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This morning we were woken by the sound of bells and alphorns. It’s the biggest event of summer, the Chästeilet, or cheese festival. Traditionally this is the day when the summer’s cheese is divided amongst the cattle owners, but here in Wengen it has grown over the years and it’s now an all-day party celebrating all things Swiss. This lot are pretty good.

But this girl takes playing the alphorn to a completely different level. Meet Lisa Stoll, superstar alphorn player.

Stone throwing competition for kids.

And of course food. Lots of food.

Here is the cheese. Each one weighs arond 7 kilos.

The bell ringers who woke us up this morning.

It’s a beautiful day, but these clouds mean there’s a big change in the weather coming. Summer is finally coming to an end.

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More cattle came down this morning, temporarily bringing the village to a halt as they passed through on their way down to the valley.

It’s Friday, so I need a short run. I scampered around the village dodging the cow pats. We made our sandwiches and popped up to Männlichen for a walk round to Scheidegg. As we get further into autumn the colours are changing up here.

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It’s a big day in Wengen – the cows are coming down from the high pastures. They’re all dressed up for their parade along the main street.

More cattle will come down over the coming days. Just as well with cold weather due this weekend.

After watching the cows we made our sandwiches and headed across to Winteregg. It looks like the pilot of this helicopter has popped into the restaurant for his lunch.

We walk up the meadows that are ski pistes in winter. Amazing views.

Eventually we reach the top, and it’s an easy descent down to Mürren. We even resisted the temptation to have ice cream at Sonenberg.

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Up early this morning as we’re off to Mürren across the valley. Another beautiful day, with temperatures in the high twenties. As usual Val set off ahead of me and my job is to try to catch up. Winteregg, with Wengen in the distance.

I did manage to catch up just before Grütschalp.

A lovely run on a stunning mountain trail. Only 2 seconds outside my personal best.

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Ever since I started running I’ve been trying to find a nice 5 kilometre route around Wengen. By ‘nice’ I mean it’s vaguely circular and without too many steep bits. Today isn’t a running day, so we walked a route that I thought might be suitable. We started at the swimming pool, then down past the Berghaus and along the Dorfstrasse. Next it’s along the road to Innerwengen, then back along the lower path towards Wengwald. The animals still have some sunshine to enjoy.

The path takes us to the little railway halt where we’re just in time to get the train back up to Wengen. The bad news is that the path has too many steep, stoney sections to run without proper trail shoes, and I don’t have any of those. To make things worse it isn’t even 5 kilometres. Ah well, back down to Lauterbrunnen for my next 5k then.

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The summer weather is back, it’s a scorcher. Just my luck on a day when I have to run 10 kilometres before lunch, and then we need to finish off the gardening this afternoon. My run was a bit slow but I’m happy with it given the heat.Val got a nice pic of me passing the waterfall.

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High above lake Thun is a large cave system called Beatushölen. Legend has it that the cave was home to a dragon which harrased the local population. A monk called Beatus arrived from Ireland and confronted the dragon with his cross, causing it to fall into the lake below.

The bit about the dragon may be a bit doubtful, but Beatus certainly existed as his grave is at the mouth of the caves. These days the place is a tourist attraction, so yesterday we went to take a look.

We took a guided tour. The cave system extends for 7 kilometres into the mountain, but only the first kilometre is accessible for the public. A few pictures.

Last night Uptown Lights were playing in Rocks, so it was nice to catch up with Beves and Ibe. After all that excitement we had a quiet day today, with formula one on the telly and time to cook a nice dinner.