugelweg - Marble Run Hike - June 7
The cable car we rode down has four stages, from bottom to top: Meiringen to Reuti, Reuti to Bidmi, Bidmi to Magisalp, and Magisalp to Alpen Tower. Not knowing how we'd all adjust to the altitude, we were happy to take each stage one day at a time. For day two, we took the vistors-pass-included cable car to Reuti, then paid for the first stage of a smaller gondola up to Bidmi.
Being on a gondola does feel like flying. It brought me back to the one scenic helicopter ride I took as a teen, in the badlands of New Mexico. That is a fine parallel example of my parents laying out for a once-in-a-lifetime experience that I still remember.
Our choice of this next hike was a bit of magic. Thanks to their granddad, the girls are obsessed with a youtube channel called Jelle's Marble Runs - a chap in the Netherlands who has created epic series of marble races with teams, all kinds of events, and a commentator who makes it all seem hilariously, convincingly anthropomorphic. So you can imagine their over-the-moon excitement when they discovered the Haslital Kugelweg - a series of outdoor marble runs, built by local construction and lumber companies, that follow a two-hour downhill hike from Bidmi to Reuti.
I can't tell you what a blessing it was to have such a positive, exciting experience for our first hike. The girls did so well. MiniMighty took my phone and filmed every race, with commentary, but they were both happy to let Dooner have a headstart so she could "win."
You start to get to know the waterfalls as familiar friends. This series of falls - I couldn't tell you the name - was intriguing for being very engineered. It has clearly been diverted at some point so that a series of large steps could be constructed. I do wonder if there's some hydro power being harnessed at some point, but I did not learn about it particularly. I guess I have more questions than answers, but this falls was a big brother on this walk.
We passed not only marble runs, but several old alpine buildings. Perhaps farmers' huts? There are pastures in absolutely every clear patch, with fences and animal gates, but we didn't see animals this day. There were also two or three WCs along the way.
My favourite marble run was either this colourful one, or a metal one in the woods. You can visit my facebook or Instagram from June 7 for a compilation of MiniMighty's videos.
Below: from afar, our first view of Reichenbach falls.
A surprise was that no matter how high we went, if the day was at all sunny, it was plenty hot. By the end of this hike, despite staying quite hydrated and well fed, the girls were melting down. It took a long time though, and was not unanticipated, so we got back down in one piece and went to the indoor pool. The indoor pool I didn't think was much to write home about, except that it was free with the visitors' pass, the workers lent us toys and goggles, and the kids loved it more than anything. We went three times.
Muggestutz Walk - June 8
The previous night, the cousins had arrived to join us for the weekend. Thanks to a chatty cable car operator the day before, we learned that for this weekend only, and for the first time, the cable cars we had been traveling on would be free all the way up to Magisalp. So we piled up cousins, and all twelve of us rode in two cars as high as we could! I should say, we did not have any appreciable symptoms of altitude sickness. However, MiniMighty had two particularly nasty nosebleeds during our time, much worse than any she'd had before, so that might have been related.
We hung out at Magisalp for a long time. The weekend was an "Open Doors" event, the first they've ever had. They opened the bottom of the cable car works, and had displays explaining the snowplows, the cable car safety system, and a pump room whose purpose I could not discern even with the help of Google Translate. There was a demonstration of a cable car rescue, which was very cool, and the intentional trigger of an avalanche with some kind of cannon. For some reason I didn't take a lot of pictures, but MiniMighty had my phone for a minute, so she took the goofy pic below. Magisalp is in this enormous magical valley, and the last cable car (closed that day) goes to nearly the top of the mountains. From there you can do some really serious hikes to several peaks!
Magisalp also had an indoor playground and a set of ourdoor bikes and trikes that kept our kids amused for a long time. I don't know how they manage it, but all the playgrounds we encountered managed to be welcoming to kids from toddlers to pre-teens. The trikes were all different types and could operate different ways depending on size, and the indoor play area had lots of toys as well as a few things to climb on. Also, so many of the playground had natural elements worked into them, or were built into the landscape in a way totally different from most North American playgrounds.
Perhaps the peak of this was the hike we took after our few hours up at Magisalp. Based on traditional tales of the Hasli dwarves, there's a sort of children's adventure trail with all these stops - sort of play areas of all different sorts. There are over fifty of these scattered along three sections of trail, each of which takes a couple hours to hike at a kid-friendly pace.
Some of them were quite impressive, like this dwarves cabin, complete with bed, tiny broom, and back garden. Others were more of a puzzle, like this bridge with an invitation to find a secret shortcut down to the next area, or something simple like a miniature shelter to rest, picnic, or have a barbecue.
One stop was this hand-felted scene, telling the story of a day in a dwarven home.
The crowd favourite was this labyrinth, tall enough for an adult to enjoy, but with a little ladder at the middle so even the shortest could climb up and announce their victory.
Like everywhere we went in Switzerland, drinking water was available at fountains. Some were carven stonework, like several in the city, but up in the alps there were a couple of these log troughs in lonely spots.
This was also the day that we saw the most Swiss cows! And long before you see them, you hear them. They all wear these huge bells, some as big as a human head. Farms were absolutely everywhere. Great effort has clearly been made to use every scrap of land suitable for crops, and every spot unsuitable for crops that can grow grass has been fenced off into pasture.
It drizzled on and off during our whole walk, but it never poured. But everyone had appropriate footwear (save Stringbean, who hardly complained of her soaked feet), and the drizzle prevented us from getting too hot. A little wet we can deal with. Today I learned that they say in Scotland, "you're not made of sugar." There were the expected number of meltdowns, but we were rewarded at the end with ice cream and fries and more cable car rides back down. It was so special to share this walk with cousins, and we felt particularly blessed by the coincidence of free cable car rides, without which we almost certainly would not have done it.
Gutannen - In Search of Sheep - June 9
As I mentioned in yesterday's post, one of our visits in Meiringen was to a fascinating wool mill and farm called Woolreich. We got a tour from a lovely woman named Therese. I had hoped very much to see some Swiss Valais Blacknose sheep. Because, as you can see, they are THE CUTEST SHEEP IN THE WORLD.
Sheep in the alps, however, don't stay year-round in the same locations. They winter down at their farms, but in the summer, they go on a journey to higher and higher pasture. The Woolreich flock had already started their alpine trek, so we couldn't see them down in Meiringen. But I asked if we could track them down ourselves, and got some directions to their general vicinity. So one day, we drove a bit to a valley we hadn't seen yet.
This is the village of Gutannen. There were certainly sheep here, but I didn't want to trespass on private property. The closest we got was below. I could have gotten closer, but some of the sheep were outside their pens, and I didn't want to spook them. We did see them hop back in their pen later; clearly this is routine for them! It wasn't close enough to really see if they were Valais Blacknose, but I realized that they are most likely shorn by now, and might not really look like the pictures I'd seen.
What we DID get to see was another beautiful valley that we wouldn't have seen otherwise. Innertkirchen sits below an absolutely staggering cliff wall that I just couldn't capture in a photograph. And we certainly got to see the sort of land and pastures where the sheep graze. There wasn't much actual walking involved, but there was a bit of wandering in fields.
Reichenbach Falls - June 10
The biggest hike we went on - the only one involving any amount of uphill walking - was a little journey around the Reichenbach Falls. This most celebrated location is a place of pilgrimage for Holmes fans. His face was absolutely everywhere. But you do have to work a little bit for the complete experience!
The journey starts with a short ride up a funicular railway. If our girls were nervous of the cable car, they were even more reluctant on the funicular, but they came around as well.
It got pretty chilly on the way up as we were exposed to some very cold, humid air. We weren't in the spray of the falls, and we couldn't really see them from the funicular, but they clearly contributed to the atmosphere. At the top was a tiny exhibit, including another wax head from "The Empty House," a video showing clips from some of the many filmed versions of the stories, and a little touch screen quiz.
The trail continues down the mountain, but you can turn left to see the outlook. Here was the only point in all our travels that we saw a trail in need of some maintenance. The shale cliffs above and below us were very soft, and the trail was starting to wear away at one point, with a pretty serious dropoff on one side. I expect the Swiss will get right on fixing that!
Here are the girls at the outlook. There is so much spray from this falls that there is no chance of seeing the bottom. You can absolutely imagine that if you believed someone fell from this point, you'd have no expectation of finding anything! Thankfully this area was well protected. There was even another plaque and a little memorial wreath.
I've visited places that strongly evoke the past, but never one that so successfully evoked a fictional person. One can't help but feel as if the events of the story actually happened. Which, I imagine, is what gave me the idea to stage this silly picture.
No husbands were harmed in the making of this memory.
Switchbacks and Farewell - June 12
It rained a fair bit after this, giving us some needed time to rest and reflect, and that's when we did more things in town. But on our last day there, after getting packed back up for Olten, we took all the free transportation one more time to say goodbye. We went to our favourite playgrounds, took one last cable car up to Reuti, and did one last marble run.
Somehow, I managed to weasel everyone into walking back down rather than taking the cable car. The path between Reuti and Meiringen is an actual gravel road, and we were passed by a car twice, probably a taxi delivering someone to a chalet partway up. It was a good thing we did - on the second pass, the driver reached out the window and handed out Dooner's new stuffy, which she had dropped without any of us noticing! Just one more of the many small but significant ways we experienced kindness during this trip. And we can now say that we walked all the way down from Magisalp to Meiringen.
We were so blessed to spend time in this beautiful country. By the time we left, 2/3 kids were talking about moving to Switzerland someday - or at least to somewhere with mountains. Thanks again to Tina and Josh for blessing us with such a special time!
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