We left Chamonix on Saturday morning, heading back into Switzerland for another mountain destination; Grindelwald. I’d been here several years ago with Aidan (who we met previously in Luxembourg), but that was in the dead of winter, and without Shona.
Grindelwald – Switzerland
We arrived in Grindelwald in early afternoon, and parked up at the very nice Glacier Boutique Hotel. Being a Saturday, in July, in Grindelwald, there were limited accommodation options, so rather than missing out on visiting, we blew the budget on this place for a couple of nights. *A retiree-observation: weekends are rubbish. Weekends are Busy with People doing Things. Accommodation is expensive and activities are in demand. It’s the inverse of my previous ‘working’ contention – that old people shouldn’t be allowed out to slow things down/clog things up at weekends.
That being said, weekday or weekend, Grindelwald is going to punish you square in the wallet. This place costs a fortune! Our meal that evening was at the Basecamp Restaurant, noted to be well priced compared with others in the town. Well priced it was not.
The next two days were spent hiking around the Grindelwald valley, and marvelling at the Eiger’s infamous north face. We watched a documentary on the first evening to ground us in the Eiger’s history and it brought the place to life as we hiked from the top of the First cable car (£120 return) to Bachalpsee, then a less-trodden (and steep with exposure) route back up to the gondola. That afternoon, we took a walk up to the Grindelwald Glacier Gorge, a walkway hung off the cliff, or path carved into the rock leading up to where the head of the glacier used to be. It was an amazing place.
The next day we went up to the other side via the Mannlichen cable car (£140 return), hiking the towering Royal Walk, then round the Panoramaweg route to the staging post for Eiger climbs – Kleine Scheidegg.
It was a beautiful couple of days with staggering scenery, but two things would make me think twice about returning in summer. 1. The cost – did I mention that everything was eye-wateringly expensive? 2. The flies. Apparently the grazing lands around the valley attract flies which descend on the bars and restaurants at this time of year. They were problematic, even in our posh hotel.
Vaduz – Liechtenstein
Our next stop was a pure country-bagging exercise for me. Shona had visited Liechtenstein with a previous job and was very clear that ‘it’s a very compact country’, but I thought that since we were in the region, we should take a look. We’d booked into a rather soulless hotel (quite literally without souls, everything was electronic; we never met a person!). After a longish day – where we did our final hikes in Grindelwald before we left that morning – we checked in at 4pm before going out to explore Vaduz, the capital.
After about 15 minutes, we’d finished that. So, we stopped for a drink before a very good dinner at a teppenaki restaurant, Mizu. We spent a hot night in the sterile hotel (airconless too – Liechtenstein is yet another place where aircon is banned). Both of us went for runs the next morning, then stopped at a local supermarket for our ‘car-breakfast’ before spending three minutes making our way back out of Liechtenstein and driving along the Swiss border to Italy.
Bellinzona – Switzerland
En route, we stopped at a ChatGPT-recommended spot to break up the drive, Bellinzona. We found parking easily and explored the little town before having an excellent lunch at a local cafe. First odd thing to notice was that it was 100% Italian… but we’re still in Switzerland. In fact, the only indication of this being not being Italy were Swiss flags.
Bordering Italy, Bellinzona lives in a strange liminal space; Swiss by nationality, but Italian by language and from our brief interactions, by culture too. Switzerland has four national languages, German, French, Italian and Romansh. Coming from a largely monoglotal country (sorry Gaelic speakers), it made us wonder how Switzerland maintains a national identity. Perhaps it explains Switzerland’s neutrality. Maybe living in so wealthy a country with such a high standard of living allows for a melting pot of customs and cultures which align to the language of source, all while coalescing under a country’s flag?
Bellinzona was a pretty town which is heavy with castles. After lunch, we wandered through a deep channel cut into the rock under one such UNESCO listed site – Castel Grande, and took a lift up to its entrance. It was a very impressive place with cracking views over the other fortifications surrounding the town. Well worth a visit.
Cernobbio – Lake Como
Before we leave Switzerland behind, one other observation. The Swiss love a bloody tunnel. Now, I’ve nothing against tunnels, in fact, they should generally be applauded. And there is no doubt that with all the pesky mountains lying about, they come in handy here. However, the route from Grindelwald to Como was so littered with them that we became pretty certain the answer to any road planning challenge was ‘Build a tunnel’.
“But we need just need a roundabo…” “Nein! Einen tunnel graben”.
After we’d tunneled our way out of Switzerland, we crossed the border and landed comfortably in Italy, at the lake-side town of Cernobbio. After some Satnav schenanigans up twisty tight windy roads, we eventually found our Airbnb for the next three nights, a lovely apartment (with aircon – woohoo!), separate living room/kitchen area, dressing area and tiny balcony. The perfect spot for the next three nights.
The following day, we had a slow start, hopping on the ferry to Bellagio at 10ish. We visited the very pretty and very touristy port town, having a brief lunch and wandering the delightful streets and alleyways.
Getting our 2pm boat back, we retreated under cover when promised rain started falling. This was accompanied by promised lightning and the promised winds suddenly picked up as we were approaching Cernobbio. We watched as the storm raced across the lake towards us, with the captain docking the boat just in time before gale force winds hit us. Turned out to be a (promised) Red ‘extreme danger to life’ thunderstorm warning, and about 20 of us hunkered down in a very metal, very open, harbour shelter for the next 15 minutes as the storm raged around us.
It was extremely dramatic, and we got very wet – especially on our way back to our apartment as the roads had turned into rivers. An hour later and it was glorious sunshine again, the only signs of the storm being the detritus on the streets and the odd toppled statue.
The next day I went for a tough, hot and sweaty run up the local mountain in the morning, while Shona enjoyed reading and a rest day. Later that evening, we hired a boat to explore the lake in our own time, it was a really chilled but oddly voyeuristic trip, ogling all the multi-million euro villas (of which George Clooney’s was one) along the lakeside. We checked, we can’t afford one.
Lake Como has been a real idyll. A lovely reprieve from more frenetic and energetic travels, aided considerably by having a bit more space and facilities, and of course… haloed aircon.
Travels with Sklaroffs 