Day 7: August 31, 1999
Arrive in Zurich, drive to Wengen, Switzerland

Walendo: Landing in Switzerland is about as easy as it can be. No paperwork is necessary. No cavity searches. No nothing. Nobody checked our bags, nobody asked us questions. They just looked at the passports and off we went. Free baggage carts, too, which is very nice. We found our way to the Hertz counter (after a couple of aborted attempts in an uncooperative elevator!) and there was the name Isaacs on the digital display - telling us to pick our car up in slot 76. This would have been great, except we realized that we had redone the reservations and had forgotten to cancel the ones that they were referring to. Oops! I'm going to stop writing and go get my camera out. I don't want to miss this sunrise!

Ellen: I guess the bed was a little too comfortable, cuz Walendo never made it back out again. It's now Wednesday late afternoon and I'm typing on the table in our room while Walendo snores, I mean snoozes away.

We packed our bags into the car, and off we went, with me driving and Walendo navigating. We both did a pretty decent job, making our way out of the airport, through Zurich city streets, and on and off freeways following signs all the way. We went past Lucerne to Interlaken, and then up to Lauterbrunnen, which has a huge waterfall on a cliff right in the town, very pretty. You can't drive your car to Wengen, you have to take a train from Lauterbrunnen. They have it all pretty well arranged: there are free baggage carts right in the parking lot, and you can take an elevator and then a ramp right out to the train platform. This was good for us, cuz we had too much stuff to schlep and we were exhausted, to boot, but it all went well. The trains are these neat tram-like things that pull themselves up via gears.

Hotel Schweizerheim (with Ellen in window)

We got off at Wengen, a lovely mountain town with a fabulous view both down the valley and up to the massive peaks. As soon as you get off the train, you see signs to all the hotels (or it seemed that way), so we had no trouble finding our hotel, Hotel Schweizerheim, which was down some steep hills a little over 5 minutes away.

View of Lauterbrunnen from our hotel balcony

Not a big deal, but of course this meant we'd have to walk back up each time we wanted to go into town. We got to the hotel and the woman was very friendly and showed us our room. It's a two-star hotel, but we found it very comfortable, if not luxurious, and perfectly adequate for our needs. The room was large and even had a little alcove area with a table for eating. (The only odd thing was that they never replaced the single small bar of soap they'd given us, so we had to get our own. I'm sure it was an oversight.) We were fortunate to get a corner room that had a deck overlooking the spectacular scenery. There's a long, thin valley in between two huge sets of peaks. One has the Jungfraujoch peak and the other has the Schilthorn, which apparently was in some James Bond movie (w: not to mention the Eiger, of Eiger Sanction fame). With the town of Lauterbrunnan in the middle, it's a beautiful scene. It was also a gorgeous day out, warm and sunny, and the woman said the weather hadn't been that good this summer, so we were especially lucky.

After settling in, we both got into bed to take naps. After sleeping about 3 hours, I dragged myself out of bed so we would be able to go to bed on Swiss time. I tried to wake up Walendo, but he resisted several times. He was really exhausted. Finally he agreed and got up. We took showers, and then headed out around 4:30 to check out the town.

A typical lovely house in Wengen

It's a beautiful little town, with nearly every house made of dark wood and bright colorful flowers in the window boxes. It looks just like how you imagine the Swiss Alps. We walked around the town and checked out the main street, all the while as I took pictures.

View of Wengen from trail up to Eiger

Finally, we stopped for a drink at a fancier hotel's patio. I had tea and Walendo had a chocolate milk shake (called a "frappe" here) that was pretty mild. We walked around some more, this time further away from town up into the hills and Walendo realized that the street we were on took you out of town up into the hills, that we could take those roads to go on our "walk." (Walendo doesn't mind hikes as much if you call them walks or strolls or meandering around, so we're using that terminology.) They had little signs all over telling you how long to walk to various destinations, which was very helpful. The Swiss are awfully organized.

It was getting cooler, so we went back to the room to change and then headed back up for dinner. There weren't that many places, so after hesitating for a bit, we chose one (the Burnerhof) that was less expensive and had been mentioned in Walendo's book as having a huge salad bar with plates the size of woks (w: turns out it's not the place mentioned in the Lonely Planet - my mistake). I got the cheese fondue I'd been craving and he got a macaroni and cheese-like dish (w: it was a Swiss dish, applernudel something and yummy) with some weird other stuff on it. We also got salads, each for something like $5, and it turned out that most of the bowls for the veggies were empty, so there wasn't much to put on the salad. When we asked the waiter, he just took away some of the empty bowls. Great. When Walendo asked for water, he never brought it. My fondue was actually pretty good (though the bread wasn't great) and his was reasonable, but we weren't happy with the service at all. Wouldn't recommend it. I kept wondering why the place seemed so quiet and uncrowded, since the books and websites say this is still summer season and it's busy through the end of September. Walendo figured maybe the bad weather kept people away. It's odd, but nice that it's so uncrowded. (Later someone else told us it was because the weather hadn't been good all season, so people went South this year.)

On the way back, we stopped in a little store that had Swiss army knife stuff and they had refills of tweezers and toothpicks, which Walendo had lost on his knife. He got them, and was very happy about it. (.8 Sfr for either a tweezers or toothpick, the best deal in Switzerland!) Hard to find anywhere else in the world, I'd imagine. The woman at that store was very nice, as most people have been. Everyone but the waiter.

After dinner, we came back to the room, had some of the Goldenberg's Peanut Chews I had bought from NY (yum!), and then crashed for the night. We were both still very tired. We both woke up a few times, but then fell right back asleep. It was weird, delirious sleep, but we woke feeling rested. (This was when Walendo got up at one point to write and sit on the deck.)

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