Switzerland 2011

We stayed in lovely swiss chalet accommodation, Chalet Wanderlust which we rented from our delightful hosts Armin and Hedi Gyger-Zahler.

The chalet had two attic bedrooms each with twin beds and on the ground floor was a very spacious living-room as well as a kitchen and a bathroom (with a shower rather than a bath).

This whole area of Switzerland (Bernese Oberland) is blessed with stunning scenery and even the local Co-op in Reichenbach had a magnificent view. Here my mum and dad are stood in the car park to the supermarket.

Interlaken, where my mum and dad stayed, lies, as the name implies, between two lakes - Lake Thun (pronounced as in "Toon") and Lake Brienz.

We chose to ride along the sides of Lake Thun and Lake Brienz on our first cycle ride in Switzerland (facing the mountains after a long drive down from Rotterdam would have been too much to expect!). When we arrived in the town of Brienz we went to a bakers where I bought two small cakes that were called "Oxen Augen" or "Ox Eyes".

The following day we took my mum and dad by train to the Jungfraujoch and what proved to be one of the highlights of our holiday.

The Jungfrau massif has three famous peaks, the Jungfrau (13,642ft), the Mönch (13,449ft) and the Eiger (13,026ft).

Using the Jungfrau mountain railway it is possible to get to the Jungfraujoch which, at 11,333ft, is the highest railway station in Europe (and the "Top of Europe" restaurant).

We took the train from Interlaken Ost railway station. There are then two routes to the Jungfraujoch. One goes via Lauterbrunnen and the other via Grindlewald. We decided to make the ascent via Lauterbrunnen and then come down through Grindlewald.

The railway line runs below the north face of the Eiger, the most dangerous rock wall in the Alps, which claimed many deaths before it was finally climbed in 1938 by an Austro-German team of 4 men (Vörg, Heckmayr, Harrer and Kasparek) who took four days for the ascent.

The views on the way up and from the top were magnificent.

But the best was to see my dad's face when he stepped out of the restaurant door to find the snowy wilderness that faced him and the realisation that it was bitterly cold (too cold for him to continue filming with his video camera!)

Leaving my mum and dad to recuperate the following day, Pat and I rode from our chalet in Reichenbach to Kandersteg where we caught the cable car to Oschinensee, a lake high up in the mountains.We liked it so much that we went back with my mum and dad later in the week.

Our first really testing ride was when we rode the 58 miles from Interlaken to Grindlewald, Grosse Scheidegg, Meiringen and back to Interlaken. The climb over the mountain at Grosse Scheidegg had featured in this year's Tour of Switzerland cycle race, although they approached it from the Meiringen side and therefore came down the climb to Grindlewald that we went up.

The climb out of Interlaken to Grindlewald (3,398ft) was not too bad, but from Grindlewald onwards the climbing gets really tough as you go up the mountains lying behind the town. The summit lies at 6,444ft and the climb to it is a little over 6 miles long. On the altimeter on my bike computer I recorded most sections being consistently around 1 in 10 but with regular rises to around 1 in 7. There are, of course, much steeper roads than this here in Lancashire (with Whalley Nab being the steepest my computer has recorded), but it's the sheer length of the alpine climbs that make these significantly harder undertakings. I certainly finished this ride thinking it was the hardest I've ever done (probably my previous hardest was my 100 mile ride to Fleet Moss - the highest road in Yorkshire - and back).The other thing that doesn't help is that, as you proceed higher into the mountains the air gets thinner and thus less oxygen gets to the lungs. Here are few photos we took on the way up:

Being gluttons for punishment, the next ride we did was over the Grimselpass. At 7,093 feet this is quite a bit higher than Grosse Scheidegg and we were hoping to get up into the snow ... we were not disappointed!!

Whilst we were in the area, we also wanted to visit the Schilthorn, with its revolving restaurant the Piz Gloria. Pat has long been a fan of James Bond and the mountain and restaurant was used as the location of a number of scenes in the film "On Her Majesty's Secret Service" when George Lazenby played James Bond for his first, and only, time. Here are some photos from our day out:

We found the drive to Switzerland from Rotterdam rather a long day on the way down and therefore we decided to break our journey on the way back by staying out our favourite hotel in Germany, the Zum Falken at Mainbernheim.