The Cloudy Alps

The village is complete tourist mecca, full of hotels, cafés and shops. It was a lovely place to stay, and we had a glorious view of the mountains from our balcony.

At least we did on the evening we arrived... sadly for us, the weather this weekend was going to be appalling, and the rest of our stay here would instead be very grey. Despite being pretty glorious here all summer (unlike it had been at home) for this one week the weather had turned...

Although it had been a long day already - with decent weather this may be our only chance to actually see things, and so we took lots of photos, and went for a short walk up the main road to make the most of what were decent views.

Then at 7pm, some locals arrived to blow their Alphorns and throw Swiss flags into the air.

The next morning we headed down towards the canyon at the bottom of the Kleines Fiescherhorn valley. This canyon has a metal walkway drilled into the side of the cliff edge and allows visitors to enjoy 1km of the canyon.

We walked up and past people doing a jump into the valley, as well as going onto a netting right above the fast flowing stream.

Today the temperature had dropped substantially, and was forecast to be only 12˚C! Despite this being a "summer holiday" we had needed to pack for the autumn too.

We had originally planned to take a visit up the cable car to the top of the mountains on the north side where there were beautiful views of Jungfrau region, as well as a fun cliff walk. However the weather for the entire time this was open was so bad it was completely covered in clouds. Therefore we sadly had to miss out on this fun experience.

Having walked through some of the upper parts of the village, we went back to the hotel and chilled for the rest of the day. In the evening, we tried to dodge the rain showers, and made our way to a restaurant to enjoy some local food.

Oddly, the entire village was absolutely full of Chinese tourists - so much so we almost felt like being in a minority. And it seemed like most of them were all ill with the same cold - coughing around all day long. Unsurprisingly I eventually caught whatever it was, but thankfully it didn't ruin the trip.

The next day, as the weather was not due to improve until late in the day and we didn't have time to wait around, after breakfast we headed to the station to continue our Alpine adventure

We were headed to Lucerne, and there were two options - one was the faster trains back via Bern on a very long winded route; the other was the shorter route past many lakes, but taking just as long. Rather than repeating ourselves we chose the slower route.

I had wondered why this "PE" train would take so long, but as we boarded we realised why - "PE" stood for Panorama Express. It was a sightseeing route.

It had lots of panoramic windows and took a very scenic route including up through a minor mountain pass. Even despite the grey weather, we had some lovely views of the Pre-Alps. Definitely worth taking this option.

Eventually, we arrived in Lucerne. After dropping our bags in the luggage storage, we headed off into the city. The most famous sight is the old wooden bridge, over 650 years old and featuring many 17th century paintings.

After viewing it from afar we then took a walk along it, before crossing back over the river at the similar Spreuerbrücke further downstream, that also had similar paintings.

We then headed into the old town itself, bought a souvenir, before then heading around the corner to the Lion Monument - showing a dying Lion carved into the cliffside.

We then headed back to the station, walking alongside the shore of Lake Lucerne, the country's fourth largest lake.

After picking our luggage back up, we boarded a train heading out to Arth-Goldau, where we changed over to a high speed train that would cut its way right through the middle of the Alps, utilising the recently opened Gotthard Base Tunnel - the longest and deepest train tunnel in the world.

We could have instead used the old route over the top of the mountains to enjoy more scenic mountain views, but by now the novelty had worn off, and after a long day we preferred to shave off an hour from our journey by using the tunnel - though had we travelled three days later, we wouldn't have had a choice, as a freight train derailed and damaged 8km of tracks, closing the entire tunnel and preventing passenger traffic until 2024.