5 1/2 Hours in the Swiss Alps

The day of Quinn's birthday we went on this 2 hour hike to a small town on a cannon side (with one gondola ride included) called Gimmelwald. We had to set off early to catch a train to Lauterbrunnen, a small village 20 minutes from Interlaken. From there we took a 2 hour path with amazing views, gorgeous waterfalls coming off the canyons around us.(picture Lake billy chinook without water and you are just walking through those high canyon walls, with the Swiss Alps in front of you growing in size as you walk.) Gimmelwald is like a dream, its crazy to think that this town of like 130 people live that high in the alps... there are no cars... mountains sky high on both sides of you, and hundreds of cows! There houses are all similar with bright red flowers from every window, they are set deep into the hills to protect from avalanches. The alps still don't seem real to be when I look back at the pictures on my camera, its like something from a movie.. like at any minute someone was going to move the backdrop. Our next stop was 30 minutes up hill walk to Murren, another cliff town. Our walk was insane, incredible, so very hard to explain, we are now walking up on the tops of the canyon walls we were walking between earlier (the gondola took us up to the top) To our left were Jungfrau, Eiger, and Monk, the three biggest mountains of the region. On our right was a hill full of cows with their bells ringing and houses set into the side. Murren was similar to Gimmelwald, we took this train called a fununcular (sp) which literally took us vertically up higher into the canyon side, it was scary i thought it was going to drop and fall at any minute. Once at the top we were in heaven, literally. There was a green hill with a small playground for children and one restaurant. You could spin in a circle and see nothing but white capped Alps. We started our descend and noticed this small fenced area of sectioned rocks and a water troth. After reading the directions we realized it was a type of foot massage, of course I had to try it. You take your shoes off and start with stepping on large river rocks, slowly it was heaven on our sore feet. You make your way down and the rocks get smaller, then they turn to gravel, then wood chips, then you dip your feet in ice cold water. I definitely will have one in my back yard someday. We then continued 2 and half more hours down to Grutschalp our final destination before taking a gondola back to Lauterbrunnen and a train back to Interlaken. There were rolling green lush hill sides, tons of cows ringing their bells, wonderful and peaceful country houses with fires burning inside. Once back in Interlaken and after finishing a pizza each (no joke) we slept good that night...exhausted.