Kühlen Bergen means "cool mountains" in German.
Let me tell you about the Eiger, the Mönch & the Jungfrau. Eiger means Ogre, Mönch means monk and Jungfrau means virgin in German. German is one of the official languages of Switzerland. They also speak French and Italian. In Switzerland they have lots of mountains, and aside from the Matterhorn, these are the most famous. From left to right, they are Eiger, Mönch & Jungfrau. (Jungfrau is the tallest.)
The Lauterbrunnen Valley, which lies between this mountain range and the Schilthorn was the inspiration for J.R.R. Tolkein's imaginary Elvin Land "Rivendell" from Lord of the Rings.
To get to the place we were staying, we had to take a tram from the Lauterbrunnen valley, and then a train. Our destination was Mürren, a small village on a cliff, 5361 feet above the valley.
This is Mürren (as seen from above.)
Cool mountains! You're going to see a lot of that!
This is our hotel, the Hotel Alpina.
This is not our Hotel. But it is the view from my balcony.
This is the view from my parent's balcony. (How come they always get the better room?)
Cool mountains!
More cool mountains!
The only bad thing was...
The bathroom! (It wasn't really bad, but "bad" is how you say "bath" in German!) This is our bathroom door.
This is "main street" in Mürren. Yep. That's all there is.
The Mürren Fire Department. The train that you can see in the background goes straight up this big hill. It's a funicular train.
Cool mountains!
I took a picture of me on a stump near the edge of a cliff.
So Kieran took a picture of himself on a stump near the edge of a cliff.
I took a picture AT the edge of a cliff.
So Kieran took a picture NEAR the edge of a cliff. (He was a little nervous to touch the fence...after all, it's a long 5361 feet down...) We saw people fall off....okay, on purpose. They were base jumping from right on the other side of this rickety fence. We watched them put on their funky flying squirrel suits and go!
At the top of the funicular train, there is a playground.
And the beginning of many hiking trails....and.....cows.
Lots of cows....with bells...
Tons of sheep....
Like lots of them...and...
Cool mountains!
And cool mowers! I don't know why this guy is mowing the edge of a cliff, but he has a special mower to do it. You can't tell from the picture, but he is mowing at least at a 45 degree angle. There are huge spikes on giant wheels on the sides of the mower. Wow!
There are lots of hiking trails in Switzerland.
We went on the North Face Trail.
You should know the names of six things in this picture. The front row is me, Mom, and Kieran. Can you name the back row? (Hint: see the first picture in this blog.)
These flowers look like Dr. Suess Truffula Trees.
Cool mountains!
Us standing on cool mountains!
Pigs...(and Kieran)
Cow...
Cool mountains.
Car in the middle of the mountains. (So, how did it get here? It looks like a car commercial. Did I mention that Mürren is not accessible by car? I mean, how would you drive up there to the cliff, anyway?)
Cool mountains...(A familiar profile?)
Cool house.
There are also these little troughs all over the place that continually spout out spring water that comes directly from the melting snow and glaciers. You can fill your water bottles at the spout. It's soooo good and sooo cold!
We had lunch by one.
Time for more cool mountains!
People like to go paragliding here. We saw tons of people doing it.
Some of them passed right by our balcony. Here's dinner!
Final Quiz: Name the following cool mountains:
Stay tuned for more cool mountains!
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