Trip report Sept 2018, day 16-Thun

This was our last day in Switzerland. Again the weather was delightful, so I thought we might as well use the last day of our STPs to their full extent. A trip to Bern had been planned if it was wet, but it wasn’t. So we considered two possible excursions - one was the Brienzer Rothorn train and the other the Schynige Platte train.

We finally decided on Schynige Platte. There were lots of people taking this train, many quite old, carrying their walking poles. It was a lovely scenic ride up there. When we arrived we went for a wander through the alpine garden but it was too late in the year for flowers. After a while we decided to take the train down again. It was almost empty so we were able to take a lot of photos which we couldn’t take on the way up.

I’d read a lot about the Ballenberg Open-air Museum outside Brienz, so we decided to visit it. We entered from the western gate. I knew we’d only get to see a small number of houses as we only had about three hours to see it. It was a really enjoyable afternoon though as looking through the old houses was fascinating.

Switzerland is my favourite country and I’d love to visit it again. But as it’s expensive and the exchange rate for the Australian dollar is quite bad at the moment, I don’t think that will be happening for a while. The STPs were good value though, considering all the places we went with them, and it was so easy to just jump on and off transport whenever we wanted.

We went on to visit Austria and Bavaria after Switzerland and the weather remained perfect except for a couple of days. We were so lucky to have almost six weeks of warm, sunny weather which always makes travelling so much nicer.

Back to day 1: www.myswissalps.com/fo rum/topic/trip-report-september-2018

Great set of reports and photos Judy. And you've sold me on getting a iPhone for my next trip. No point carting a hefty DSLR around when a phone does such a top job.

If you feel like posting some more photos (please) here's another resize option . . . www.imore.com/how-crop-resize-photos-your-iphone-and-ipad#resize

Thanks, I’ll give that a try.

Dear Judy,

What a wonderful trip report you are sharing with us. Thanks a million.

One can really feel your passion and love for travelling and sharing the places you visit. Thanks a lot for the wonderful pictures, too.

Hope your next trip is in the pipeline already.. ;)

Steph

Judy, thank you for the excellent reports. Not only have I enjoyed reading them but as I am planning our next visit to Switzerland , I am taking note of some places we haven't been to yet.

Hello Judy

I have really enjoyed reading your trip reports and I am impressed by your great photos. We have visited a lot of the same places as you and glad you liked them as much as we did. Your photo of the reflection of the Matterhorn at Riffelsee is particularly lovely. You have taken a lot of time and trouble over describing your visit and I am sure it will be of great help to other travellers. Thank you.

Maggie

PS regular posters may be interested to read that I have now had both eye cataracts operated on and can see!! Unfortunately progress with other health issues is proving to be frustratingly slow so doubting now whether we can travel to Switzerland this year.

Thankyou Steph, Roseclar and Maggie

Switzerland is such a wonderful place to visit and I enjoyed reliving our trip there. I hope my experiences help people with their planning as I found reading trip reports very helpful when I was organizing our trip.

Judy

Hi Maggie,

Glad to hear you are seeing clearly again. Sorry things aren't panning out health-wise and your 2019 Swiss trip is in doubt. Hope you improve quicker than anticipated. All the best.

Wishing you a speedy recovery Maggie. Hopefully you can soon look forward to a Swiss trip again.