Kandersteg

We hit the jackpot today. The weather was beautiful! And we were surrounded by amazing mountains. We made our way from Wilderswil to Kandersteg. A town comparable to Banff in many ways. The biggest way being the mountains that are behind it put the town on the map. Even the train into Kandersteg was amazing going through the mountains, being so high up and looking out and below at the gigantic mountains and the greenery that lay below. Truly stunning. 

Switzerland is incredible and we are sad to leave it. We are enjoying the small towns and being in the mountains. The Alps are breath taking and really quite comparable to our mountains at home. Except for one thing, our mountains are home, so they win. The mountains we were in today and quite intimidating, and a little less friendly feeling due to the fact they are more rock then greenery. But amazing nevertheless. I have trillions of pictures from today. Because of that, you only get a few, full sized pictures, a collage would be way to many and the beauty would be lost. So you get to be awed by a select few pictures, or handful of pictures, depends how carried away I get. 

We have been fortunate in Lucerne and Kandersteg that we have found lockers, and there haven't been many tourists with luggage to store. So we were free from bags and able to move and hike. First stop on the agenda, was a toboggan sleigh leisure ride. I throw all those random words in because they were all used at one time or another to describe what we ended up doing. There is a track and course that you take and go for a little trip. It was a pretty neat thing, tons of people were there today. There must have been some sort of scouts gathering up in the area or in the mountain somewhere because there were tons and tons of them, seemed to be from all over as well. The track was pretty neat, a few quick minutes of a ride and then you are done.

 

After the joy ride down a little portion of the mountain, we walked to lake Oechinensee. Words really cannot accurately describe the beauty of the surrounding mountains, mixed with the perfect coloured lake and blue sky. We spent sometime when we got to it just looking and taking in what we were seeing. A bench was so perfectly placed and free for us to sit on. Not often are the spots actually open. SO many tourists were lurking around the corner on the rocky beach that surrounded the lake. 

 

 

 

We made our way down the little perch we were on and walked around the lake as much as we could in the way that we were headed. Yes, many, many tourists were around that way, which made sitting and relaxing on that side a little less enjoyable or something that we wanted to do. So we continued on and made our way down a path that wrapped it's way down the valley. 

 

 

It was a good hike down that was decent in both length and in incline, or I guess in our case decline. But it really was a beautiful sight. As I said you only get a few pictures, if you desire to see more I have ton that I would be more then willing to show you. There were many different hiking paths, that given more time we would have loved to do. And there must be some sort of lodging or campsite back in there somewhere because there were many people and  groups of kids, that had camping stuff with the them and were headed in. It would be an amazing place to do that. Even to be on a week day where you would have it more to yourself the on a weekend. 

Getting back to the town we decided that we should eat something. So we overdosed on cheese!!! Raclette is a certain type of cheese that they have that is melted and served. Either on its own or over something. For us, we decided to get Rosti or known to us as a potatoe pancake doused in raclette. Then we decided that we would also get fondue! I could eat them both!! IT WAS FANTASTIC!! So yummy, and so filling. We crossed every Swiss food off the list of must tries. Now, I am lactose intolerant slightly, and by slightly I mean I am but I don't let it stop me from things I wanna eat. It is nothing compared to my deathly ill reaction to gluten, so I suffer the through(as does Luke), and most of the time it is worth it. This certainly was! Although I was feeling my tunny being upset so I had to forfeit a little of my half on both, but Luke was more then willing to finish. Here they offere you potatoes as an extra thing to dip into the fondue, and it is actually real tasty! I also love potatoes but it was a great option. 

 

 

 One last picture of the valley we were in all day.

From here we meandered our way back to the station and collected our bags. Unfortunately we could only go as far as Brig then we had to wait 2.5 hours before we were able to catch our train to Milan. We sat in the sun until it decided to go whine the station, and read a little. The time was slow, which was unfortunate because it isn't normally that slow feeling. 

 

As always we made the best of it and enjoyed what little time was left looking at the mountains. We would definitely come back to Switzerland. Despite it being incredibly expensive, it is an amazing country that has such a uniqueness to it. We also think that we were on the opposite side of one of the mountains we could see from Wilderswil, so that is pretty cool as well. As similar yet deferent that the Alps are to the Rockies, the Rockies are home and nothing beats home. Definitely makes me wanna get out into the Rockies though, nothing beats home. 

It is crazy how many little towns and villages that they build that are so high up on the mountains. Riding on the train you will randomly see halfway up a mountain just a ton of houses, and finding a road up is sometimes difficult. The use all the land that they have.  There were a few tunnels on the earlier train ride today, but our train to Milan had a ton of tunnels and some that were actually really, really long. Pretty neat as you leave the tunnels you are just smacked in the face with the beauty of a mountain. Along the ride as well we passed through a town on a lake, with little islands off of it. The islands were largely inhabited by both houses and what looked like a hotel. Was pretty cool. 

Yea, Switzerland is beautiful and we would definitely come back. We weren't close enough to see Matterhorn mountain on our train to Milan. Although I am sure it would have been pretty neat to see as well. LEaving Switzerland is bitter sweet. So much to come back to and wish we had a few more days, but excited to get to Italy. Also I can't believe I didn't mention it earlier, but we bought the best most normal tasting gluten free loaf of bread in Switzerland. So soft and actually ate without anything and it was soooo delicious. I am also pretty sure that half of our train to Milan was in a tunnel. 

Well here we go! 3.5 weeks in Italy! Starting in Milan. Hoping for great weather, can't wait to see what's ahead! Already the train station in Milan is crazy! Big and the building is almost forum looking.

And so the adventure continues...