July 21, 2023
Meiringen -> Grindelwald
Breakfast with an Astrophysicist, and Exploring Lauterbrunnen
I woke up at 7:30 to a giant boom of thunder echoing off the mountains. I was the only person in a 25 bed hostel room. It was glorious. Nobody snoring, nobody turning lights on. A good night's sleep. I laid in bed for another half hour trying to fall back to sleep, but the thunderstorm kept getting louder. Soon rain was pounding on the roof. So much for the laundry I had drying on a clothesline outside. I was in no hurry to leave my warm dry hostel.
I stumbled out to get some breakfast. The hostel owners had prepared a spread of your standard european breakfast: Cold cuts, bread, yogurt, coffee, and muslei. I sat down with my plate and started eating. As I was eating, another solo traveller came out and sat next to me. It was a woman who looked like she was in her early thirties. I tried to make a conversation in German: "Hallo, woher kommen sie?", "Aus Deutschland" she replied. When she asked me where I was from I replied "California". "Oh good, then we can speak English" she cheerfully responded in a perfect british accent. "You from the UK originally?" I asked. "No, I'm from Germany, but I work in the UK right now". I was a little shocked. She was the first German I had met who spoke English with zero accent. She said she had always had a love for learning languages. Turns out she is an astrophysicist teaching at a University in Newcastle. She had gone to college for a period of time at Georgia Tech studying Physics, she told me. She said she liked her time in the US, but thought there was a lot of economic disparity between the upper-middle class, and the poor. She felt that Germany did a better job managing its economic inequalities, and that the UK was about inbetween Germany and the US. We both remarked about how empty the hostel was: every other hotel in town was booked up (that wasn't 300+/night). We figured it must have been because you couldn't book this hostel online, we had to email. I told her about my bike trip from Norway, and she told me that she was on a work trip to Bern. She had come to Meiringen to see a waterfall that was a setting in a Sherlock Holmes story.
We finished breakfast and continued on with our mornings. The rain was still pouring down, so I was in no hurry to leave. I took my time packing up, showering, and getting my bike ready. The owners were nice enough to let me store my bike in their garage, so it stayed dry. I was able to grease the chain and pump up the tires in the garage. The owner was also nice enough to let me use their dryer for free since the rain had soaked my clothes.
I left the hostel around 10:30, following a break in the rain. From Meiringen, the bike route followed a frontage road to the main traffic carrying road that went through beautiful farmland. It was all downhill to the Brienzersee. The Brienzersee was turquoise blue, and a little cloudy with glacial sediment. The bike way followed the lake on a frontage road that was sadistically designed, weaving up and down the mountainside instead of following the flat lakeside. Eventually, I came across my first stop: Giessbachfaelle. A waterfall with a trail behind it. Since I was on a bike I didn't even have to pay.
After walking behind the waterfall, I continued onward. I found a bench in front of a swimming beach with a floating platform. I stopped, stripped down to my bike shorts, and tried to go for a swim. As I was putting my feet in the water, the wind picked up and it started to rain again. I decided against it. As I was getting dressed again, a group of bike tourists pulled up. They were from Germany, heading to the Mediterranean on a month long tour. They had some seriously heavy looking pannier setups, so it must have been hard for them to climb passes.
I continued on until Lauterbrunnen. The bike path to Lauterbrunnen followed a gravel path along the a river. When I lauterbrunnen first came into view, I was overwhelmed by a view of Staubachfalls. I hiked over to the base of it and admired it for a while. The whole area reminded me of Yosemite Valley, but in my opinion a little more dramatic as there were high mountains with glaciers in the background.
I then stopped at Trummelbachfaelle. This is essentially a slot canyon carved by a glacial melt river. A walkway had been carved into this slot canyon for tourists to enjoy. I took a cog train to the top and hiked down. The sound inside the slot canyon I can only compare to a combination of loud waves crashing, mixed with a low rumble similar to a time I watched a rocket launch at Vandenberg. The sound was deafening. I now understand why they call it "Lauterbrunnen" (literally loud fountain). After the hike I got a slice of hazelnut cake at the nearby cafe, followed by dinner at a grocery store. I have to say I have finally figured out the trick to eating cheap in Switzerland. By going to a grocery store within an hour of closing, you can buy all the premade deli foods about to expire. They are typically marked down 50%. For 10 Francs I got a salami sandwich, slice of apple pie, pesto pasta, and a chocolate bar.
I called every hostel in Lauterbrunnen, and none had any rooms available (it is a Friday night afterall). The prospect of camping in the rain did not sound appealing either. I called the youth hostel in Grindelwald, and they had a bed for me. To Grindelwald it was. The bike path from Lauterbrunnen to Grindelwald was steep, but absolutly scenic. I was glad I had booked a hostel once I checked in and a huge thunderstorm rolled by. I was able to enjoy it from my warm dry bed. The guy next to me was from Bern, and doing a weekend trip on his bike. He had a road bike, and was carrying everything in a backpack, similar to what I had done last summer on my first bike trip in Cape Cod.
Once I was set up, I had to plan tomorrow's adventure: The Jungfraujoch. Stay tuned for tomorrow's update.
Today's ride: 50 miles (80 km)
Total: 1,379 miles (2,219 km)
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