Mürren

My daughter booked us a night at the Edelweiss Hotel in Mürren, Switzerland, 5,374 feet up in the Alps. To get there, we had to catch a cable car in Lauterbrunnen. We bought our tickets and walked up the stairs to the station. The operator came running up to meet us and take our tickets like he was in a big hurry to leave. He wasn’t. We entered a nearly empty car and stood there for another 15 minutes until the car was packed to uncomfortableness.

The car, once it got going, moved swiftly. The trip took maybe six minutes.

We got off the car and immediately boarded a crowded train for a a 15-minute trip to Mürren.

No one is allowed to have cars in Mürren, except for those who are allowed to have cars in Mürren, of which there are several. We had to walk about 300 yards to the Edelweiss Hotel, perched on the edge of the cliff. Our rooms were on different floors, and both were on the street side. But there was a lounge and deck on the valley side where we go could for views.

Our room. Notice the bed has a thin mattresses and no top sheets. The thick, puffy blanket thing was too hot most of the night, but it was too cold to sleep without any cover. The heater was on full blast when we arrived and the room temperature must have been near 90°. We shut off the heat and opened the window. The outside temperature varied from about 50° when the sun was behind clouds to about 75° when it was out.

The view from our room.

And the view from the deck on the other side of the hotel. The tall mountain straight across the valley is the Jungfrau.

The high peak on the left is the Eiger. The dark, shadowed part on the left is the famous Eiger Wall, the north face that is considered one of the toughest climbs in the world.

The small community down in the valley is Stechelberg, 2,700 feet below.

We set off to explore the town. It wasn’t as touristy as I expected. There were several hotels, but only two gift shops. (The interesting-looking one was closed both days we were there.) And no fudge shops!

It was Easter weekend, and there were a lot of decorations around.

We ate dinner in the restaurant connected to our hotel. We arrived around 6:30 and distressed the hostess when we told her we didn’t have reservations. She wasn’t sure what to do or say, so I simply asked when her next open spot was. She said 7:30, so we made reservations for then and hung out in the lounge.

Apparently the Swiss are famous for fondue, so that’s what I ordered. I wasn’t thrilled. The bread cubes were so hard I had to stick them on my fondue fork by hand. And the fondue had an overabundance of cooking alcohol which drowned out the flavor of the cheese.

My wife’s food was delicious.

We were pretty tired after dinner, so we headed to our rooms and shortly thereafter to bed. We were still tired from our travels the day before, so we slept soundly, except when we were too hot and had to put on the puffy blanket or too cold and had to take it off.

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