Grindelwald

What a great name, my favourite Swiss name, it just like a girls name from a brother Grimm tale. Pronounced Grin del vald.
Interlaken had some great scenery, but just a twenty minuute train journey away lies EVEN MORE POWERFUL views. Grindelwald is quite tiny, its more of a village than a town, but due to its unique location it is elevated to soaring heights of tourism, although it does have a great crazy golf course too, to be fare. Its a little scary being in Grindelwald, I felt as though I was going to be crushed by the mountains at any moment, never have I felt so small, the mountains look twice as tall as the ones in Luzern, perhaps because they are so sheer. They are big, they are snow capped, they are surrounding the village. We wander through the one main street and take in the same old shops, what we are looking for is the longest fernicular (mountain train) in europe, it is a two hour journey to the summit, its costs about 160 CHF= £65.00 to ride. We um and ah about the cost and then some shop keeper tells us its already closed for today, we'll have to come back tomorrow, which isn't an option really. There is however a fun size cable car that takes you up about 300 meters. The four of us hop on and we are away. Unlike the Pilatus cablecar this one starts ascending straight away and about half way up I decide that in the interests of science I should spit into a river some 150m below, it takes about 7-8 seconds to hit the ground, which when I report makes the other quite nervous, I just thought that was cool. I wasn't too bothered about riding up to see the view down but now we're climbing it is beautiful, the elevation describes the valley bellow and everything come into perspective. We reach the top in about 5 minutes, the view is spectacular, it really doesn't look real. The valley is dotted with Alpine huts and houses crawling over the hill sides, the ground looks crafted like a golf course, every tree thoughtfully placed. Its 9 CHF for the trip, which was well spent. Now we're here its time to sample the 750m Tabogan run, needless to say I didn't die, but there were some moments when I wasn't so sure, Hiromi shrieks here way around every corner and Ben goes first to let of some acceleration steam. Frolicking done we start to amble back down. We decide to walk down by one of the many paths, it take considerably longer than we expect. The Swiss have left the mountain au natral, which translates as no helath and safety. the path edge plunges drastically in places with death waiting at the bottom, we are rained on from above by water seeping out of the mountain, streams trickle across our path, helicopters fill the air buzzing back and forth. We pass through forest and meadows and then pass houses with steepled roofs and homely eaves the side of buildings are fortified with wood for the coming winter. All in all its an hour and a half beofre we reach civilization, we covera very insignificant portion of the hillside as we peer back up. You can watch paragliders lazily hover thousands of meters above, even higher than the mountain itself, barely moving, it must feel sublime. This is without a doubt the most majestic of places.