Travel Period : 16 – 20 July 2013

Location: Wengen, Switzerland

Day 1

[ Previous Post: To the Alps in Wengen ]

We were unprepared for what was before us.

After walking past a supermarket named as the ‘CO-OP’, I stood there wondering how to push our luggage down a long winding steep slope.

When we booked the hotel, the location was our consideration and we chose it due to its proximity to the Wengen train station. What we did not know was that it would require going up and down a sloping road!

With my hands full of two luggage, I struggled to walk and pull slowly, the downward force threatening to grab them rolling down the slope every minute!

There were a few buggy vehicle going up and down so we had to shout to Dar to keep to the side because we had no hands to hold him.

Finally, we reached the Hotel Edelweiss, a cosy looking hotel with a playground nearby. Checking the time, we took around 13 minutes just to walk down even though it looks near to the station!

Exploring The Hotel

While doing the checking in, we were led to a room but it appeared they had made a mistake and gave our reservation to someone else. Soon, we were given a replacement at level two and had to wait for a third bed to be placed in the room. The room was small and good enough for two people but with an extra bed at the foot of the bed beside the window, it became quite squeezy. There was barely room to walk and we couldn’t use the table.

We did voice out whether this room is the same as the one they were supposed to have given us. They said it was so we just had to believe it. The bathroom door  opens out to one of the bed and was very small, barely enough space for the toilet seat. The plus point was the balcony though as we could step out and sit outside. Gorgeous alpine scenery could be viewed straight from our windows.

Overall though, the service was excellent and the room and surroundings were clean. The manager was efficient and sorted out the problem quickly and a friendly staff helped us carried our luggage up the ‘ancient’ lift. He wondered where we had been since it was astonishing to see so many luggage for just three people. We told him we had been in Europe for six weeks and visited several countries! He told us he was the in-house chef and recommended us to take the hotel dinner to taste the Swiss Cuisine.

It was fun to operate the lift which we had to open the door ourselves once we reached the floor. A few times, I forgot and stood there silly and waiting for the lift door to open. The manager also provided us with information about the hiking so we got to know which hike route is more child-friendly. These information was not available online so we could only plan once we reached here.

For the meals, the breakfast was with the room charge and was the usual European spread of bread, cheese, hams, egg and jam. For dinner, we had to book with the manager and pay separately. They go by per pax per meal of CHF25 and it’s up to the in-house chef what he wants to cook for the night. Everybody in the dining room eats the same meal. We tried their speciality Swiss cuisine for two nights.

There was a nice playground nearby too which Dar enjoyed. He loved the slide and the swing and in the evenings after we get back from our exploration, that is where he would head to.

After settling down, we quickly went out with just a backpack and walked further down the slope from our hotel. Soon, we reached a point where there was a railing and stopped to admire the mountain scenery in front of us. The weather was still hot and sunny so we were quite disappointed not to experience the cold air we were looking for.

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Explore Wengen Town

We had reached Wengen at 4.25pm and by the time we settled, it was about 5.15pm. Since our dinner would only start at 6.50pm, we decided to walk around the surroundings and explore Wengen Town.

I groaned inwardly as I looked at the slope to go back up to the train station. This time, we had no luggage with us but walking down is easy, walking up a steep curvy slope is not! At such high altitude, I kept feeling as if I’m running out of oxygen even though I’m quite used to walking and was wearing a good track shoe.

The whole day of pushing luggage and doing frantic train transfers was weighing down on me. The only thing moving my leg was my mental energy telling me, just one more step…just one more step… Finally, I reached the top panting hard. Surprisingly, Dar had no problem at all and was always jumpy and walking fast in front of us.

From Wengen train station, turning left leads to Wengen Town, turning right leads to our hotel. The Coop supermarket is right in the middle between this two paths. We headed into the COOP supermarket first to get our sandwich ingredients for tomorrow’s hike.

We had earlier asked whether the hotel has water for us to drink or boil but were told to get water straight from the tap in our bathroom. Vin was alright but I felt uneasy because I’m used to drinking boiled and bottled water. I don’t care how ‘alpine’ the water is, I just couldn’t imagine getting water from the germs-filled bathroom where the sink was just inches from the toilet bowl. We had no choice but to buy bottles of drinking water from the supermarket or we would need to buy expensive boiled drinking water from the hotel. (CHf 3 I think)

Fortunately, the large bottles of water in the supermarket was reasonably priced (CHF0.95 for 1.5litres!). In fact, the pricing of food in COOP was quite reasonable and many people got their sandwich meals, bread and many foodstuff from there. We also got plenty of tidbits to snack on if we get hungry between meals.

Turning into the left path, we discovered a fairly flat area with hotels, shops and restaurant lining the streets. After that, we walked to the middle of the town where there was a large field. There were more shops beyond but I was too tired to walk further and headed back.

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Dinner in Hotel

The meal of the day was a famous Swiss cuisine, Fondue. We had passed by a restaurant earlier which priced it at CHF33. Therefore, our restaurant charging us at CHF25 with dessert (ice-cream/fruits) was considered cheaper. As I could not eat bread, the Swiss chef kindly prepared a separate beef stew meal for me which has soup and dessert too.

The chef came over to demonstrate to us how to eat this cuisine. He poked the pieces of bread with a metal stick and twirled it around in the hot melting cheese, coating it like how we usually coat marshmallow with hot chocolate. The pot was kept cooking over a small stove. I tried the cheese. It was strong-smelling and there was an interesting wine taste.

We had wanted to share our meals with Dar since each meal was quite costly and he only needed a small portion so we asked whether it was safe for the child. He reassured us it was safe, that the wine was just ‘taste’. However, we did not feel it was suitable for Dar and he also did not enjoy the wine smell so he ate more of my beef stew instead. (Much later, we found out children are charged at CHF10 per meal)

It was boring to just eat bread with cheese when we are really meat-lovers so Vin did not have a satisfying meal. I had to share my few pieces of meat with both of them. With a small portion, we considered the meal to be overly expensive and barely enough to fill our stomach after a whole day of walking.

I was surprised about this because we had travelled several countries in Europe and I usually end up not able to finish the large portions catered to Westerners. It was frequent for me to share my meal with Dar. Here in Switzerland, I could not even fill myself. From this, we now know why Switzerland is considered one of the most expensive country to travel in.

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Evening Walk

After dinner, we walked to other parts of the small hotel and discovered a cosy children’s playroom. Dar was so excited as he could play with some vehicles on a nice town mat on the floor. It was part of their study where guests could lounge and read.

We had to force him to leave to take an evening walk down further. Though we were tired, it would be a waste of time not to explore the surrounding area. The air finally turned cooler at eight plus pm and we placed a jacket on Dar before heading out. Passing by the ‘platform with railings’, we headed down.

It was downward slope all the way with large green fields and some low apartments.

Soon, we were excited as we saw some adorable sheep munching on the grass! This was the second time we saw sheep up-close after our encounters with them in Cingjing, Taiwan. (By the way, Cingjing was created like Switzerland Highlands and we were so awed by the surroundings that time. We never thought we would be able to set foot in real Switzerland one year later.)

“Ding, ding, ding!” The bells around their neck kept clanging as they moved. We stayed for a while outside the fence to look at them eating happily.

Along the way, we passed by a pretty hotel. It stood out from the other gloomy buildings. This was almost the end of the road before they go into jungle trail and bicycling paths.

We stood there and took in the cool mountain air. It was so peaceful with no sound at all. Not even any animal sounds.

We took some posed photos and were laughing about when we suddenly heard loud cheering sounds. I quickly turned around and discovered there were people at the top-level of the hotel, waving friendly ‘hi’s to us! They were laughing so we also waved back to them and smiled. I guess our chattering must have disturbed their peace. Though they looked tiny as it was of a distance, I felt embarrassment climbing up my face. We had been so absorbed with our family picture-taking that we did not know we were being ‘observed’ as part of the scenery. Okay, time to leave!

It would be nice to stay here and wake up to an entire mountain scenery due to the ‘cliff-edge’ but it would be tiring to go back up again. The only allowed vehicle in this mountainous area is a four-seater buggy which hotel owners used to transport their guests and stuff but they come with a fee.

We ended our walk around 9 plus and went back to rest, planning our walking trail and where to go for the next four days. It would be another long walk tomorrow as we intended to go for a hike.

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