Switzerland 6: Six cable cars and one funicular train to see a mountain peak and some more hiking.

Yesterday we began by travelling down to Lauterbrunnen, taking a bus to the cable car station, and then going up to Gimmelwald.  Gimmelwald is another small town.  I had expected the small towns in Switzerland to wow me, but compared to the towns in Germany, especially in the Black Forest region, Switzerland small towns look much less interesting and more run down.

We walked about forty five minute uphill to the neighboring town, Murren.



From Murren we took two cable cars up to Schiltorn, a mountain top at 9,740 feet.  This was the location of the filming of James Bond film On Her Majesty's Secret Service.  I have no interest in action movies, so this wasn't what interested me.  The views were what interested me. 

A job that I would never take.

The bathrooms in the facility were James Bond themed with quotes from the movie being repeated, similar to what you would see in Disney World.  It was weird.

We took the two cable cars back down and walked a short way to a funicular train that we took up a little ways to Allmendhubel, which was supposed to feature an alpine garden.  It was mostly weeds and dead flowers, so we walked quickly through the "garden" and onto the mountain view trail.  This two hour trail was beautiful and most importantly, nice and wide, with no sheer cliffs. 

My favorite picture of the day.  Having a subject in the foreground really added to the picture.  It was Stephanie's idea to wear that hat.

At the end was a cable car that brought us back down to Lauterbrunnen.

I was very nervous about the day due to the cable cars.  My strategy for dealing with them was to sit down in the cars and distract myself by reading on my phone.  This worked well until the last one, which was extremely steep and had about four of the metal installations that the car goes through that makes the car swing afterwards.  By the end, I was feeling a bit tingly in my head, but I survived.