We stayed three nights in the village of Wengen which is a short train ride from Lauterbrunnen. Wengen is a nice-sized village, not too big but with plenty of places to stay and eat and even a nice COOP grocery store. Our first afternoon was rather cloudy so not much of a view of the mountaintops and we woke up the next day to some cloud cover, but with hopes of it breaking up we took the cable car from Wengen to Mannlichen to hike the Panorama trail to Kleine Scheidegg. When we reached Mannlichen, the cloud cover had lifted from the mountains so we had clear views of multiple peaks including the big three in this area - the Eiger, the Mönch and the Jungfrau. They are massive mountains! It was a nice hike without much elevation change and great views. There were several other people we met on the trail but it was not busy at all. We then took the train from Kleine Scheidegg back to Wengen.
We took the train to Lauterbrunnen in the afternoon, and it seemed rather crowded to us. We walked over the river and viewed the Stabbach Falls and the church from that side but it hadn’t rained so the falls were pretty small. We decided to head back up the mountain to Wengen where things were less hectic. Wengen has a series of marble runs that I had told our youngest grandson about so we went to the tourism office to buy the large “marble” and then took some video of the various runs to send our little guy, which he loved. We had a terrace outside our hotel room so we picked up pre-made salad and some fruit and pretzels and enjoyed dinner on the terrace looking at the mountains.
We had seen helicopters flying around the valley and up to the mountains so we decided to splurge on a helicopter ride. We booked a time and then took the bus toward the heliport. We’re not very familiar with public transit as it’s not really available where we live, so we missed pushing the button to request the bus to stop at the heliport and ended up walking back a mile or two so we would be on time for our appointment. Releases were signed and we were harnessed into the helicopter and off we went! It was a beautiful view of the Lauterbrunnen valley as we took off, then a close look at the cliffs along the side of the valley. It wasn’t long before we flying toward the mountains, big and imposing from the helicopter’s windows. We flew high over the Jungfraujoch Top of Europe, saw the Aletsch glacier, and also flew over the Pilz Gloria restaurant at the top of the Schilthorn. It wasn’t a long flight but the scenery was amazing.
After our helicopter ride, we caught the bus and stopped at Trummelbach Falls, which are a series of ten waterfalls inside a mountain. You first take an elevator up to see #6-10 of the waterfalls. The volume and pressure of the water was amazing, especially considering that the waterfall in town had very little water running over it. There are a good number of stairs to reach the various waterfalls and then you come back down the same way. From the elevator landing you can walk down a series of steps to see #3-5 but my knee was complaining after the rather hasty walk to the heliport and then all the stairs to see the upper falls, so we took the elevator back down, saw waterfalls #1 and 2 and decided that was sufficient. We went to the small restaurant by the bus stop and had a snack and something to drink and then it was time to catch the bus back to town. Here is where we ran into another bus problem. The buses going back to town originate in Stechelberg which is where a lot of people get off the transport coming down from Mürren so the buses were absolutely jammed full of people. After letting one go by because no one could possibly squeeze in, we had to jam into the next bus which was also very crowded because it was the next to the last bus going back to town. We made it though and were very grateful to be back in peaceful Wengen.
The following day was bright and clear so we took the mountain transport to Brig to do the Thrill Walk. The Thrill Walk unfortunately was partially closed due to some construction but I did do the cable walk. After that, we went to Mürren and walked down to Gimmelwald which is a small village further down the mountain. This walk was 100% downhill all the way at a pretty decent grade and my poor knee was screaming at me, but the scenery was absolutely worth it! It was a beautiful walk and we had lunch in Gmmelwald before taking the cable car back to Mürren and then another cable car back to Wengen.
We really enjoyed our days in the Jungfrau area and we were lucky to have really nice weather too!
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