Terrafirma Travels

One of the reasons for visiting Innsbruck was that Lesley and her mum came here in the 60s, a first continental trip via a Cosmos coach tour. She has memories of seeing the Golden Roof, a tourist must-see in the old town.  We took the free bus from the campsite into Innsbruck and immediately bought a hop-on hop-off bus tour, to avoid excessive walking. It was a good way to get around the city, which is overshadowed by v tall mountains. We stopped at another Schloss which had extensive green parkland, for a breath of fresh air. And then it was back on the bus, through busy streets, many glitzy shops and finally up to the Panorama not far from the ski jump. There we decided to have a leisurely lunch of risotto and spatzle, with a fine view over the city below.  Back on the bus, to the much-vaunted Golden Roof, which did look spectacular against the dark grey sky.  We saw some lovely old buildings in Innsbruck, including this wonderful door. Briefly we thought about visiting...

L went for a run at 0615. N slept on. After a leisurely up, breakfast and pack we just avoided the temptation to go back to the cheese shop. Headed up through Vaduz and out the top end into Austria on the A14 toll road. As in Switzerland, there's no obvious way they are reading our number plate to check our Vignette. It's a mystery.  En route we went through the Arlberg tunnel which at 14km (!!) is the longest in Austria. Had to pay extra €13 on top of our Vignette. The drive today was only 2.5hrs but we stopped about halfway at Landeck and inspected their modest Schloss - used to the Tyrol capital, now a splendid municipal museum. Much fantastical content. Bought a coffee from them then had our own lunch in the van. Back on the road with many more tunnels and much roadworks got us to Camping Nattersee a few km south of Innsbruck. Huge site, very posh. Can't swim in the See (lake) because it's not filled yet! Booked the sauna hut for an hour but it was too hot to bear a...

So. A whole day in the tiny country of Liechtenstein, pop. 35,000. Unfortunately all the museums are closed on Mondays, so we packed up the van and drove out to the far north of the principality (20 mins!) to a delightful farm shop on a green plain, where we bought farm's own cheese and eggs and had a pleasant coffee in the sun.  We saw who provided the eggs - the chickens even have a hammock. We thought we were scraping the barrel by going to Bird World, a free mini-zoo attraction featuring parakeets, parrots and a lone peacock with his tail up and shaking in front of a disinterested peahen. His back view was less enchanting. The 'bird paradise' was interesting in a rather sad way. The birds were in smallish cages and some of the parrots looked woeful in the extreme.  The most interesting bird was on a nest just above and outside Bird World - a white stork with a long red bill. We had never seen one before, and later Lesley saw its mate flying in the direction of the nest....

Left at 0915, after brushing the worst of the dust off the van, people already out posing for photos. It's a huge thing, blame Instagram. First half hour included an impressive circular climb out of the Interlaken valley. It's yet another beautiful day. A-maz-ing tunnels. Swept past Lake Lucerne, a beautiful light green with hardly a ripple. It's nice out today, again. We had to do a long loop north to get down to Andermatt because the direct routes through the mountains are still closed. It's Sunday in Switzerland so virtually everything is closed. Found a petrol station with a shop so got diesel and bread. Andermatt was a ghost town, and none too pretty at that. It used to be a central place for four alpine crossings, but now road and rail go past without stopping. We had our sandwiches in a scruffy car park all on our own. Should have made a flask. N took on the helm and set off up and round and up etc the '19' which took us through the Oberalp Pass which has...

A separate post in case of problems! Down from Schilthorn (the up ones are too big to load into Blogger!) Skiers from Birg Cable car arriving somewhere Cockatoo in Liechtenstein 

L started the day with a run, so early that it was still cold but the beautiful valley was deserted as sun caught the summit of the Jungfrau.  It was quiet apart from the rushing of the alpine stream.  We had a decent shower and walked 20 minutes to the local Lauterbrunnen railway station for a train that would take us 80 per cent of the way up the Jungfrau, then back down in a circular route by train and 20 minute cable car. All that for 92 swiss francs each.  The first leg was a very steep up to Kleine Scheidegg. The trains operate on a cogged track. We could look back down to Lauterbrunnen... and up to the North Face of the Eiger. Then there was another short train ride up to Eigergletscher, underneath the north face. We could have taken another train to the summit, for a huge sum of money, but it's all in a tunnel anyway plus  we had a magnificent summit yesterday.  We spent quite a while drinking in the amazing views at Eigergletscher, had a coffee and our...