Our Excursion: 2021-09-26: Brienz Day 1
(Part of trip: 2021 Switzerland )
Date of our excursion: 2021-09-26
Location: Brienz, Switzerland
Our Planned Itinerary:
| |
Travelers on this Excursion: |
|
We hit some cool places.
|
Continents: Europe |
Some featured areas we visited: |
Some points of interest we hit: |
It’s Day 11 of our Switzerland trip and the first day in Brienz!
Today was planned to be a day of sitting and relaxing due to the weather. Rain and clouds are in the forecast but we are hoping for some sun in the morning. We wake up and the sun rises without complete cloud cover! The sunrise is nice over the lake. We eat a breakfast of granola and yogurt and think about catching the 7:30 train to the top of the Rothorn. We see the train leave and decide to catch the next one instead. Thankfully this morning, the trains are not as popular as they were yesterday afternoon. The ride up gives us good views but the wind starts to pick up closer to the top. This train ride is about an hour long each way! At the top we exit the train and begin to walk to a hill to get some pictures. Then, we notice this train leaves in a few minutes and the next one does not depart for about 2 more hours. It is chilling at the top so we decide to go back down on this train. We all run to the train but almost leave Dave who is taking some phenomenal shots of the views. We take such a long time using our tickets to get through the turnstiles that Dave can catch up so we don’t leave him stranded.
We now have time for a relaxing lunch watching the lake, boats, and people while the light rain showers appear. The mature crowd takes a walk along the lake promenade while the crazy crowd plots the next hike of doom. It is decided that we will go on a portion of the 3 Waterfall hike which will follow the lake edge for a while. We take a boat to the starting point. We ride on the upper deck. On the ride, the ticket person checks our tickets and then gives us some cushions and pillows for our loungers. We enjoyed quite a luxurious ride.
At Iseltwald we disembarked and began our hike to Giessbach Falls. The hike began along the lake and meandered through the forest. At Geissbach, we hiked UP and UP to view the spectacular Geissbach Falls and then walk farther up until we could climb behind the falls. Amazing!
After Geissbach, we decided to head towards the bus to check the schedule. Well, the bus wasn’t coming for another hour so we hiked back. The hiking path we planned to take had a do not enter sign up. We should have looked closer at the sign. Maybe it was ok for hikers because the road we took was an actual road with no sidewalks, yet it was marked all along with hiking signs. Fun times dodging cars. The hike was not difficult, just very long after all that we had hiked so far.
Pizza was planned for dinner. Easy meal with little prep or cleanup. Dessert was some cakey chocolate thing. Then on to plan the fun for tomorrow. People have tired feet so we are going to give them a nice relaxing day full of sitting tomorrow. However, everyone’s heart and anxiety may be overactivated tomorrow.
I hope the group knows what a phenomenal tour guide you all have! Rick Steves does not hold a candle to Bruce!
We did take the train up to the Rothhorn. It was warmer when we went.
Your photos are unbelievably good. I feel like I am getting a free travelogue. This is so much better than Netflix!
We do appreciate all the research and planning that went into this! It makes our scheduling and rescheduling due to weather and weariness much easier. We also appreciate the nightly scheduling of all the transportation and connections. That is the most tedious part of this whole process!
The Rothorn in the sun and warmth. That would be pleasant!