Next Country - Switzerland!

Switzerland is possibly the most charming place in the world. It is ridiculously adorable!

No one in all of history could ever have said, “Switzerland, meh…” 

It was altogether wonderful.

However, it was difficult to figure out beforehand, particularly if you are on a budget. 

1) Hotels are expensive.

2) Food is very expensive. 

3) There is an extensive public transit system with a confusing assortment of passes you can buy: Swiss Pass, Half-Fare Card, Berglund-Oberland Pass, Jungfrau Travel Pass, Swiss Family Card, Junior Traveler, Co-Dependent, etc. All can save you money and hassle from buying each public transit option separately, but none of these passes are cheap either. 

Ultimately, we stayed in a bungalow at Camping Jungfrau in Lauterbrunnen. This gave us a kitchen and good bus/train access to the entire Jungfrau area. Plus, Lauterbrunnen is the home of 72 waterfalls. 

We found that while restaurants were very expensive, grocery marts were prolific and we could get fresh bread, cheese, fruits and vegetables anytime we wanted. So for most of our meals, we picnicked, which worked best during the day anyway because we were usually out on a hike of some sort. 

There were even vending machines for cheese. Yes! Vending Machines. FOR. CHEESE!!!!

Lastly, we settled on getting a swiss half-fare card and a Jungfrau travel pass.

The half-fare card made it so our kids under the age of 16 could travel for free on almost all transit, and anyone over 16 got discounts.

The Jungfrau pass covered nearly every bus, train, gondola, cable car, boat and funicular in the entire area. There were a few that weren’t covered, but then the half-fare card usually gave us the extra discounts on those. 

With a plan and some passes, we took the train from Paris to Lauterbrunnen, Switzerland.

We have arrived!!!

We checked into Camping Jungfrau and then explored the area, enjoying the icy streams, the fields of wildflowers, the adorable buildings and the waterfalls.

Then the kids tried out the first of the many AWESOME Swiss playgrounds.

The next day we got an early start on a big day. 

We took two trains and a bus to Grindelwald, and then a gondola to Grindelwald First (pronounced “Fierce-t”). This looks more complicated than it actually was. All the public transportation was well timed and fairly obvious once you were on it. Plus, there was always someone to ask. 

The first thing we did was the Tissot Cliff walk.

From there we did the Bachalpsee Hike. This was a fairly easy walk that took us about 3 hours there and back, but that is mostly because we had to stop to take so many photos and then we had a leisurely picnic by the ice lake. 

The views, guys, the VIEWS!!! I could hardly believe what it was seeing. 

We had just finished reading "Heidi" and so Lucy said she found Grandfather's cabin.

Next we took the gondola back one stop to Bort, where there was a lovely little restaurant that overlooked an awesome playground. 

This was something we found often. Restaurants right next to playgrounds. Switzerland loves families!!! 

Mountains, fields of flowers, playground! Yes, please!

Unwelcome side-effect of gorgeous fields of flowers ... my seasonal allergies kicked into overdrive...

After some time playing, we took the gondola back to Grindelwald and then boarded our bus to Pfingstegg, but quickly found that we had taken the wrong bus. Whoops! 

We got off, walked around a bit in confusion, studied the SBB app, and eventually found the right bus stop and we were on our way. 

Pfingstegg was a paid cable car ride to where we did a mountain toboggan ride. 

It was getting late for more on this day, but we did return to Grindelwald later in the week to walk through the Glacier Canyon. 

This 300 meter high rock face was formed by the Lower Grindelwald Glacier. Unfortunately, the glacier no longer exists, but it was amazing to see its former path, nonetheless. 

There was even a spiderweb net stretched across the canyon that we got to climb on. 

If we return one day, Tom wants to do the Canyon swing.