Spectacular Switzerland: Hiking In The Alps

Switzerland was everything that I'd imagined it to be! 

We lucked out with weather on our first day of a massive hike and loved every minute of sunshine in the mountains. I left off my previous post at our lunch stop in Murren. Let me tell you, German crusty fresh bread tastes even better if eaten outside. This fresh mountain water tasted great too! Water stations like this were everywhere along the hiking routes which made it very easy to refill our water bottles. Which was a good thing because the night before, Robert by mistake bought six big bottles of sparkling water by mistake, thinking it was still-haha.  

Sometimes, a water fight was inevitable. At least Mark was a good sport. 

So this lovely village of Murren is a carless village--so the only way to get to it is by cable car or by cogwheel train. It's small but so beautiful! 

Many hiking and cycling routes connect Murren with other villages. All are clearly marked and times of how long it would take you to get there are...not very exact as they are timed by seasoned local senior citizens, thus UNDERestimating the real duration of the hike-haha.

In the middle of the village we found the station we were looking for where a slow moving train was to take us up to Allmendhubel.

This was a super short ride, maybe 5 minutes? Still exciting for the kids. 

Allmendhubel had a nice rest stop with a place to eat and a children's playground. We stopped for maybe twenty minutes to let the kids run around while we relaxed in the sun.

Well, I was relaxing but Robert was pretending to be a marmot or something. They had these awesome tunnels in the playground where you could crawl around and lots of other cool equipment. 

Nice view, eh?

So, the majority of the following pictures are just to illustrate how beautiful our hike was. Around every corner we found a majestic scenery with beautiful grassy slopes and snowy peaks. 

Our colorful hiking family:).

Katya had the camera for half of the time and she was taking a million pictures trying to play with the settings:).

As we were walking by this extensive roped off area, Mark asked Robert if he thinks that the fence is electrocuted (not sure why he thought of that). Robert convinced him that it was completely safe and that it was just used to mark the boundaries. In a few meters, we came across this sign... 

Our hiking was mostly downhill with only one part that required some difficult climbing. 

We took a couple of breaks to enjoy the scenery and grab a snack. 

This is REAL!

Katya had a funny photo session with Alex. He kind of blends in with the grass and the flowers.

The kids really enjoyed this hike as they could run free half of the time we were walking through the flat grassy areas.

Another water station. 

Mark kept singing, "Look at me, I am the king of the world!". 

Oh, how did I get so lucky? 

The village of Murren down below.

Quick break to take a few more pictures.

And to get squished:)

And to jump. 

We made it down to Murren in a couple of hours by late afternoon. We bought a box of packaged ice cream at the village shop (since it was a much better deal than buying individually packaged ones) and devoured it on a nearby bench. We had two leftover so we just found two random kids walking by and gave it to them:). 

Our hike for the day was not over yet and Katya knew it. 

From Murren, we headed down towards Gimmewald, Rick Steves' favorite village in the area. The hike was less than an hour and ALL downhill. Katya and Mark decided to count their steps so they were occupied by that the whole time. 

Alex was just in his zone...dreaming of avalanches (this is a major avalanche area). 

We made it to Gimmewald right around 6 pm and had dinner at Gimmewald Pension. Not on the couch...this was just one of the places to sit in their outside area. 

This is the place where I ordered cheese fondue, the Swiss specialty, but was not impressed as it turned out to be soooo salty and not warm enough (the heater thingie was not working properly, we think). Katya was not impressed either, apparently. Yeah...we play card games when we wait for our food at restaurants...at least it keeps the kids occupied for half an hour. 

Have you ever seen an honesty shop?:) We saw a couple on our trip in this area. You basically just come in, take what you like and leave the money where they ask you. Crazy, right? :)

 We took the cable car from Gimmewald back to Stechelberg, got back to our car and drove home. It was still very light outside and very warm although the stormy clouds were rolling in. As our holiday park was next to the lake, we ran over there and had the kids play in the water for a bit (it was 9 pm by then!). And that was the end of day ONE! We really had a great time and were so happy that it was warm!

Wales: Hiking In The Waterfall Country

As we try to use all three and four day weekends to travel, this Memorial Day weekend, we packed up our car bright and early and headed to Wales. This was our third trip to Wales as we love that area so much, although every time we go to a different part of Wales. This time we drove 3.5 hours to Brecon Beacons National Park. The drive is super easy with beautiful views once you cross from England to Wales. In order for us to save money on lodging (which is always so expensive in the UK), we opted for an early morning departure, getting to Wales around 11 am and then hiking the rest of the day rather then driving down here on Friday night and staying the night in Wales.

We drove to Penderyn area, found an obscure unmarked place to park our van and started our Four Waterfalls Hike.

The projected distance was about 5.5 miles. No biggie. And only a few rolling hills on the way, nothing like Snowdon.

Waterfall #1. Not the little one in the background, but the one that you cannot see. And the worst part I don't have pictures of this actual waterfall:)

The boys were attracted like magnets to any creak and rocks.

And Katya was attracted to trees because that's what she does best-climb trees. 

Following the trail was pretty easy except when we took a trail that was sort of closed (but we didn't know that).

This is the "closed path".

Finally, waterfall #2. This was a cooler one.

Nevertheless, if you were to ask our kids what their favorite part was at this waterfall, they'd say this puddle with tadpoles.

Robert, the mountain man.

We were heading to the next waterfall and we were not exactly sure again where we were going. 

One of the passages was quite rocky and steep. We didn't want to go back down the same way, so we had to be creative (we ended up just following the trail hoping it would be a loop, and it was).

At this point we had already seen Waterfall #3 and did not take a picture. Seriously, what kind of blog post is this?

But we did see beautiful bluebells.

Finally, we knew we were on the right track as we saw signs for Sgwd yr Eira, the famous Waterfall #4. 

Mark in the "forbidden forest", like in Harry Potter.

And this is why this Waterfall #4 is so special--you can walk behind it!

The water was thundering, and you do get wet from the droplets and mist. The kids loved it. 

And this is what the world looks like from behind the water curtain.

A classic family picture.

I forgot to mention, to get to the waterfall, you have to walk a hundred or so steps (and walk them up after you are done).

This trio is ready for the final hike back to the car.

So after all, our hike turned out into a 7.5 mile hike somehow. We were slow, but we enjoyed it tremendously. Mark only was, um, a bit whiny tired during the last twenty minutes, but we managed. 

We were happy and exhausted to get to our car and drove another hour to the place in Brefta, a tiny village in the middle of nowhere, where we were staying. This house was our home for two nights-three bedrooms, kitchen, living room even a laundry room. It had all the necessities and things that were "just nice to have" like beautiful soaps and towels. 

The village pub was famous all around for its food, so we were lucky that the manager was able to squeeze us in for dinner without a reservation considering it was a Bank Holiday weekend. We had a very delicious meal of typical Welsh food, prepared fresh using produce and meat from across the road.

The highlight of the evening was our annual tradition of watching Eurovision together. We let the kids stay up late as we see European nations battle in this song contest. We laugh, we sing, we squeal and it's just fun. This year's winner was Swedish Mans Zelmerlow with the song "Heroes". We all loved it, actually, and were rooting for him. Here, you can listen to this catchy tune as well. It's been over a month since our trip and the kids still sing this song at least once a day.

And that was our first full day in Wales.

Lyana.