Top of the World

The fog had descended quite a lot that morning, and it looked like we would be able to go up the Mt Schilthorn as we'd been planning to, coz it was sure to be above the fog. We checked the live video feed from the mountain top at the train station, and sure enough, it seemed like it was all clear up there. So we went off in the funicular to Murren, where we left our luggage in the lockers, taking with us only what we needed for the night. Murren was completely smothered in fog and we really didn't see much. I did a bit of shopping - bought t-shirts for Chitra and my mom. From Murren we took the cable car up to Schilthorn.

View of Mt Monch from Murren: We took this train to Lauterbrunnen!

If I had to pick one thing that would make a trip to Switzerland worthwhile, this is it. Don't ever miss the alps, people. You've heard everyone sing praises of them, you've seen them in a zillion movies, and you think it's no big deal, it's 'just a view'.. but you can't begin to imagine it till you've been there. Forget all those photographs and the movies.. you've got to be there, be dazzled by the unnatural brightness of snow all around, feel the bite of the cold breeze on your nose, feel your hair whip back in the occasional buffet of wind.. see peaks stetched out as far as the eye can see, with fog blanketed between them - it's like a hindi-movie depiction of heaven, only it's real, and it's there right in front of you.

There's a revolving restaurant with a large terrace right on top of Schilthorn called the Piz Gloria. We had lunch there - rosti and a slice of cake for me, rosti and ice cream for Vinay. He tells me eating ice cream when it's cold is the best it can get.. I don't know. The cake wasn't great, don't go for it. The rosti was, though. Get soup. I realised later that I should have had it.. would've warmed my insides.

We spent a long time eating and taking in the view as our seats slowly revolved to give us a 360 degree view of the mountains all around, the three giants: Eiger, Monch and Jungfrau, then spent even longer ourside, taking snaps, looking, trying to believe the stuff around us wasn't papier mache (did I spell that right?) I bought a couple of cowbell keychains at the souvenir shop. The weird thing about Switzerland, we noticed, is that the prices don't vary all that much. Souvenirs cost the same in tiny, practically unknown villages and highly frequented spots like Schilthorn.

Went back down to Murren late in the afternoon.. must have been 4.30 p.m. or so. The fog had cleared up considerably in Murren to we could see a bit more of it. Anyway it turned out that accommodation was way too expensive in Murren (40 francs a night!) so we trekked down to a tiny village called Gimmelwald. It was a beautiful trek.. flowers carpeted the mountainside as we passed it. I picked a tiny bouquet for myself, gosh I could lift myself out of the depths of despair just thinking about those flowers.

We were checked in at this very cozy, totally friendly raucus place called the Mountain Hostel (it's pretty famous) by 6 p.m. it's run by a lady called Petra. She's nice and friendly if she knows you I suppose. She didn't talk to us much. She had lovely flower pots all around the hostel.. they looked like logs split in half, laid sideways and the inside scooped out to make way for the earth to put the flowers in. Bright red flowers. The place was getting too pretty to comprehend.

I couldn't see much from the girls' dorm window upstairs coz of the fog but i thought I caught a glimpse of a yawningly huge valley right there.. I kept wishing the fog would clear up. I got my wish about half an hour later. Vinay and I were just strolling out around the village, and the fog just moved out from the valley, and simply took our breath away. Now that's what I'd call a view to *DIE* for.. and we didn't even get to see the whole of it.. the upper bits of the fog were still there, so we couldn't see the peaks.. just the huge huge valley below us. Lauterbrunnen was visible in the distance, way way below.

Gimmelwald: Gigantic Valleys, Unreal Beauty

When the fog came back and covered up everything again, and stayed put, we walked back to the hostel, had dinner (a burger and hot chocolate.. the chocolate was heavenly!) and called it a night just at sunset.