It was an in my face we told you so. Delivered forcefully, with an exclamation point. By the mountains, by the skies over Grindelwald, and the winds that blow through here. Do not listen to those who try to predict the weather in the Alps. We are in charge. We decide.
With complete humility, I remember the email I wrote to my hosts at the Fiescherblick: can I change the day of departure? It looks like rain for Grindelwald the whole time I am there, and especially on the last day -- Monday.
This morning, as every day here, I step out onto my balcony to survey the skies. I have never seen a clearer, bluer firmament. A celestial emptying of all impurities. The last cloud disappearing before my eyes. Magnificent!
Downstairs, the feel is of a weekday. The workmen come in for their coffee, the guests are fewer, scattered. Katherina, who is here on six mornings of the week, serves me my usual: one cappucino after another, after another. (I stop at three!) Andras is ready with hiking suggestions. God, I will miss this place! All the characteristics I look for in a hotel -- this place has them. Starts with the staff. Extends to the light filled room. Sophisticated in its simplicity! A heavenly retreat.
So where should I go on this last day here? I tell Andras that I want to stay local. In the valley. To walk the forests and meadow trails once again.
He directs me (with firm Sharpee arrows and markings) back to the Hotel Wetterhorn at the end of the (winter) bus line. From there -- the sky's the limit. But be careful -- don't go to the other side of the creek. It's avalanche season.
It's funny -- I haven't thought of avalanches here. Even though the mountains sweep straight down into the valley, the village itself is not in the path of these destructive snow slides. In Morzine (2022), Chamonix (2023, 2024), and San Martin de Belleville (2025), avalanche warnings were posted on the weather page every day I was there. In Grindelwald, I've seen none, likely because Grindelwald, the village, is not in harm's way.
I catch the bus to the end of the line. I get off and study the trail markings.
Switzerland is insane with its hiking trails! There are too many to count. They criss-cross the mountains everywhere -- you're never far from a path that will spin you around in a different direction.
I set out, mindful to stay north of the creek.
Everything looks different against a deep blue sky! Mountains I never knew existed!
I must say, I totally love this hike. For the meadows and flowers now emerging. For the occasional farm. For the up and down, but never so up that I would be caught panting hard. And today -- for the mountain view. These tall summits, invisible when I came here before -- they are majestic and dominating. You walk in their shadow. Though not really in any shadow at all. It is so sunny! (You don't have to tell me -- I did in fact leave my lens hood at home; all that sunshine will make for many sun flares in your photos!)
I watch a farmer mend a fence (below). The cows are not out in the pastures yet -- that wont happen until May, when the mud has dried and the grasses have gotten taller. Now is the time to fix those fences!
I want to extend my hike way beyond where I last went, but I learn that I can't really do that along the mountain line, because there is snow and yes, there is that danger of avalanche. But this is actually good, because the forced rerouting puts me in a landscape that is nothing short of sublime. Swiss Alpine in the extreme!
I'm going to show you six photos which now put me in the same league along with Ed. Many decades ago, on his own hike, he came across two cows. He paused. He looked. He saw one nuzzling the other. In their big eyes, he saw love. He would never order or buy beef again. Today, I see exactly what he saw.
(straining to feel my hand on their nose...)
(together, head to head...)
(Nuzzling! In love.)
If you can eat steak after seeing this, then you are made of stronger stuff. I'm done for now. (We don't eat red meat at home, but I've been caught ordering it when I'm eating out! No more.)
(where there is a barn, there is a cat...)
I do a wide circle and go up a bit into the hills that face the giants.
After a couple of hours, I come across a hut with a bench. I look at the panorama before me for a long long while. Spring has come to this valley. And I'm getting my fill of it.
(selfie)
(panorama before me)
From here, I follow paths outlined on my Swiss hiking app. All the way back to Grindelwald. Of course it's time for coffee and plum cake. My last one. Delightfully in the sunshine. Brought by someone who remembers me and who tells me it took a thousand tries before she could master the milk design on a latte.
(blackboard art inside...)
I do need to pack up this afternoon. I have a mess of clothing -- all washed, to be sure, but now it needs to fill the bottom of my suitcase. I'm leaving the mountains and indeed Switzerland tomorrow. I have to rethink everything going forward. So I pack. Reluctantly, because I find packing to be such a bother, especially when I have now this medium suitcase. Big, in my estimation. Well, it has to be done. I'm on it!
Dinner is at a restaurant all the way past the train station. It's the Fondue-Stübli, at the Schweizerhof Hotel -- the only five star place in Grindelwald. My dinner isn't supposed to be at their fancy restaurant. Rather it's booked in the casual nook where they serve fondue (only two places in all of Grindelwald serve fondue, I'm told), but the restaurant is rather empty tonight (low season!) and they place me in the room where there are at least a handful of other guests.
I have a number of thoughts about the meal and especially the staff who served it, but they will have to wait until tomorrow. I'll be sitting on many trains, for a handful of hours. Time to think and write then. (The food, by the way, was excellent -- just fondue, but this one was made of two local cheeses. Made me think about the cows I met this morning!)
I walk back to the hotel -- one last time crisscrossing the empty night streets. Day trippers have left. Grindelwald is peaceful when the last busload pulls away. I like the quiet!
(approaching my beloved hotel)
Andras is still at the door. The brothers are away on a family trip for a few days. He looks after everything. And everyone.
And the moon shines lightly on the Alps tonight. On you as well, I hope.
With so much love...
