July 4, 2017. Tuesday. Grindelwald, Switzerland. It’s 10:45 pm, and I’m sitting on a deck at our hotel. Towering high above me in 180 degree panorama in the moonlight are approximately five 13,000 foot peaks, most of which are snowcapped. The sun has gone down, the moon us up right over the snowiest peaks, but they are still bathed in the late sunset light. The Swiss Alps are as advertised: stunning.

We have been to a lot of beautiful places on this trip, but in some ways, we saved the best for last. Since Friday we have been in various parts of the Alps: Italian, Austrian, German, Lichensteinian (?), and now Swiss.

The day started in Zurich. We slept in a bit, loaded up, and took the tram to the old city. Everything is much more expensive in Switzerland. I haven’t been here since 2008, but the prices seem higher. Our first stop in the old town was for breakfast at a little cafe. 55 Francs later (and all take-out, “cheap” stuff!), and we were on our way. (!!) We stopped to see Grossmunster, the large church in the old city that Ulrich Zwingli pastored in the 1520s, leading the reformation in Zurich. And here, too, our theological ancestors, the early Anabaptists, took their stand and some paid for their lives by being drowned in the Limmat River in town.

We walked from Grossminster down to the bridge at the end of the old city that overlooks the Zurich lake. It was a brilliant blue sky day, so you could see some jagged Alps in the distance at the far end of the lake. Since we were in Zurich, we had to have sausages and bratwursts, which we did for lunch at Zeughauskeller, a nice restaurant recommended by a friend (thanks, Owen!). A short tram ride later, and we were back to our hotel and on the road again, destination Interlaken and Grindelwald, both in the Swiss Alps.

The ride to Interlaken was lovely, winding through some mountain passes, through several long tunnels (15 kilometers!), and alongside several lakes. Interlaken itself is, as the name implies, between two lakes. After happily finding an Aldi for reasonably-priced groceries, we had a picnic lunch near a playground where we could see the mountains all around us and watch the hang gliders land near us. There are so many hiking trails and gondola options in Interlaken, but we moved on and drove the short but beautiful drive to Grindelwald. Interlaken is down in a valley; Grindelwald is really up in the mountains at the foot of a line of gorgeous peaks. At one point, we rounded a corner and were all just blown away at the endless and continuous beauty of the sprawling green lower mountainside contrasted with the gray granite upper portions and the snowcaps on several of them, all perfectly lit and against a nice blue sky.

Our hotel sits a little above the “downtown” of Grindelwald, with a spectacular view of the mountains in approximately 180 degree panorama. It is, as our Austrian friends would say, “nicht schlecht.” Not bad. We took a short walk to “downtown” Grindelwald and back, and then spent a few hours watching the sun recede slowly up the sides of the mountains. Lovely. Hard to believe this trip is coming to an end in a few days!

Peace.