Day 17: Schilthorn - Up to nearly 3km!

Today was the day we were originally supposed to do the Jungfrau. I got inspired by it by seeing a picture from that region on one of my fb friends' wall, and it seemed a good starting point for looking into pretty scenic trains in Switzerland. The Jungfrau is called the “top of Europe”, the highest railway station in Europe, and “on clear days you can see the whole of Switzerland”. Yeah, sounds pretty awesome... The thing we obviously found out later was the price, which was a few hundred euros. So, when it turned out the day of the Jungfrau wasn't 100% clear, and when the lovely lady at the hostel gave us 40% off coupons for a ride up to another peak, much cheaper and “worth it even if it's cloudy”, it was relatively easy to make the decision to leave Jungfrau itself for another time.

So, today was the day for Schilthorn. As well as price, what made it especially interesting was that it was by cable car, not train, and that it was the filming location for an old James Bond (In her majesty's secret service), so many things were built around that. Just before the cable car would start moving, they played a short blast of James Bond music. And at the top was a brand new James Bond exhibition, literally brand new – the grand opening had been on the 29^th of June, literally less than a week ago.

We left Interlaken at about 9, changing onto a bus at Lausanne, and getting on the first cablecar at Schlech...something (I can't check it unfortunately since I have no internet atm, writing this in a German train...).

Excited about the cable car!

!!!!!

Murren!

The first cablecar ended in Mürren, where we stopped for a wander and lunch, thanks to the recommendation of a nice Scottish couple who helped us out in the bus to Schlechthingy. 

My supercute mascot I ended up eating </3 :'<

In the cablecar!

  Then we got the next cablecar up to Birg, situated in a cloud. It was very exciting ascending into the clouds, and when we arrived at Birg all we saw was suddenly solid rock less than a metre from us, luckily the cable car had already been slowing down...

Note the fog all around us!

The altitude thingy

 Birg is already quite high up as you can see, but we didn't really see anything due to the fog. But SNOW and I did feel the funny mountain air.

Next cablecar was up to the top, Schilthorn, Piz Gloria-viewpoint. And we came out of the clouds, onto the other side of them, ABOVE them. Quite awesome.

LEAVING the clouds

Towards the top!

The first thing we did though was go and see the James Bond-exhibition thing, which was superinteresting even though I knew nothing of the film. It was exciting in any case being at the location where a well-known movie was filmed! (Also, it reminded me of the final dream-scene in Inception, AMAZING.) Loads of interesting facts, as well as fun activities – we went into this simulator helicopter-thing, where we could fly the helicopter over Schilthorn and stop at various places important to the film.

Also there was a James Bond morphing-booth, where your face would be added to a random photo.

I would be afraid too

After James Bond, off to the viewpoint!! I very much regretted not bringing my sunglasses (bought a new pair after losing my previous ones, basically identical to CC's), because it was VERY VERY BRIGHT. Lots of clouds, but also lots of mountain summit, AMAZING. Unbelievable. Loved it.

Just realised I don't have any proper pics from the top... I'll put them on facebook :P Too many pictures here already!

 We shared the cable car back down with three doggies and many Finnish people, so I was quite content.

Also saw hikers who did the whole hike up to the top

The other cable car ready to go into the clouds

SO MANY PARAGLIDERS

When we got down to Schleckthingy, we decided we'd walk some of the journey back, just to save money. So we walked down to Lausanne, about one and a half hours at a leisurely pace (instead of the bus), GORGEOUS, tho would have been even more gorgeous walking there because of the incredible view of snow-topped mountains.

At Lausanne we found out that we didn't really save any money, luckily I realised to ask if our ticket was a return before I bought new tickets back to Interlaken at the station!

Back to Interlaken, had a scrumptious dinner at our awesome hostel, and then bed time again.

Tomorrow, bye bye Switzerland, sniff sniff!

Bizzzzz

Emmzypoo

xxx