Our arrival in Switzerland has certainly been a high point.

We traveled all day by train from Paris to arrive in Lauterbrunnen, Switzerland. The town looks exactly like one would expect a Swiss town to look like—shutters around the windows, flower boxes in front of the windows with beautiful blooming flowers. Just imagine a Swiss chalet and that’s what nearly every building looked like.

But, the difference was that the massive Swiss Alps was a huge backdrop to everything. We were surrounded by snow capped mountains. But, even more, Lauterbrunnen is a town in the Lauterbrunnen Valley with about 72 waterfalls. Water flowed, it seemed, from every huge crack in the mountains. 

The one we could see from our hotel window and patio, Staubbach Falls, for which the hotel was named, fell thousands of feet. It was mesmerizing to watch as it poured from near the top. The wind would catch it as if fell and blew the water like a spray.

Lauterbrunnen is home to the Eiger, one of the best recognized mountains in the Alps. It was snow covered and looked like a massive pyramid.

We arrived by train in Interlaken and changed trains to get into Lauterbrunnen. That station was at the foot of the town, which so far as I can tell only has one road—one very narrow road—running through it.

In fact, often vehicles use the one sidewalk to pull over on when there is traffic both ways.

Our hotel, the Staubbach, was toward the other end of town, which meant we rolled our luggage for a good quarter of a mile. I thought with all the walking Karen and I had done to stay in shape, walking in Europe would be a piece of cake. Well, there are no hills in Broad Creek that even come close to the ones we’ve encountered in Switzerland.

Our climb out of the train station required a brief stop when we reached the highway for us to catch our breaths. Our hotel seemed like it was uphill all the way. But, it was a nice hotel. The hostess gave us all the pertinent information to enjoy our stay including a map of restaurants and other things we would need.

She showed us a board next to the reservation desk where our keys were hanging. There was our room key, which was a Skelton key, and a key to the front door in case we were out past 10, when the front door was locked.

Our first goal was to find supper. Most of the restaurants were in hotels. We found one and I ordered pork snitzel. Basically a breaded piece of pork fried. Karen got a green salad with pieces of chicken in it. 

During our time in Lauterbrunnen we walked the distance of the town several times each day. The challenge was not only not getting hit by a car but not being trampled by the other hundreds of tourists in town—the vast majority of Asian origin.  Numerous times we found ourselves in cable cars and other venues being the only English-speaking members.

We visited the local grocery story, known as Coop, where we did a little shopping. It’s very much like our grocery stores only much smaller. It surprised us to see the store selling Halloween candy and a sign in English reading Happy Halloween. We used the bank and several shops selling souvenirs. 

The locals in the restaurants were friendly although in some places we had difficulty communicating.  I’m just assuming the employees in the local place live locally. It appeared most of the cars in town were out of the area.

Swizerland is expensive. We were surprised at the prices for food. We were not eating extravagantly but nearly every meal, when converted to US dollars was $50 to $80. The Swiss Franc, identified as CHF, is much stronger than the US dollar. It takes $1.17 of US dollars to equal one Swiss Franc.

Last night, our final night, we ordered fondue, which is a big Swiss item. A pot of Swiss cheese and a basket of bread was $80. At one restaurant, we had to pay $5 each for our water.  That was the only place we had to pay for water.

Swiss money also comes in coins, including a coin that’s worth 5 francs. We found a laundromat, which required 5 francs coins. It was CHF 5 to wash a small load and CHF 5 to dry them. 

Our last night in Lauterbrunnen, we ordered fondue. It was good but more than we could eat. We were attempting to take a selfie when the woman at the table next to us jumped up and said, “Let me take that for you.” They were from Texas and very nice, as most people in Switzerland have been. The second photo is us standing on the balcony of our room at the Staubbach Hotel with the Staubbach waterfall behind us. Lauterbrunnen is a beautiful town with 72 waterfalls in the valley behind us. (In the top photo it looks as if Karen has flowers in her water but she doesn’t. Her glass is behind the flowers.)