Today we woke early to head up the Stockhorn. I was looking forward to seeing theh alps from such a high elevation. And, it was quite stunning. The train ride was similiar to the one we took to Gstaad, so we got some repeat scenery. We took a slightly different direction from one of the stops, and ended up in a town called Erlenbach. From the looks of it, they do a lot of logging and wood-processing. Thre were stacks and stacks of boards on pallets at what looked like a farily modern saw-mill.
Just a short walk from the bahnhof and we were at the gondola just in time. It was tourist-pricey, but worth the view. We paid about 80 Euros for the two of us – some was for the gondola right, but we also bought a 19 Euro voucher for lunch. The gondola was cool. I think there were about 20 people on board? Not packed at all. it was like riding a giant ski lift goldola.
The area at the top was quite nice and they’ve set it up to afford visitors the best comfortable view. There was a large deck facing the alps and quite a few deck chairs and lounges. The restaurant also faced the alps for the most part. We had a pretty good lunch. Nothing special, I don’t think. We could have ordered what we had just about anywhere in Switzerland. Coffee was expensive. After lunch we made the short hike from the restaurant to the top of Stockhorn. The trail was wide, but 2/3 covered with snow/ice. I had absolutely no qualms about it, but James was again being overly cautious and surprisingly dramatic about the condition of the trail. The kids complained, but we all made it ok.
The view at the top was killer. Just to grand to really try to describe. I hope I caught some of it in the panoramic photo I stitched together. I did have a tripod, but ended up using a telescope thing that tourists can pay to use. It rotated 360 degrees and seemed pretty level. It had a flat platform on top that housed my camera perfectly. Aside from the amazing view, the ride back down the mountain was uneventful. We stopped off in Erlenback for coffee before hopping back on the train to Bern.
That evening, we walked around downtown Bern a bit more and Jay and Monique took us out to a restaurant called Masenor or something like that. It was good and we had these yummy cream-cheese sauced pizza type things. I can’t remember now what they were called … We also got to try Gluhwein tonight. It’s a traditional spiced and heated wine drink that is great when you’ve been out in the cold and need some warming up.