Warmer

I made a Thai curry last night. I thought I had prepared far too much food, but somehow it all disappeared.

It’s almost time for the annual Mendelssohn music week here in Wengen. Ali got this shot of the grand piano being delivered this morning.

We’re off down to Interlaken. Sandwiches on the quayside as the steamer pulls out.

The steamer goes to Brienz, and that’s where Val’s heading for a visit to the dentist. The train is much quicker though, and it soon overtakes the boat.

Great views over the lake.

When we got home the tiler had completed the last bit of work on our terrace, so hopefully that’s the end of the renovations for a while.

Cleaning

The storm passed over during the night, and this morning it’s bright and much less cold. The waterfalls in the valley are flowing fast.

We’re doing dinner tonight, and that’s an excuse to clean the house from top to bottom before I make a start on the food.

Storm

We needed a lot of stuff from Interlaken as we’re hosting dinner tomorrow night. The weather forecast was dreadful, so we got away early this morning. It was actually very warm down in the valley, and we enjoyed our sandwiches on a bench in the English garden. We were soon back in the village, and now the sky has turned dark and the wind is howling around our roof. The storm has arrived.

Waterfall walk

It’s a sunny day, yay! All that rain over the last few days fell as snow higher up.

We’re off for a walk along the valley. Here’s the first waterfall, the Mürrenbach.

Val tried a waterfall selfie. It turned out she could get herself in the photo, or the waterfall, but not quite both.

Homemade ice cream at the little hut just before we reach Lauterbrunnen. It’s delicious.

It’s nice to have summer back again.

The Swiss Transport Museum

It’s wet and chilly today, but that doesn’t affect our plan, as we’re off to the transport museum. It’s just a few minutes away by bus. If it’s a man made object and it carries passengers or freight, you’ll find it here. We start with aeroplanes.

A Swissair Convair 990 and Douglas Dakota DC3.

Northrop F5-E Tiger, as flown by the Patrouille Swiss aerobatic team. We see them in Wengen every winter when we have the World Cup ski races.

This is a Mars rover.

And a model of the International Space Station.

Trains are well represented of course. Here’s one that came from the Jungfraubahn, just up the hill from our village.

And naturally there are lots of cars.

It’s a very good day out, and there’s so much to see that we could probably go again tomorrow without getting bored. We even had a nice lunch.

Mount Pilatus

Our Swiss paella was a big success last night. I’ve never seen fillet steak or tuna in a paella before, but all the other traditional ingredients were there.

This morning we were up early. We want to get the first steamer to a place called Alpnachstadt. It’s very pleasant. We enjoyed coffee on board.

Here is our objective. Pilatus is the highest mountain in the Luzern area.

At Alpnachstadt, we board a cogwheel train. This thing is the steepest railway in the world, and the trains climb up impossibly steep slopes in convoys of 2.

At the top we have lunch, and then there’s a bit more climbing to do to get to the very top. It was pretty cold up there.

A cable car takes us back down the other side of the mountain to a place called Fräkmüntegg. Views back to Luzern and the lake.

From Fräkmüntegg we catch a gondola down to a suburb of Luzern called Kriens, and then it’s back to the city centre by bus.

We were very lucky with the weather – the forecast was poor and it started to rain not long after we got back. A great day out.