Need a place to relax after a day of hiking near Gimmelwald? Check out Backpackers Villa, where unlike the Mountain Hostel, showers are included and seem to have an endless supply of hot water. While you’re here, be sure to grab yourself a Rösti from Des Alpes, buy those last minute Swiss Chocolates, and book a train to Oktoberfest through the helpful ticket guy at Interlaken OST – you won’t regret it!    

Interlaken was good, but that Rösti was great!

Kilchbalm, a glacial cirque in the Bernese Oberland, is quite the sight to behold – mountains, glaciers, snow, waterfalls, and streams make this a stunningly beautiful place, and almost too much to take in at once.

Our two hour hike from Gimmelwald to Kilchbalm culminated at the glacier’s ice cave, where just moments before we bore witness to a “mini avalanche” literally thundering down the mountain in front of us. Since we came this far, we had to enter the cave to check it out, but since the glacier seemed like it was rapidly melting (and after just hearing snow crash down the mountain), we decided it was best not to linger.

I joined John in scrambling out of the cave after exploring some, but not before I topped off the water bottle with what tasted like some of the purest water on Earth. Water and photos in hand, we began our hike back to Gimmelwald and prepared for our trip to Interlaken.

Piz Gloria is the world’s first revolving restaurant, but in the James Bond movie On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, it served as Blofeld’s headquarters in the Alps. We missed the memo to join the crowds and come dressed as Bond.

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.

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

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.

To answer the popular question, yes I am taking classes this semester! Because of the scheduling here at TU Delft, though, I only have one class this quarter, which meets once a week. So, there’s some free time to explore a bit.