Switzerland - Tolman Travels

After our afternoon in Riquewihr, France, we moved on to Switzerland.

Crossing the border into Switzerland wasn’t as nerve-racking as I was expecting. They coral you into a line and instruct you to give them €40 for a sticker to put in your car. Then you move along! Adventures in Switzerland were extra special because our phone service does not extend into Switzerland and they also don’t use Euros. We switched our money to Swiss Franks and relied on the old fashioned maps and road signs! It was quite exciting.

On my quest to see all the temples for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints in Europe, we HAD to stop and see the Bern Switzerland temple! We didn’t go inside, but the grounds were beautiful.

Bern, Switzerland LDS Temple

Next, we navigated to our AirBNB, which was tricky but so worth it. This place was RIGHT at the bottom of the Swiss Alps! You look right out the front door, and BOOM… Alps!

After settling in, we went to find dinner. Just in town we stopped at the only diner open on a Sunday evening. It was an expensive, but delicious dinner after a long, eventful day!

After a nights sleep, we were off to explore Switzerland. Here’s the view we woke up to the next morning. Absolutely breathtaking.

Turns out, it was much colder than we had planned for, so first thing in the morning we stopped by a thrift store to buy some long sleeve shirts and jackets for all of us! We did pretty well for only 20 Swiss Franks ($20)!

The day was quite cloudy and gray, which made it difficult to see the tops of the tall mountains. What an incredible view though.

We decided to head to Griswald and take the tram up the mountain!

The view from the top, I have no words for. I can’t believe this is our real life. We took a short hike on the mountain and enjoyed every second. We miss the mountains and it always reminds us of home in Idaho.

On top of the mountain, they have a Toboggan ride! You sit on a sled and ride down in a metal shoot. Simon loved it although he drove too fast, and talked us into going twice, once with Dad and again with Mom. Hyrum was ticked he wasn’t old enough to go, but he enjoyed a scooter and zipline while the others rode.

We rode the tram back down the hill and went to find lunch in Interlaken.

I have ONE picture of our lunch and wanderings in Interlaken, but we enjoyed the town and had the most expensive McDonalds we’ve ever had! Switzerland is expensive but well worth it.

We’d already done quite a bit that day and without phone service, it was difficult to explore other options via the web. So we decided to drive around a lake we found on the map and came across a sign for a waterfall and caves. We decided to go check it out!

Up at the top, there was a cave to explore. We only had 30 minutes until it closed but decided to venture in any way. I’m glad we had our new jackets! It was quite cold and there was so much roaring water inside. We didn’t make it all the way to the end before the boys wanted to turn back but it was quite an extensive cave. Very cool.