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It’s very warm again, and today the forecast is for afternoon thunderstorms. We grab our things and dash up to the Männlichen cable car which takes 5 minutes to get us to the top. There’s a nice walk up here called the Lieselotte path. Lieselotte is a cow who spends the summer on Männlichen, and this family oriented walk is themed for her. Kids get a checklist of things to spot along the way. Cowbells to ring at the start.

Here’s Lieselotte boating on the reservoir.

The path follows the ski and toboggan tracks down the mountain. Towards the end of the walk we amble down everyone’s favourite ski piste – the cruise down to Holenstein.

The gondola whisks us back to the top, and under darkening skies we head back to Wengen. The rain started 5 minutes after we got home. Timing.

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We popped into the village for a couple of beers after dinner last night, and the village band were playing by the tennis courts. They had a big audience.

Wengen is pretty busy at the moment, mostly with Swiss visitors. That’s all about to change however, as the school holidays are over now and everyone will be back at work tomorrow.

We had a quiet day today. Well, it was quiet until 2 alphorn players started performing outside Ali’s house just along the path from ours. How very Swiss.

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We had a lovely dinner at the hotel last night, but the real star of the evening was the sunset over the lake. We took lots of photos – Val got this one which we adjudged the best.

Afterwards, the mountains are painted orange in the alpenglow.

This morning we were up early for our hike to First. It begins easily enough, with a wander through meadows beneath the Oberberghorn.

Next, we have to climb the Loucherhorn. There’s no way to avoid this. The track is steep and rocky.

A lake above a lake. We pass Sägistalsee, and there’s a glimpse of lake Brienz far below.

The path gets even steeper, and we climb through snow patches to the Männdlenen hut. There’s a network of these alpine huts all over Switzerland, and you can stay the night. They sell basic food like bread, cheese, cakes and dried sausages. We buy our lunch and enjoy a brief rest, before we start climbing again.

The summit of our walk comes about an hour after lunch at 2620 metres, or about 8500 feet. After that we begin the long descent to First. We pass the lake at Bachalpsee on the way.

Eventually we reach the restaurant at First. I had the best beer I’ve ever tasted, and we caught the gondola down to Grindelwald. All in all the walk was almost 17 kilometres, and we’ll certainly sleep well tonight.

Here’s our GPS trace for the day.

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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.