Alpine Garden on Schynide Platte

At the end of September Alessio and I had a day trip to Schynige Platte, which is very near to Wengen where we had our long weekend with my parents.

Once up we were able to walk around the alpine gardens which has 600 species of plants native to the Swiss alps. There were not so many plants in bloom, I guess it was late in the season and now it is closed as the snow has covered the flowers.

I am sure in the summer or spring it would be much more interesting to enjoy and appreciate and to top it all off  there are wonderful views of the famous trio, Eiger Mönch and Jungfrau!!

Top of Europe - Jungfraujoch

Looking through the tunnel in the Eiger

Can you see the tiny hut in the far distance?

with my dear mother

Some crazy people!

Glorious snow

The trip up to the top of the Jungfraujoch nearly did not happen as the weather was somewhat iffy the whole 3 days. We left it to the last day and consulted the live cameras which show the weather in all the mountain areas and it was cloudy but with sun and blue skies.

So off we went up to the top via Kleine Scheidegg, the railway line goes through a tunnel in the Eiger and Mönch mountains to arrive at the highest railway station in Europe at 3,454m. There are 2 stops in the tunnels and most people dashed off to see the views through the windows in the mountainside. The first two photos are from one of the stops, the whole idea that they actually built this railway line through these migthy mountains is quite amazing. There is information about how it was done, who were the workers and how many workers died in the process, very interesting.

One we arrived warmer jackets were put on as it was now -6 degrees and extremely windy, we went up to the Spinx observation hall and out onto the terrace at 3,571m above sea level. In spite of their being clouds it was breathtaking to see these beautiful mountains.

We went into the ice palace which Alessio liked, we adults walked very slowly and carefully so as not to fall. Then we had our lunch, and once more went outside to another area this time is was much more sheltered with the sun shining down on us!

It was truly a great experience and finally after being in Switzerland for so long, I am glad to have visited the Jungfraujoch. The only thing is, it tends to be quite expensive, I have a half price card which helps and my parents had special tickets so they got cheaper too.

Photo of the Week - Three Owls!

These lovely 3 owls come from the town of Pfäffikon in Kanton Zurich, in September with my parents we walked around the lake here and stopped off in Jucker farm ( check last post). I parked at the train station and we walked down to the lake, on the way there we had to walk down a really interesting street.

All the house were just lovely, full of bit and pieces in their gardens and I really like these cute owls! In fact I think this place might have been a shop but not quite sure anymore!

A September Afternoon in Jucker Farm

The visit to Jucker farm this year was with my parents who had never been there, we also decided to walk around Lake Pfäffikon too. The whole day turned out to be lovely, my parents enjoyed their first time at the farm. I always like to come here as does Alessio, who can keep himself busy. This time he really enjoyed going into the goat area and stroking them, once upon a time he would have been scared to do this.

We enjoyed some yummy pumpkin soup and later on coffee and fruit tart, all made here. The only negative point was the amount of wasps. I usually go in October and had never noticed them so much, I guess we went quite early, this time around so they bothered us terribly. My mother and myself really cannot stand still with a wasp around.

There is also the opportunity to pick your own fruit from apples, pears and berries. It is a good idea, maybe another we will do this. Next week I go the the sister farm in Jonas with the children from work, so looking forward to see what they have to offer. There is still plenty of time to visit as the exhibition is on until the beginning of November and then they usually have a weekend Christmas market towards the end of November.

Zurich Film Festival

The Zurich film festival finished on Sunday 6th October, I managed to see two films this time, the first one was called Filth by the director Jon S Baird. The film is from the book by the Scottish writer Irvine Welch, who also wrote Trainspotting. Luckliy for everyone at the premiere, we all got a chance to see the Scottish actor James Mcavoy and the director Jon S Baird.

Excitment abound while waiting outside the cinema for the black car to drive up and finally it happened all, his fans started screaming. I must say he really did spend a lot of time signing autographs and getting his photo snapped with fans. We took our seats and before the film started both guests came onto the stage for a short interview. I took loads of photos, but suffice to say will not be having a job as a paparazzi as most of the photos came out all blurred but some were decent enough to use!

The film is very good and would recommend it to everyone! For myself I liked hearing the Scottish accent, hearing Scottish words that I have not heard for ages and seeing parts of Edinburgh was great too.

The last film I saw was called Only Lovers  Left Alive, it was quite a strange film and not too sure I liked it. I thought it would be good as it starred Tom Hiddleston and Tilda Swinton, but not really my cup of tea.

Trümmelbach Waterfalls

While my parents were visiting we had a weekend in Wengen, one of the day trips we did was to the Trümmelbach waterfalls. We took the train down to Lauterbrunnen and started the 1hour walk or maybe a bit more to the waterfalls.

It was a pleasant walk and we passed the Staubbach waterfall also very impressive, eventually the sign said 10 mins to go and still no sight or sound of these waterfalls. And the reason for that is, that they are inside the mountain valley, all in all there are 10 glacier waterfalls.

There is a lift that takes you to level 6 and from there you walk up the rest of the way, and it really is very spectacular indeed. It is also quite slippery so you do have to be careful, it is also very busy to at times so the going was at times slow. Not that, that stopped Alessio who raced up these steps!

These waterfalls drain the mighty glacier defiles of the Eiger, Mönch and Jungfrau. It is also the only glacier waterfalls in Europe inside a mountain and it is on the UNESCO world natural heritage list. It was a times quite scary to see that amount of water falling down and the speed of it too. It is quite tiring walking up of the steps and at times my legs nearly turned to jelly!

There are lots of vantage points where you can look and get close ups of the falling water from different angles. It is definitely worth a trip to see these waterfalls, they are only open from april to november, so not much time left for a visit.