Switzerland

As I write this, I'm looking at the Egger mountain from the balcony of our VRBO in Grindelwald, Switzerland. Clouds pepper the top, just below the peak, but the valley below is crystal clear, revealing the smattering of mountainside residences. Ours is also in the countryside, next to small farms and at the end of Bachsport road.

It's been almost fourteen years since we returned to the U.S. after our fairytale expatriate life in Switzerland. We've been back since, but a couple of years ago decided that we'd try to celebrate our 40th anniversary with the next two generations of Reyers kids somewhere in Switzerland for one last big hurrah. It's getting increasingly difficult to get everyone together for an extended period, what with jobs and kids and all. Perhaps a return tour of the Confoederatio Helvetica would be enough incentive for all nine of them to take from their daily obligations and ask time off from work.

Success. Over an eleven day period, all joined us in Grindelwald as the headquarters for our Swiss reunion. We toured destinations from the past, and some new destinations. Repeat experiences for some family members, entirely new experiences for all. Some highlights:

The Anchor - Bachsbort

Christian and Cristine Egger have been running Bachsbort, a vacation guest home in Grindelwald, for 27 years now, hosting folks from all over the world to share their personal home. An apartment with three bedrooms on the top floor, and an apartment with two bedrooms on the ground floor, with their own home in between. Bonnie had made reservations a year and a half ago - good thing because its pretty much full more than a year in advance. Christian, a former mechanical engineer for the local train and gondola industry, is from a long line of Grindelwald Egger's, starting in the 1400's at least, since that's as far back as they can trace. His brother, a farmer, lives next door, and his son, an avalanche protection systems mechanical engineer, just bought the home above Bachsbort. Well known and well liked in the Grindelwald area, they practice service and hospitality Swiss style. Fridge and starting groceries stocked before arrival. Transportation to and from town, provided in their personal cars. Fortunately, because the roads are incredibly narrow single lane former goat trails as they serpentine up the mountainside, blind corners everywhere. Meals, any and all, available on request. We asked for two - BBQ night, with meat and veggies grilled on a unique fireplace, and Alpen Magronen, a very hearty mac and cheese. The vegetables all came from their compact garden nestled above the pool and below the road. We shared the preparing of the rest of our meals in the upper apartment's complete kitchen. Beer and wine appeared as if by magic, whenever the thought occurred to us. The accommodations were first class and contemporary, though cradled completely in Swiss Chalet tradition.

Luzern

On the way to Grindelwald from Zurich, we had to visit the dying lion monument in one of our all time favorite Swiss cities, Luzern. Carved out of the limestone face of a quarry cliff in the medieval town in 1820, it is a monument to the Swiss mercenary troops that were killed defending the French Royal family from revolutionary masses attacking the Royal Tuileries castle in Paris in 1792, assuring their escape.

The surprise on this visit was the Glacier Gardens, formerly bypassed as a gaudy tourist attraction. Just above the Lion monument, it is actually the remnants of glacial potholes uncovered during excavation in 1874. Preserved as part of a museum, the fun was in the other exhibits, including an extremely well designed mirror maze that befuddled all of us. The only guide was the fingerprints left by others marking some of the mirrors. The kids loved it (at least the older kids).

Glacier Canyon

Our first stop after getting settled into our digs was one we hadn't seen before. Since we'd be exploring not an actual glacier, but rather the remnants of the former lower Grindelwald glacier, located close to town, our expectations were measured. The walk along the narrow canyon proved to be another fine example of Swiss mountain engineering, extending well above the Lutschien river that rushes beneath. In the middle of the walk they spanned a spider net across the canyon that all of us scrambled, walked and crawled on, bouncing each other around a bit. The grandchildren weren't too sure about that one.

Trummelbach Falls

On one of the visits of my parents during our residency in Switzerland, I took them and my mothers sister, Kiek, 86 at the time, on a tour of Trummelbach Falls. The name Trummelbach comes from Trommelbach, which means a stream that sounds like a drum. More like constant thunder, from our experience. Since 1877 these falls, fed by annual snow melt combined with glacier melt and located deep in the mountain, have been accessible with stairways and tunnels carved and drilled along side the rushing water. I marched my willing aunt, mother, and father up those hundreds of stairs to the top of their run before realizing there was an elevator from the bottom that took care of at least half the trip. On this trip, after taking that elevator and climbing just the remaining distance, my own kids wondered what kind of son I was in those days, abusing seniors with excessive stress and strain as I did. After hiking the full length myself, perhaps out of some degree of embarrassment in remembrance of my aunt, and more than once stopping to catch my breath and let my legs keep from cramping, I appreciated how fit they must have been. And tolerant.

The falls are indeed deafening, making it difficult to carry on a conversation as they plummet into bowls and ledges carved over some estimated fifteen thousand years. Fascinating to watch from inside the mountain.

Giessbach Falls

A more tranditional waterfall is found next to the Giessbach hotel, where the whole family lunched after a steamboat trip from Interlaken. The hotel is important to us because of its role in my recovery from heart surgery some fifteen years ago. Immediately after discharge from the hospital at that time, Bonnie took me on a cruise on the Brienzersee steamboats, stopping at the dock at the foot of the hotel. A small funicular railway car took us up the 350 meter stretch to the hotel, some 100 meters up from the waters edge and along the Giessbach falls. The boat ride was a highlight now as it was then. These steamboats, restored over ten years ago to original form but with some modern technologies and materials added for maintainability and safety, ply the larger lakes of Switzerland as a working museum. They all have a wonderful viewing port on the passenger deck, exposing the workings of the steam engine, connecting rods, valve gears, and lots of lubricating oilers. From comfortable benches, you can look down to the engine operator as he waits for instructions barked down the speaking tubes by the captain above, the old fashioned way. The grandchildren were actually interested in watching with me for a bit, but I could have sat there for hours.

Jungfraujoch

Adolph Guyer-Zeller was a James J. Hill of Switzerland. But somewhere between building railroads in northeast Switzerland and Murren he got fanciful. Murren is on one side of the Lauterbrunnen valley and faces the famous three mountains of the Berner Oberland - Eiger, Monch, and Jungfrau. At the time, he was vacationing in Murren and, knowing there was a competition among a few ambitious engineers to find a way to build a railroad to the top of Jungfrau, he came up with an idea for an electrically operated cog railway, allowing it to scale the mountains from the inside through a tunnel. The key competitive advantage of his proposal, however, was that he had the resources to finance some of it, and then sell interest in it to investors to complete the project. Another was his insight as a businessman, which drove him to include three stations creating a unique view outside from within the tunnel. Each station was a tourist destination of its own, allowing the railway to be opened in stages, keeping the public enamored during the 16 years of construction.

Unfortunately, Adolph never saw the conclusion of his vision, dying in 1899, three years after the start of the project. Subsequent financing challenges and stubborn rock forced a reroute of the last section from the original plan of coming out on top of Jungfrau, to instead reaching the lower saddle between Jungfrau and Monch. At an elevation of 3466 meters (11,370 feet), it's still considered The Top of Europe, complete with restaurants, observatory's, a science station, and tourist shops. From there, you can hike a glacier, walk through manmade ice caves, purchase Lindt chocolates or Tissot watches, or catch your breath on outdoor observation decks. The family did it all, except the glacier hike. The strollers didn't seem cut out for that.

Playgrounds

Other side trips were often determined by the availability of playgrounds to entertain the grandkids along the way, or as a destination. Each playground, most located high in the mountains, was filled with entertaining equipment that would spin, slide, or swing the kids into smiles and giggles. The playground on top of Mannlichin, at the end of the tram up from Wengen, had a most interesting playground slide in the image of a cow. After getting over the intimidation of it's size, the little ones had a ball coming out of a dark tube onto the cows tongue. Tracy, however, took the cake when she came down the slide and catapulted out of the cows mouth, zipping over the tongue doing a gymnasts tumble on the ground. She blamed her slippery pants. Her prince did not catch her, but was there to lend a hand. We laughed over that one for days.

The Hike

One hike, across a ridge opposite Eiger, provided particularly spectacular vista's, and was navigable by stroller. Each bend in the path revealed another breathtaking view. When we asked Christine for a recommendation of route we could take, Bonnie was insistent that it pass through areas with lots of cows. That week the cows had been moved up the mountain from their winter quarters by the farmers, an annual and celebrated event all over the country. Since they were in the first stage of three stages of pasture, at a lower elevation, they should be quite accessible to families hiking with strollers and diaper bags.

Indeed they were. The three hour hike became a four hour hike, what with all the stops to talk to and take pictures of the cows.

In the middle of the hike, in the middle of nowhere, was a small restaurant, perfect for a beer and brat break. At the end, a middle station on the gondola up to First Mountain, was another picturesque playground filled with fun things to do. A perfect snapshot of the uniqueness of Switzerland, a great place to bring a family.