Ken and Elise's trip

Day 14: Wengen (In which Elise gets bit by a dog).

This has been our final day in Wengen and both of us are sad beyond measure. We are absolutely confident that this will be the zenith of our trip--nothing can top this.

Unfortunately, we are both sick. I am still recovering from the original cold which seems to want to hang on and sort of recur, at least as far as the sore throat is concerned. Ken is really sick! He has the whole she-bang. Sore throat and horrible hacking cough. We stopped at the pharmacist here in Wengen yesterday, and she gave us some medicine which seems to be helping some.

Ken had planned to spend the whole day in bed trying to get better, but the beauty of this place is so outstanding he just couldn’t bring himself to do it. He got up about 10ish, dressed and we headed out to see what we could see. We climbed up the hill to the town and just sat in the sunshine in the town square for awhile soaking up the warmth and the glory of the mountains and flowers.

Finally we went in and asked the trainmaster where we could go. “Someplace with a tourist shop,” Ken said knowing I want to get a few things yet for various people. “Tourist shop!” said the ticketmaster sharply. “You don’t come to this place to shop. You come here for the scenery!” We were appropriately abashed and Ken asked him if there was any place further up we could visit. Mollified, he said yes, we might like Kleine Scheidegg which was about 30 minutes north of us. “And it has a tourist shop,” he sniffed. We bought our tickets and climbed aboard the little train and headed even further up the mountain. We were on the The Jungfrau Railway - the most famous mountain railway in the world. It’s a cog railway and the little train chugs its way past mountains of unparalled beauty.

Soon we were in Kleine Scheidegg, 6,762 ft high in the Alps. We were even closer to the breathtaking Jungfrau now. We saw the hotel Bellevue des Alpes where Clint Eastwood and his cast and crew stayed while filming The Eiger Sanction. The hotel really stands out as Kleine is far more desolate than Wengen, with only a few buildings compared to Wengen’s many.

We thought it would be cold, but to our delight, if you stayed in the sunlight, it was quite warm. We got something to drink, checked out the tourist stores (take that Mr. Station Master!), but didn’t buy anything. Anything we liked, we couldn’t afford, anything we could afford was cheap tourist junk. We did have an interesting discussion regarding a Swiss hat Ken was interested in purchasing. He bought it to me so I could help him verify the price. “It’s $28.95 (francs) I said. “Are you sure?” he asked. It looks more like $289.50 to me--look where the decimal is.” I assured him that I was right--who would spend nearly $300 on a hat!!!! As it turned out, he was right. The thing was wool and apparently all those little pins all over it are worth a lot of money. Ken didn’t buy it.

After an hour or so, we climbed aboard another train and made our way back to Wengen.

We came back to our hotel and Ken laid in one of the deck chairs on the lawn and fell asleep in the sunshine. I came back to the room and just watched the changing clouds over the Alps. Ken came in after a while and we decided to get something to eat. He was still not feeling well so wanted to go to the grocery store to get another jug of yogurt smoothie. I stayed outside to wait. Someone came along with their little Pomeranian type pup and leashed it to the rail. I petted it while I waited and suddenly it leaped down from the little porch to the sidewalk below. I was worried it would get trampled on or something and I tried to get it to go back on the porch, but it wouldn’t, so dumb me, I tried to pick it up and put it back. It got very agitated and BIT ME! Just broke the skin a tiny bit, but the little devil! Just then a woman came along and looked at me strangely. I tried to explain to her what had happeend, and she told me the dog was just fine--it belonged to her friend who was in the store. I was so embarrassed. I think she thought I was trying to steal the little scamp. I was so glad when Ken came out and I was able to escape her gimlet glare. I just hope the dog had its rabies shots!

We ended up eating at the fanciest restaurant in town. Ken went to please me--he still wasn’t wanting much to eat. It was called Pasta and More and it was quite beautiful outside and in. It had many, many photos of famous skiers and snowboarders all over the walls. Since this is a famous ski area, Ken and I both agreed that probably all of those people whose photos were on the wall had eaten in the restaurant. We each had spaghetti--the small size as we couldn’t afford the large. But Ken said the small was just right for him, and although I was a bit hungry, it really was right for me too.

We came back to the hotel feeling sad. Tomorrow we have to check out and head for Chur, Switzerland where Saturday morning we will catch the Bernina Express--one of the two famous train trips through the Alps. We were so excited about that, but now we question whether it can even come close to the beauty we have experienced here in Wengen. I would say we are both a bit depressed as it seems absolutely impossible for anything to come close to our stay here in the Alps and we have this feeling that the best is over. Maybe not.

End of Day 14