Monday: Grindelwald, hike

We took a train up to Grindelwald. We’d been there before, but only momentarily as we changed trains to get up to Jungfrau. Today we took a ski lift from there up to First for a hike.

 

inside the cable car

 

Saw lots of flowers…


And cows. Lots of cows (and some bulls also). All had cowbells, making the hills ring softly.
 

The highlight and destination was a lake. But when we got there, we were tired…  
We went back down and had our cheapest dinner the whole trip: $10 burritos.

Then back to the hotel.

Sunday: Top of Europe

Up early-ish this morning for a train ride -- or several -- to the "Top of Europe": Jungfraujoch. Amazing views even just on the way up and down.

Ice cave inside the glacier!

And here we are, on top of Europe. (Well, mostly.)

A stitched panorama from Jungfraujoch.

 

 

Quite a big temperature difference between even Kleine Scheidegg (the stop-before-the-top) and the summit – 30 degrees F in the sun. In August. So we went sledding.

 

 

Then down the mountain, stopping at Lauterbrunnen to see a beautiful waterfall and eat fondue and Rösti.

Saturday: Interlaken boat trip

Lazy morning; took a boat on Lake Brienz in the afternoon.
Took a walk around Brienz; nice little town. Lots of German -- and Japanese. Had a snack by the water, and waded a bit. Visited by a swan.



Walked back to the train station. Just missed a train. Waited a bit and got the next one. To Interlaken West!
Walked around Interlaken West looking for the hotel's restaurant. Horse meat, no thank you. Found an authentic Italian place instead. Great Italian food.

Friday: Stuttgart to Wilderswil (Interlaken)

Up again early to return the car. Got diesel first, though. Expensive!

A few last pictures of downtown Stuttgart before we caught our train to Interlaken. Very clean city.

First to Basel. Chatted with some Australian tourists on the way. Basel to Interlaken. Amazing scenery just getting there -- check out those mountains!

Arrived in Interlaken Ost. Trying to figure out what to do. At least we figured out that we needed to go to Wilderswil for our hotel.

Nice hotel. Goats, sheep, and cows right out one window, mountain peaks out another.

Dinner locally. Serenaded by the Salvation Army. Lots of fancy cars around.

Thursday: Car and Castle

Traded walking for driving today. Picked up rental car at Hauptbahnhof. Being Stuttgart, rental cars were Mercedes, and we were upgraded to an S320 CDI (ask Austin). – black. Cruises easily at 160 km/hr.

Drove to Schloss Lichtenstein – an old castle built into the rocks. Very old – medieval (even a bit creepy!).

Drove through the beautiful German countryside. But we got tired and stopped by a sunflower field. Turned out to be by a nice stream also.

Konstanz did not look far on the map, so we told the lady in the GPS to take us there. But she could not find a restaurant for us. Absolutely beautiful countryside, though.

Then drove back to Stuttgart on the Autobahn. Had to get Mom to drive too.

Wednesday: Brussels to Stuttgart

Up very early to get to the train station by subway. Very fast Inter-City Express train, and another still-pretty-fast train to Stuttgart. Lunch at the station, then to the hotel to drop our stuff off. A little trouble finding it (woah, everything’s in German!), but got there after walking a ways.

Took a bus out to the Mercedes museum.

Lots of cars. It also put some history in context for some of us. A bus and rail ride back into downtown Stuttgart found the town preparing for their summer festival – bierfest. Tents and beirstations being set up. Walked many blocks to find perfect restaurant. (Italian—not German…). Logged in 15300 steps on pedometer, means ~7.2 miles. Totally exhausted.

Tuesday: Music and the Park

We had a good breakfast at the hotel this morning, then walked through the park to the Museum of Musical Instruments. "Better than I expected" (-Mom), because they played clips of nearly all of the instruments.

Lunch at the restaurant at the top of the museum. Wish we knew French -- or Dutch. But good, and an excellent view of the city (from the roof).

Walked to Gare Central, took a train up to Esplanade station on the 4 line. Very nice subway system. Walked to the Atomium by way of the 1935/1958 World's Fair buildings. Then walked through the park towards the Royal Castle of Laken, but we got lost and tired on the way, so just wound up hanging out and then walking back to a different metro stop and returning downtown.

Dinner at Chez Leon, also very good. Afterwards walked to the Manneken Pis ... kinda disappointing, even though we were expecting to be disappointed.

Metro back the hotel; out at 6am tomorrow!

Sunday/Monday: Shifting in Space and Time

Packed up and left about on time on Sunday morning -- about 11am. Yes, the Arnolds actually left somewhat on time.

Drove to Phily, where we met up with the Bachelors' parents, who drove us to the airport.

The flight was not very full, so we had some room to spread out. Mom and I (Ken) tried to sleep early, but the other guys stayed up watching a movie. It was hard to sleep on the plane, but it was far better than if we had stayed up all night.

Paris CDG airport was efficient and clean, and got us to the TGV trains in good time. (The CDGVAL shuttle is tire-based after all.)

TGV to Brussels was nice, fast, and smooth. We all started to pick up some French. A little tiny bit...

Long walk from the Brussels train station to our hotel (Hotel du Congres). Next time we'll take the metro.

Nice room -- we immediately crashed for 2-3 hours (1-4pm).

Then out again: we visited a cathedral and the Grand Place. We stopped for dinner at an Indian restaurant, then found some chocolate and ice cream.