Gimmelwald

I took a cable car up the side of a mountain to stay at a mountain hostel in Gimmalwald, not to be confused with the bigger mountain settlement of Grindelwald. Gimmalwald has only 140 inhabitants. It is a very peaceful village, with a great view of the Swiss Alps. One of the mountain peaks within the view is the Jungfrau, one of the highest in Europe.

This was the view from the patio of the hostel. Breath taking! I did a lot of walking while there. Residents of the town had their lawn chairs sitting overlooking this. Can you imagine reading the morning and evening news paper to this view? Honestly just being in the mountain atmosphere made me feel care free and perfectly relaxed. I could have just hung out there forever. The weather while I was there was horrid and yet I still didn't care. I just loved the peaceful feeling it gave me on the inside.

While the town isn't very big, it takes quite a while to walk through it. It isn't organized into your typical streets. The streets have to slowly slant up because the whole village is on a hill. To get to the next town, Murren, you can hike for about an hour or so or you can take the cable car.

This is a view from the top of the town. The flags you can see in the middle are from the hostel, perhaps my favourite hostel of all the ones I visited. Maybe it just has the luck of being in the most relaxing of places I have been.

One of the higher peaks I could see, although I couldn't always see it. It was pretty cloudy and the clouds moved the mountain peaks in and out of sight.