Four countries in a day

We woke up a little sore from the last days of hiking, but were looking forward to more adventures. After breakfast we checked out of the hotel and walked up to the cable car station. We rode down to Gimmelwald and got to see a little bit of the Via Ferrata route we missed this time – a great reason to return someday! The second cable car took us down to the Lauterbrunen valley at the Stechelberg parking lot where we had parked.

We drove down the valley a little and stopped at Trümmelbach Falls, an amazing river that has cut deeply into the limestone cliffs so far that the waterfalls are actually inside the mountain.

From Trümmelbach it was a bit under 3 hours drive to the town of Trimmis, where we met Nathan’s unicycle friend, Florian Schlumpf, in his new and updated workshop. Besides the world’s best shiftable unicycle hubs, Florian makes kinetic art, clockworks etc. He calls them Time Machines. Check out his website. He gave us a wonderful tour, then we sat on his second floor deck, enjoying drinks and delicious snacks, chatting until about 5pm.

After we said good-bye, we had a 2 hour drive through the tiny country of Liechtenstein and a corner of Austria, to Füssen, Germany. At one point in Germany, the little speed limit sign on our dashboard just showed a circle with a slash, meaning we were on an autobahn with no speed limit. We kept our speed to mostly under 100 mph but were passed at one point by someone going at least 150 mph.

It was about 7pm when we arrived at the “Romantic Pension Albrecht” and checked in. Right from our balcony we had a view of the famous Neuschwanstein Castle which was exciting. We walked downtown and found the one open restaurant and had a giant, filling dinner including pasta with lots of local chanterelles. Nathan ordered a beer Maß (one liter) and Katie ordered a small beer and was surprised when hers was 500 ml. After we ate our fill, we walked back and settled in for the night.