And in with the new. It’s a big day here in Wengen. Kids have been allowed out of school to watch.
The old cable cars are taken away by a huge helicopter.
And here come the new ones.
The whole village turns out to watch. Carnival atmosphere.
I’m glad we had time to see that, now we need to catch the 11.33 train which begins our journey back to the UK.
It’s a beautiful day in the Bernese Oberland.
We popped round to Jana and Andy’s new place for coffee and cake. The views are incredible.
Jolly afternoon with Oskar and the soon to be Jankes (they’re getting married next week).
Oskar has decided he’s a table tennis player.
The mild weather over the past few days has melted almost all the snow in the village. The tennis courts are visible for the first time since we arrived at the beginning of December.
We pop into the station to buy our summer passes which last until the end of November. Most of the shops are closed now, and the village is eerily quiet.
Now that Rocks is closed our volume of recycling seems to have shot up. It’s good news for the Co-op I guess.
After all the excitement with the helicopter yesterday morning we got the train down to Zweilütchinen and walked back up to Lauterbrunnen. The path will need quite a lot of work before the summer season begins. Alongside the weir a landslip has blocked the path and demolished the fence.
Rocks was open for its final time last night, which meant cheap beer and lots of nibbles.
Today is the last day for skiing. We went up and did a circuit around Scheidegg and stopped at the Eigernordwand for coffee.
On the way back to Wengen there’s a huge amount of avalanche debris alongside the walking path.
Our neighbours Jana and Andy are moving to an apartment up by the Park Hotel. It’s the usual ritual of filling boxes and crates with possessions, carrying everything downstairs, worrying about the cat etc etc.
In the UK we would then wait for a big van to come and carry everything to the new house. Not here.
The boxes, crates and everything else are stacked on a net in the garden.
Then we wait, eyes skyward.
Our ‘van’ appears over the house.
Our house is surrounded by obstacles like trees and hotels, so the line from the helicopter is 200 metres long.
As the pilot applies full power to lift the net the noise is deafening and a whirlwind hits the garden.
And off it goes. The new apartment is only about 400 metres away, and the entire operation took about 5 minutes.
Wengen is really quiet now, with all the hotels closed. Not a soul around when we went out this morning.
Up at Scheidegg the snow is still good, and we pretty much have it to ourselves.
Apparently it’s still possible to ski to Brandegg, which is very unusual in the middle of April so we decide to give it a go.
A nice run down and even nicer lunch when we got there. Full marks to the Brandegg restaurant for still being open too.
Good night in Rocks yesterday evening, Danny serving evil shots whether you ordered them or not.
Colin has to go to Interlaken today for his MRI scan. There’s no skiing again owing to high winds but the weather’s lovely down in the valley so we had a wander around before meeting him for lunch. Did you know that Interlaken is actually the three communes of Matten, Interlaken and Unterseen? Here’s Val sat on one of the borders.
After lunch at the Barrel we got the bus to the Three Tells at Matten and had a couple there, then the train back to Wengen for a little more in Rocks. Nice day out in the sunshine.
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