Gimmelwald, Switzerland

After Jungfraujoch, we headed back through the little town of Lauterbrunnen for supplies and then headed out again in a slightly different direction to Stechelberg, where we parked the car and took a cable car up onto a plateau above sheer cliffs to the sleepy little village of Gimmelwald.

Gimmelwald consists basically of about 15 buildings (1 hostel (in prime position), about 3 bed and breakfasts, and maybe a dozen farmyard places that produce things like eggs, cheese, milk and even yoghurts. (All of which are of course available at the local 'shop' in one of the b'n'bs.) which are all perched on grassy slopping fields and surrounded by cliffs, valleys and magnificent mountains still covered in snow.

The hostel is a cute family run place, which has a real hiker backpacker vibe, with free pool table, a small bar, and a large dining/common room. The sleeping arrangements are interesting, with a male dorm, female dorm, and "lovers" (couples) room, which has eight beds in a row at floor level, and another eight above them at chest level, all literally joined together... Not so good when there's a snorer amongst the guests ;-)
It's got a large stainless kitchen which we made use of on the first night - a vege pasta dish (it's just so easy to do when you're travelling) even though we thought Italy had us pasta'd out so we could never touch the stuff again. We had bought some nice looking salami to put in, but a closer look at the package (and with confirmation from our hosts) we left it out - it was made from horse meat! That was a line we were not prepared to cross...

The area is just made for hiking - we went on a fourish hour leisurely hike up the valley from Gimmelwald following a stream up towards a small glacier, and amongst fields of dandylions and wild flowers. Nearer Gimmelwald, we passed paddocks with goats, cows and sheep, all with swiss style cow bells on jangling away, apparently the bigger the bell, the more prized the animal. There were true freerange hens, with a cute little barn on wheels in a fenced off paddock, and a black mamma sheep with three babies following her around, who got very vocal at us when we walked near the edge of her paddock :-)

And to top it all off, the hostel has an outdoor wood-fire hot tub they stoke up every arvo to soothe the muscles - hard life :-) Especially with the view of the surrounding mountains. They make a pretty mean pizza too, and yummy chocolate fondue, which we felt obliged to try...

The following morning, after catching the cable car back down, we drove back on the road towards Interlaken, and stopped off for a nosey at the thundering Trummelbach-Falle. It apparently transports 20,000L per second of water runoff from the big glacier fields we viewed up at Jungfraujoch, and has carved itself a series of charging waterfalls through the rock to reach the valley floor...