After a wonderful week in Italy, which included stays in Como and Milan, we moved on to Switzerland. In our earlier visit to Switzerland, we had visited Lucerne, Mount Titlis etc but during this visit we wanted to stay away from the crowd and I had decided to stay in Wengen for a week. Wengen is in the Bernese Oberland area of Switzerland and is a quaint motor less village which gives commanding views of the Eiger, Monch and Jungfrauch mountain ranges.
We boarded the ICE (Inter City Express) train at the Stazione Centrale, Milan and to reach Wengen, we changed trains at Spiez, Interlaken OST and Lauterbrunnen. The walk to our chalet was around 10 minutes and downhill.
After settling in at Wengen on the day of arrival, the next day we left for Mannlichen on a gondola (cable car).
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| Mannlichen Bahn-station |
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| View of Wengen as we go up the gondola to Mannlichen. |
We reached Mannlichen in about 7 minutes and from there the plan was to use a trek route to walk down to Kleine Scheidegg which is a high mountain pass below and between the Eiger and Lauberhorn peaks in the Bernese Oberland area.It is also the base point to the train ride to the 'Top of Europe' Jungfrau. The trek was about 2 hours amidst pristine nature, carpets of flowers, melted glacier ponds and grazing cattle with their tingling bells. Divine !
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| Trek path to Kleine Scheidegg, Switzerland |
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| Carpets of flowers on the trek route |
On reaching Kleine Scheidegg, I was eager to eat at the restaurant at the train station (Restaurant Bahnhof) itself. Through prior research on the net, I had homed in on some items which I wanted to try there. We tried the 'Half Pipe Salad". The portions were good enough for two of us. The vegetables and fruits were absolutely farm fresh, the dressing so refreshing and just right to keep the crunchiness of the salad and the nuts in it. Certainly recommended. We also tried the Wurst and Rosti. While Wurst is a German sausage, Rosti is made with roughly grated potato, either cooked or raw. Depending on the frying technique, butter or oil is used for frying it. It is most often pan fried, but can also be baked in the oven. High on calories but after a 2 hour trek, one does not mind the calories. We were told that the most famous desert was their Apfelkucheb mit Rahm ( Apple pie with cream) and we ordered for it. The portion was so huge that it needed some effort to devour half of it. What we did not try was the Nussini which are cookies loaded with pecan and hazelnuts and we gave that a rain check!
Our next culinary experience was in the restaurant in a small village called Murren on the way to Schilthorn. The restaurant 'Alpenruh' is just outside the cable car station Schilthornbahn and offers wonderful views of the mountains. Murren itself is so pretty that post lunch at the restaurant we walked to the other end of the village in about 20 minutes. We tried their Soup of the day, some salads and ice-creams. The overall experience of absorbing the views, fresh food and some delectable ice-cream was indeed something to remember.
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| In front of the Alpenruh Restaurant, Murren, Switzerland |
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| View from the table at the Alpenruh restaurant |
While we were staying in Wengen, we did travel to Jungfrau, Trummelbach Falls, Interlaken, Rothorn etc and finally bid a tearful adieu to Wengen after a week in the chalet. While most afternoon meals would be outside at some restaurant in the town that we would visit, evening dinners were in the chalet. We bought some local produce ( fruits and vegetables from the Coop), some olive oil, pasta, sandwiches would be our dinner. Some days we had daal, rice and Gits ready to eat paneer makhani which we carried from Riyadh. This helped us get our fix of Indian food.
From Wengen we had to change trains 4 times to reach Kloten, Zurich -where our dear friends Gunthard and Meena had agreed to drive down from Germany to meet with us. We enjoyed Zurich in their wonderful company and also stopped by at one of the 'chocolateries' which sell the famous Swiss Chocolates and enjoyed some mind blowing liqueur chocolates. Wish we could enjoy such options in other parts of the world!! We also had a lunch at one of the beer gardens in Zurich by the Lake.
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| Inside the Chocolaterie in Zurich |
While I had thought of concluding the Tastes of Europe in Part 2 itself, I have to admit that there will be a Part 3 now with Istanbul and its delights. The one thing that I must apologize is I did not click the photos of the items that we ate as we were just over-awed by the nature and its views in Switzerland.
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