Off to Interlaken via Schaffhausen

Monday 17th

We met downstairs and enjoyed coffee and a buffet style breakfast. It hit the spot nicely. Next stop was the bakers and grocery store for sandwiches and wine. Cheap here! Outside our hotel an egg man was making a delivery to the kitchen. The boiled eggs are colored here....

It's Easter all year!!

Car loaded and off we went down to the water front and the Zeplin museum. We sorted the parking out enjoyed the museum after Kelly stored her handbag (She was upset because it cost money for the locker... You have to pay here too! )

It was very interesting to learn about the Hindenberg and the history of these huge airships. And they were huge!! After the museum visit Kelly retrieved her handbag and low and behold she got her money back! She immediately headed to the shoe store she had spotted and bought some footwear! 

We fueled up and bought some ice at the local Esso station and away we went for the waterfalls at Schaffhausen. Traffic was slow out of town but we eventually hit the autobahn and arrived at the falls at 12:20 local time. No we didn't go 174 km like Tazio (Chadinski) Nuvolari  http://www.grandprixhistory.org/nuvo_bio.htm)

We parked in the town above the falls and walked down stopping at various vantage points. We ate our lunch sandwiches along the falls and grabbed a geocache down at the base. A nice walk around capped off by an ice cream :-)

Rhine Falls

13:47 Back in the car we crossed the Rhein and headed for Zurich, Lucerne and on to Brienz arriving at 1550 local time after a great drive through the mountains.

Amazing views!

We found our B&B which is an huge apartment upstairs in the caretaker/owners home. We met Helga the proprietor along with her daughter Iris. Iris was busy moving huge blocks of cheese from storage to her van. The storage area is being cleaned out and readied for the next batch.

Cheese vault being emptied.

The boards that the cheese rests on is taken to the mill next door and planed down to get clean wood. It is returned and re used for the next batch… learning something every day!

From our third floor balcony overlooking the valley.

Pano from our balcony looking toward Brienz.

We got our bags unloaded and headed into the local town of Brienz for groceries and some train info. A slow drive through the lovely little town was amazing with some very old buildings still lining the narrow street. We hit the local Co-op market and picked up dinner and some other staples that will cover us over the next few days.

Hartley and I went over to the train station and checked out details for our trip up to Grindewald and the Jungfrau. Here is a link to a video about it https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8xbYCZNmY5k

We need to "weather watch" as we want the best day to go... and that looks like Wednesday right now. There is also another cog wheel train that goes up from Breinz to Rothorn Kulm that is an option for Tuesday... we will decide based on weather in the morning.

Oh so good!

Back at the apartment/farm house we enjoyed some snacks of fresh meats (salami and lanjager)  and I went downstairs and asked about buying some of that cheese we saw on arrival. Helga gladly gave me a chunk and that quickly joined the meats on the appetizer platter. It was simply amazing!

It's BBQ time!

I cleaned up the BBQ and cooked the meat up while Kelly did up roasted potatoes and veggies . Sadly the cut of meat (in German) was unknown as we just guessed it would be good based on the huge price tag and the look of it... sadly it was very tough. I think the dog will get a bit bigger tomorrow :-) Bummer!

We relaxed a bit after dinner and did some planning for the next few days as well as route planning for our trip to Aosta, Italy on Thursday afternoon.  It's time for bed!