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It’s been raining on and off all day today, but after lunch we ventured down to Interlaken to have a look around some of the shops that we don’t visit so often. I needed socks – I found some in the Bödeli Centre and more in Otto’s. Aldi already has a Christmas section.

Val found a new hairdryer and she bought some ice trays as she wants to freeze some fruit to go in drinks. We got a bit wet walking home from the station, but it was a pretty good shopping trip. It’s nice to have a change from the Co-op.

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It’s going to rain today, but we can still squeeze in a walk if we play our cards right. We catch the train down to Wilderswil and eat our sandwiches. From here we can walk along the river towards Lake Brienz. It’s sheltered from the worst of the weather should the rain arrive early. As we approach the lake we pass through the village of Bònigen. It’s very pretty.

A little further along we come to the lake, and it starts raining lightly.

Five minutes after we arrived a bus came round the corner and took us to Interlaken, where we caught the train home.

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We had a fun evening at the Rocks bar quiz last night. Mike Cowan won, but we did get a nice bottle of wine for winning the picture round. Outside there was a big thunderstorm – it looks like summer is finally over.

Today we’ve had a few patches of sunlight in the village, but the skies are dark and it looks like more rain is on the way.

Rocks is closed tonight, so it’ll be a quiet night in.

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Rocks, our favourite bar reopened a couple of days ago, so last night we had a bit of a party.

Rocks has been closed for 6 months, and although there are other bars in the village, we’ve missed it.

We even had some dancing later on.

This morning Emily popped round with some cake that she’d baked. We had it for lunch – not very healthy, but delicious. This afternoon we went over to Grindelwald for some shopping. Val got a nice pair of winter trousers and I got a t-shirt. It was a lovely afternoon, and there’s a really good ice cream parlour in the village. More unhealthy stuff.

We caught the gondola back up to Männlichen and bumped into Sandro & Beanie and the girls. They have a new puppy called Mick.

Quiz night in Rocks later.

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There’s a tennis tournament in the village today, with a 500 franc first prize. Lots of people playing and spectating, and beer and bratwurst available.

Steve is providing some music.

Unfortunately for the players, we had a couple of hours rain just after lunch, but there’s still plenty of daylight left, so they should get through all the matches.

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We’re up very early this morning, as we want to catch the first train up to the Jungfraujoch. Today we’re not interested in the touristy stuff at the ‘joch, we have something a bit different in mind.

We’re up at over 11,000 feet here, but with a bit of a hike along the glacier we can get even higher. It’s hard going in places.

Signs implore us to stay on the marked path.

And this is the reason. Huge cracks in the ice called crevasses. I have no idea how deep this one is, but I couldn’t see the bottom. The ice though, is 900 metres thick.

We pause for breath every so often as there’s not much oxygen up here.

The glacier gets steeper.

Eventually we catch sight of our destination. A mountain hut perched above the glacier.

This is the Mönchjoch hut. It was originally built in 1979, and rebuilt in 2003. It is owned by the Swiss Alpine Club, and it’s the highest alpine hut in Switzerland. The hut is used by climbers who need to get an early start for an ascent of one of the many neighbouring mountains. Breakfast is served from 2am until 7am.

The last few steps up to the hut are exhausting. We’re now at 12,000 feet.

Inside, the hut is really nice. We had coffee, cake, soup and sausages. There’s nothing like a hike for giving you an appetite.

The views from here are stunning, and the size of the glaciers is awesome. For scale, there are 2 people hiking up the glacier at the bottom of this picture.

The walk back to the Jungfraujoch was a lot easier as it’s all downhill. We popped into the chocolate shop and stocked up with goodies, and caught the train home.

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Val wants to go shopping, so we make some sandwiches and catch the train down to Interlaken. The English garden has been transformed this year – it’s still really impressive.

The Grand Hotel Victoria Jungfrau has some very nice cars for picking up VIP visitors. This one is the nicest of all. I wonder who the guest might be.

At least the hotel has some guests. Interlaken is very quiet – not a single table occupied at the popular restaurant Des Alpes at lunchtime today.

Val got a couple of tops at bargain prices – all the shops have sales at the moment, and we had an ice cream on the train on the way home.