Switzerland Trip Day 9: Bern and Gruyere

 Today was a travel day. We woke up very tired today due to the lack of the sleep from the kids 😅 Nevertheless we made good time. It was also such a hot day, but we didn’t realise until we got down to Visp 😅

Having a quick breakfast of left over fruit with overnight oats. We then had two hours to get everything ready to leave. And we did it!! Phew 😮‍💨 

We got on the bus with all the luggage and I quickly took some shots to remember our times there. 

This grocery shop Volg was our main shop and was a really well stocked shop 🥰 Loved the displays of cheese and chocolate 🍫 

The vineyards of Heida wine. The highest vineyards In Switzerland 🇨🇭 

When we arrived down we had to wait an hour before we could board the train to Bern so we finally went to Migro and had a good look around. We bought some drinks, meat, chocolate and Victorinox equipment for the house. Joshua found a red fondue saucepan that was so cute and he wouldn’t part with, so we bought that for his upcoming birthday. 

We then went to board the train to Bern! Daniel was asleep at this point, so that made it easier on the train :) We put all our luggage downstairs and I found a playarea upstairs for the boys. Joshua particularly loved it 🥰

We then arrived in Bern! We were going to meet Graeme’s cousin there - Freddie and his wife Stefanie and their two boys around the same age as Samuel and Joshua. We managed to then fit all the luggage in two lockers in the train station, and then headed to an animal park with Freddie and his family. 

A beautiful house we passed. 

We made it to the animal park in the sweltering heat and saw some alpacas kissing 😘 

Samuel loved feeding the goat some leaves that he couldn’t quite reach. The goat was appreciative 🥰

We then got to a playground and stopped for a picnic lunch. In this photo we managed to get all four boys together for a short amount of time 😅 Excluding the one with the hat. Icecream was the magic word 😂

Freddie and family then helped us get all our luggage on the first of three trains to Gruyere. On the first one Samuel was asleep, so we took Daniel and Joshua up to the play area. 

On the second train we woke up Samuel to have some drinks. 

On the third train I fed Daniel and were all so excited to finally be in Gruyere to see Harri and Leo 👌

We then realised we had to go up this massive incline to our accommodation 😅 That was sooo exhausting- but we did find wild strawberries 🍓 

Cows near our accommodation that had bells around their neck that made a beautiful ring sound. 

We then went to the old town and had a late dinner of fondue 🫕 It was amazing!!

The water fountain on the main street of old Gruyere. 

This is our accommodation. We made it back quite late and the kids took forever to go to sleep 😴 Probably too excited about, well, everything 😂 But eventually we slept in the boiling temperatures 😅

Tomorrow is the cheese factory, chocolate factory and the castle 🏰 

Switzerland Trip Day 8: Gibidumpass with Kathi

Today was such a beautiful day 🥰 It was our last day in Visperterminen and Kathi was staying here as well, so we all thought it would be nice to go up to Giw and see if we make it to Gibidumpass with the kids again. 

The evening before we had seen lightning over the mountains in the distance, heard the thunder as it came closer and experienced a short rain fall. It was very exciting, but also a bit scary with how fast the weather can change. Today the weather forecast was expecting rainfall around 3pm and then a thunderstorm in the evening. So we were planning on being back to the house early after our walk, and also to pack. 

So we set off with a picnic around 9, and was up the chairlift by 9:30. That was a huge improvement on the last time we had been up!! Samuel wanted to sit with Kathi on the way up, well they both did tbh, so we then said that Joshua could go with Kathi on the way down. 

Samuel and Joshua had improved a lot with their walking and were walking much quicker than they had before! They still wanted frequent sweetie breaks, but not as much as before 👌

Loved the meadows 🥰

Joshua loves exploring for bugs 🐜

We actually made great progress! Here we stopped for a cheese and water filling break before starting the final ascent👌

Joshua absolutely loved this bridge!! 

Sang heaps of Old Macdonald had a farm and they again had heaps of cats on their farm 😂

We all made it!! We started walking along the pass but turned our eyes to the dark clouds above that didn’t have any break as far as we could see, so we headed back to stop somewhere for lunch that was less exposed.

We were able to stop at the Shepherd’s hut on the pass as it was super windy and the shepherd happened to be there :) He was just looking after his goats before heading down to look after the sheep. 

This was the outside of the hut. It was quite chilly so were wearing jumpers. 

We then started the descend.

Samuel and Joshua were desperate to put there feet in the water, so we let them for a bit :)

As we continued down we heard the rumble of thunder so were all reminded we needed to be fast to get down 😅

Loved this meadow too much to let a photo opportunity slip! 

Just as we got down, which was 2:45, the chair life closed for an hour 😅 So we decided to go into the restaurant for some ice cream 🥰 I had a Coup de Baileys and it was so heavenly 🥰 I actually had it all to myself 🥰🥰

We then got the chairlift down as it was raining on and off, and it was so lovely and refreshing 👌

 

We then walked back to our house for the last time and had raclette for dinner before heading for an annoyingly late bedtime 😅

Tomorrow we are leaving Visperterminen via Bern to Gruyere where we will be meeting my brother Harri and his fiance Leo. 

Switzerland Trip Day 7: Ringbachli with Liz, Kathi and Heinz

Today we met with Graeme’s mum’s sisters Liz and Kathi. Graeme had really wanted to go to this place called Ringbachli, or Wasserleitung as the locals call it, so we asked whether we could meet there because we didn’t have time to go everywhere ourselves. They agreed we could meet there and we decided to meet at 11am. To get there we needed to walk 40 minutes, for adults. For our kids that needed to be tripled 😂 So we left the house at 9am, abit later than planned, but that is what we managed 😅

These black and white goats are everywhere with large bells on them so we can hear them for a mile away 👌

Started our walk heading up this steep slope after the kids had their sweets to fuel them. 

Joshua was blazing on ahead leading the way 😂

Came to this lovely waterfall that Graeme remembered had lots of butterflies 🦋 

We sat on the bridge for a bit looking at the rushing water below.

I took this picture because Joshua was dancing with an orange butterfly 🦋 

We then came to a thicker forest. 

Joshua called this place his home 🥰 It was such a cute little spring with a little bench next to it.

It was hard taking them away from here 😂

We then walked through this beautiful meadow. Joshua kept stopping for bugs so it was a struggle to keep moving 😅

Stopping for a spider 🕷️ 

We then made it to a road and we were picked up by Liz so we didn’t need to walk all the way to the picnic.

Liz and Kathi and her partner had made the most amazing spread of a picnic for us and so we had a lovely time sitting down and eating cheese and bread other foods while catching up. Samuel and Joshua found a water fountain that they spent most of their time at.

We then went for the walk we had set out for👌 We decided to have our dessert up there. So we started upwards - actually Samuel and Joshua did before any of the adults were ready 😂 When the kids go, you go!

We got to a section of the stream where there was a wheel that turned from the power of the water that hit a hammer when it turned so that you can know that the water is still going down the stream. It was very important a while back because if the stream was blocked at some point it meant people, animals and the land were starved of water. The kids loved it so we decided to stop there and have dessert. 

I had brought some ginger cake and flapjacks, and they had brought some fruits and cookies. It was a lovely dessert and we had lots of lovely chats. 

Then Joshua decided enough was enough and just started wandering down the path 😅 So that was that 😂 We packed up and started walking, or running after Joshua, down the path along the stream. 

We made a boat for Samuel out of tree bark for the stream, but he didn’t want to lose it so gave it to Kathi to hold very carefully to bring back with us. 

We did play with his boat though in the little fountain near where we had our picnic and he loved it 🥰 

After a while we headed back to the car and all were driven back to our place for some ice tea. 

The kids had been given gifts of games, so we played those together and then Liz, Kathi and her partner headed off and we all went to bed 👌

The next day Kathi was still in Visperterminen so we planned to meet up and perhaps go for a walk together.