Switzerland Backpacking Part 2

Check out Part 1 here for some background.

Days 3 & 4 were supposed to be Lauterbrunnen - Greisalp - Kanderstag. We decided night 2 to shorten the trip, and were going to pop out somewhere earlier. After hiking partway to Greisalp on day 3, we learned in Murren that the pass we were crossing that day was still covered in snow and was dangerous without crampons/ice ax. At least we figured that out before getting there eh? The friendly and knowledgeable visitors center suggested a new route for us and provided some rough maps. It was a less dramatic route, but stunning, more relaxed, and more 'wild'.

We had a delicious lunch of cheese and bread, and later found a lovely flat place for a campsite. There was a mountain hut a 10 minute walk up the hill from our campsite, so we struck out for a few drinks before settling in for our Backpackers Pantry meal and some frisbee.

At the end of Day 4 we took bus-train-train back from Saxeten to Mieringen where we had left our cars, had a much needed last meal with the boys, and said our goodbyes. The Alps were stunning, we loved 4 days outside, and had an awesome time getting to hang out with Bernie and Markus again.

We had one day in Zurich after that (already blogged) and had originally planned to fly back out of Munich, but at the last minute landed a much better itinerary home...so ended up calling Markus up about 6 hours after saying goodbye to see if we could crash at his pad the next night. :)  Sadly, there are no pictures but we had a really good time hanging out in Darmstadt, cooking some traditional German food with Markus, and then a tour and drinks out on the town.

This concludes our gorgeous Europe Summer 2013 trip. Finally! Reflections: expensive, easy travel, google offline maps are a life saver, we love having friends around the world, Alps are super rad and not like the mountains we have here, thankful for 6 nights of hotel points, afternoon/evening is plenty of time for weirdos like us in one city, european cities are adorable - period, and according to Matt Bavaria "looks just like Leavenworth"!