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The mid-semester break has arrived! Tomorrow I leave for Ireland, followed by Norway and the United Kingdom. Stay tuned!

I’ve heard a lot of good things about Gimmelwald from my friends that’ve been there, but nothing could have prepared me for that first glimpse of the Alps. John was the first to wake up and look out the dorm window, and his one word remark of “Jesus” pretty much sums it up. Gimmelwald, a small village of 130 people nestled on a cliff amidst the Alps, could possibly be the most beautiful place on Earth.

Luckily for us, the storm that just dumped fresh snow on the mountains had moved on and the weather was perfect for hiking to the nearby village of Mürren and enjoying the views from the Schilthorn. The photos below are from our hikes around Gimmelwald.

After Milan, the rest of our trek to Gimmelwald, Switzerland went relatively smooth. We caught our trains from Spiez to Interlaken and Lauterbrunnen, the bus to Stechelberg, and finally the cable car to Gimmelwald.

We spent three days in Switzerland (September 28 – October 1), based at the Mountain Hostel in Gimmelwald and Backpackers Villa in Interlaken.

No matter how we looked at it, getting from the Cinque Terre to Gimmelwald, Switzerland was not going to be easy. I knew this from the instant I saw possible train schedules on the Swiss Rail website. The best trip would take nine hours and would involve six tight connections between five trains, a bus, and a cable car. Missing any one of these connections would leave us stranded in a train station late at night with no place to sleep and would set our trip behind by at least a day. We could not miss a connection.

As a testament to the difficulty of our plan, the friendly ticket lady in the Florence train station laughed at the schedule I handed her and called over her colleagues to look at it. Yes, even a seasoned railway employee thought we were nuts. We must’ve earned her respect, though, since she was more than eager to help us work out the details of the mandatory train reservations.

Swiss trains are notorious for their timeliness, literally departing and arriving within seconds of their scheduled times. Therefore, we were somewhat concerned when we pulled into the Milan train station with only ten minutes to get to some unknown platform and on the train to Switzerland. Needless to say, the instant the train stopped we had no choice but to run!

Dodging in and out of the crowd with full packs, we made our way to the front of the surprisingly long train on platform 18. We soon learned that our Swiss train was on platform 3, which was the complete opposite side of the station. Another run ensued, and we boarded just minutes before the conductor blew his whistle. We were off to Switzerland.

After Pisa, we CouchSurfed with Ernesto in La Spezia before we entered the Cinque Terre. The Cinque Terre (literally the five lands) consists of five coastal villages along the Mediterranean and is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

With Ernesto’s help, we planned a five hour visit of the Cinque Terre combining trains and hiking. John and I started in Riomaggiore, and to make a long story short, trains were delayed, hiking trails were closed, and we were soon “stuck” for two hours in the second smallest village of Manarola.

I’m sad to say we had become “checklist” travelers – we were focussed on getting out of Manarola and continuing down the Cinque Terre in order to see as much as possible in our five hours. Once we realized this, we were finally able to open our eyes and see the amazing scenery surrounding us. A valuable lesson learned, the two hours we spent hiking around Manarola were some of the best spent in the Cinque Terre.

After Manarola, we visited Vernazza and Monterosso before it was time to master public transportation.