Why have we waited so long to revisit Switzerland???

What a BEAUTIFUL country!!!!!!!!!! I think we must have had the best weekend to see it too....we had sunshine and not a bit of rain to worry about the entire time we were there. It wasn't until we drove out of the mountains on our way home that we hit the rain...but we were so happy to not have any during our trip that we didn't mind. We started out on Friday and stopped in Bern before we headed to where we were staying in Lauterbrunnen. We had visited Bern before when Jeffrey was around 2ish and I know we saw the bears and walked around but I barely remembered any of it, I guess I was too busy herding Jeffrey around to let it all sink in. WOW...Bern was so nice! It is built up on a bluff where the river curves around it and the buildings in the main part of town are quite tall so the streets are like valleys cut into it. The street level parts of the buildings are open arcades and they also have cellars below them in some places that are thrown open with cute little shops to go down in and explore. All along the street there are pretty fountains with figures on them....the buildings are all waving flags and have flowers in the windows and morning glories snaking up from the street level. The river is this amazing color of blue...it almost looks like that 'fake water' you see on water rides at theme parks ya know? That is because is it glacial runoff.



Of course we HAD to stop and see the famous Bern bears! We parked our Jeep right across from the bear pits so we visited them before and after we explored the town. They sure know how to look cute for the people! One kept rolling onto its back and holding its feet with its paws. They have food you can buy and toss down to them (I didn't notice this until we already tried to feed them some fruit we had brought along for US to snack on) Do you know those silly bears don't know that bananas are good!? They both turned their noses up at the bites we tossed to them but eagerly caught the bear chow stuff in the air when people threw it to them. Silly ole bears!



After we tore ourselves away from the bears we headed into the Alps on our way to our cottage apartment in Lauterbrunnen. It is a village near Interlaken which may or may not sound more familiar to you. The village is at the floor of the valley and there are sheer cliffs rising up on either side of it with waterfalls coming down all over the place. It said in the guidebook that there are 72 of them. We didn't count but it is possible. Here is a photo of the 'main' one that is right by the town. We hiked up to it one evening and get misted on. Can you see it just to the right of the red Swiss flag?



Here is another one...this one we took from right in front of our cottage door. What a view!! That yellow thing is a train that you must take if you want to visit the town that is up on the mountain. There are no cars there, so if you don't take the train you better have good hiking boots!



Saturday we spent most of the day at a fabulous open air museum in the town of Brienz on the edge of one of the lakes that Interlaken is in between. There were hundreds of houses and farm buildings brought in and reconstructed from all over the country that we could go inside and learn about how the people lived and adapted things to the unique challenges of the different terrains. There were also lots of farm animals around to look at and people baking bread, weaving on looms, making lace and lots of other cool exhibits. It was a very extensive place and they did very well with the landscaping and all so each section was distinct and seperate from the others. We stayed there until they started closing up the buildings and we still didn't get to go inside every one of them.

Here is one of the bigger homes that was there:



Here are a couple more pictures we took at the museum. I just couldn't get enough of that amazing valley view!


















Of course I had to get some pictures of the animals too. Here is a wonderful Brown Swiss cow...complete with bell! They all wear them...not just museum cows either...you hear the bells ringing when you go past the pastures. I worried that the constant clanging every time they moved their head would make them nuts and Bill said "Only you would be concerned about hearing damage in Swiss cows!" And look Mom....goats with bells! Yup...the goats and sheep get to wear little bells too. But not the pigs....heehee...I had to get a picture of this one for Dad...he had just been fed a big bucket of whey or something...they farmer said it was what came out of the cheese they made earlier. It looked icky but the pig sure was enjoying it!




















Doesn't this big black cow look intimidating? Actually she was a sweetie! I got her to come up to the fence and eat some grass from my hand and then she started licking my hand for the longest time. I guess she liked the salt on it or something. Silly cow!