Murren walk

It was wonderful staying overnight in Mürren rather than going there and back on the same day. As we reach the end of the trip we are a little less willing to take long train rides or rough it. We got a hotel with an awesome breakfast instead of going back to the hostel where we had to go outside to get to the bathroom and where someone broke into our room while we slept. (To be fair, it had no lock.)

But on Sunday there wasn't much time to hang around. E had some things to do at home before catching a plane to Dubrovnik for a conference. So we just took a short hike down to the lower gondola station in Gimmelwald. The views were incredible! Along the way there were signs explaining the different kinds of avalanche barriers. The permanent metal fences high up on the mountains cost 1,000,000 per hectacre, which makes sense. Everything is brought up by helicopter and the slopes are hard to work on. 

a cat ladder in Mürren.

On the right are some of the less expensive avalanche prevention barriers.

I don't know why so many farmers here cut and gather the grass by hand.

 

Along the way there was a farm house with a mish-mash shop. No one was there, but the door was open and there was a money box on the table. It sold manure, fresh-ish eggs (dated a week before and not refrigerated), cookies, knitted items, alpine herbal tea, and jam. It also had creepy dolls, which are shown in L's post. They sold feed,too, in case we wanted to feed Vladimir the Welsh pony.

The kids played at the playground while we waited from the gondola down from Gimmelwald. L and T were so cute that it wasn't long before a Chinese tourist asked E if we would mind him taking their picture. E said yes and soon everyone in his tour group was snapping pictures. When one woman leaned down to be in the picture with L, L jumped right into her arms and hugged her. The photo shoot continued with L being held by and hugging everyone until the end of the ride. We got lots of thumbs up when we confirmed that we had four children, L's fat legs were greatly admired, and the woman who first hugged L gave R a red bracelet. We are also invited to go to China. It's always nice when someone thinks the kids are cute enough to want their picture, but on this scale it was awesome. We were smiling about it all day. The whole time we've been here, though, we haven't met a Chinese tourist who wasn't friendly, happy, and enthusiastic. 

L's favorite seat on the bus is the little shopping bag tray.