After spending much of the summer traipsing throughout Europe, it was at the top of Rochers de Naye with my mom that I realized that I hadn't spent any time exploring Switzerland this summer! So I checked my calendar to see where I could squeeze in some hiking before summer left us for good (btw - it's officially done) and booked an overnight trip to explore Wengen!
Wengen is a favorite of my friend Cassie's parents, so I invited her and the rest of the Zurich crew to meet me there. Honestly, as a single girl living abroad, this has often been the best way to organize amazing trips. Decide somewhere to go, book it, and then tell other people to come! In fact, my first time to my beloved Ho Chi Minh City was organized in this way! I booked the trip, told Brian and Stephanie to join, and we had a blast. The thing is - if you are always just waiting around for other people to plan trips and invite you along, you will probably be waiting for a long time. Best to take matters into your own hands!
So last weekend, me, Cassie, Paul, Tristen, Mallory, and Keith all met up for a Swiss hiking adventure! The last time that me, Cassie, and Mal were all together was a year ago in London, so it was so much fun to hang out again!! The three of us worked together in Nashville, and now all of us live in Switzerland! Small world, right?
The scenery was absolutely beautiful in Lauterbrunnen. The area is famous for it's waterfalls, which we saw from a distance, but I really enjoyed the super green grass and the bluebird skies.
As we were climbing, we heard a bunch of cowbells in the distance, and as we kept walking towards the noise, we realized that there was a désalpe parade coming! In the summer, cows live up on the top parts of the mountains, but in the fall, they are all brought down before the winter. Bringing down the cows is called the "désalpe" and all the cows and farmers are dressed in traditional costume. Many cantons have an official désalpe that is quite the spectator event, but I didn't manage to catch one last year. We were so lucky to stumble upon a real désalpe on our hike!!
Our original plan was to have lunch in Wengen and then do another hike in the afternoon, but the clouds looked like they were really coming in fast, so we decided to take the cable car up to Männlichen to explore a bit before the weather turned.
When we got to the top, there was no rain, but there were a lot of clouds! Even still, we were able to enjoy some amazing views before having a nice leisurely lunch on the mountaintop.
There was even a makeshift bowling lane!
Studying the map of the mountains
We made our way back down to Wengen, checked into our hotel, and then just hung around and explored the town for the rest of the day. We were actually pretty lucky to find out that we were visiting on the last weekend of the season, so the local pub was trying to get rid of a lot of their inventory and had some pretty good drink specials!
I love these little Swiss villages. So cute!
On Sunday morning, we woke up to find that there had been some fresh snow on top of the mountains! We headed back up to Männlichen to do a morning hike over to Kleine Scheidegg. The walk was really flat, so we were all happy about that, and we got to take in some great views of the Eiger, Monch, and Jungfrau!
When we got to Kleine Scheidegg, the rest of the gang headed up to the top of the Jungfrau, but unfortunately, I had to head back to Geneva to catch a plane (of course). It was a super short weekend adventure, but it was so much fun! I'm already looking forward to doing it again :)
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