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This afternoon we caught the train down to the valley, and then another up to Schynige Platte. We are almost 2000 metres high. There’s a hotel at the top where we’ll be spending the night. It’s very touristy, but when the last train leaves we have it to ourselves.

Schynige Platte is home to a botanical garden, with over 900 species of plants. That’s not why we’re here though; the weather forecast is good and we can have an epic hike in the mountains tomorrow.

The hotel is very quaint, and like all mountain hotels you can’t expect en-suite facilities or anything like that. What you can expect is really good food, so we’re really looking forward to dinner.

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The weather’s set fair for the day, so up we go to Männlichen for a hike. Here’s Val trying her posh new rucksack for the first time.

Navigation is easy – just head for the Eiger.

At Arvengarten, just below Scheidegg.

It’s a good walk of about 9 kilometres. We were looking forward to a beer at Alpiglen, but there were no free tables to be had. Scheidegg was similarly busy, so we finally got our drinks on the Eiger terrace back in Wengen.

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It was very cold last night – we needed extra layers for the walk up to the Caprice. Strawberry daiquiri in the Tanne later.

This morning the sun was out but it was still distinctly chilly. We waited until after lunch for our hike/run in the valley.

And a nice picture of Val, Emily and James from last Saturday in Rocks.

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It was cold last night, with heavy rain here in Wengen. Up the mountain it was snowing, as this picture from the Schilthorn hut shows.

The rain petered out this morning, and our walk to the Co-op was pleasant if a little chilly.

The bright spell was brief however, and now it’s pouring again. Fingers crossed it dries up in time for our walk to the pub later.

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Beep! It was raining when we woke up this morning, and the Swiss weather app on my phone warned me that it’s not going to stop anytime soon.

Lots of people use this app, and it’s not unusual to hear beeps from several phones if we’re in a bar or on the train. So we didn’t do much today, and tomorrow if anything looks worse. Ah well, we get a lot more sunny days than wet ones.

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Yesterday was Switzerland’s birthday, and as ever there was much fun to be had. We started with music on the terrace down at the Alpenrose.

Later on Rocks opened, lovely to be back in our favourite bar.

Fireworks rounded off the evening. Emily got this stunning shot.

After all that we had a slow day today. Rain is forecast so we won’t be going far.

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On the shore of Lake Brienz is a beach cafe, and last night they were advertising live music. We popped down to take a look. The cafe is very nice – it’s part of the municipal swimming pool complex.

There’s a good snacks menu and of course a bar; we had beer and burgers. Eventually the band made a start.

More entertainment on the quayside as we walked back to the bus stop – just in case you’d forgotten that it’s Swiss national day today.

Today is the big day, and we’ll have music and fireworks in the village later.