Ali – Maya is off of school for Knabenschiessen (as far as I can tell this translates to boys shooting holiday) Monday and Tuesday, which I only realized this past Monday. A bit of googling revealed that few weekend adventures in Europe could be cheaply planned with so little lead time leaving me with one viable option: ROAD TRIP!!!
So Sarurday morning, off Joe goes to pick up our rented compact car. He came back with a BMW kosten frei upgrade, looking quite pleased, until Maya asked why he didn’t get a Ferarri.
We headed south past Luzerne into central Switzerland for about 90 minutes, which revealed a surprising fact: the Swiss are actually mole people. This became the most logical explanation after we travelled through the 12th tunnel, at least 3 of which were plopped for no good reason along the road. Further evidence comes from the fact that the radio and GPS won’t work in the tunnels, which isn’t a problem for mole people who can’t hear anyway and navigate by smell (you can smell those Alpen cows for miles!…errr…kilometers). So obvious! The only other possibility is that some Swiss guy in the government purchasing office bought an expensive tunneling machine on Amazon after a late night schnapps binge and convinced the transportation department to make tunnels everywhere to justify the purchase. 
So we made our way to Aareschlucht or Aare Gorge in Meiringen in the Bernese Oberland area of Switzerland, on a tip from a Swiss coworker. You might recognize ‘Bernese’ as in Bernese Mountain Dog, a breed which the locals are very fond of despite the fact that it won’t bring you schnapps in a tiny barrel when you are stranded in the Alps (that’s the Saint Bernard).
Aareschlucht is the Swiss Grand Canyon, carved by a river and glaciers, and we were pretty excited to see it. The trip became even more awesome when we discovered Meiringen is the (somewhat disputed) origin of Meringue! The gift shop was like a meringue heaven with sugary egg white clouds drifting around in all shapes, colors and sizes. 
We tore ourselves away from meringue heaven and headed into the gorge. Ok I have to say it: it was gorgeous (pun intended). 100 years ago a marketing genius had the brilliant idea to fasten a walkway to the side of this natural wonder and start charging for entry. Another fun fact: the military dug huge bunkers into the gorge wall as a ‘Custar’s last stand’ precaution at the end of WWII.
The gorge took about 1 hour to traverse. Maya was super keen at first and then got a bit impatient, asking us why old people always took so long to look at things. I told her I wanted to see what the journey had been like for the glacier.
After Aareschlucht, we headed to Engelberg, which is one valley over from Meiringen. The drive upon entering the valley was so beautiful that a road side sign actually warned us “Augen auf die strasse!”: keep your eyes on the road, idiot driver. Our destination was the Brunni Bahn that would take us to a chair lift that would take us up to the Tickle Trail, another of Switzerland’s popular theme trails (a la Riesenwald from a couple posts back). The Tickle trail was advertised as an enjoyable sensory experience, where you kick off your hiking boots and wander around experiencing sensory bliss through your feet.
Ok flash forward and we catch an empty Bahn going up, surrounded by glacier adorned peaks and mountain mist.
We catch the chair lift and hop off at this wee little lake, around which winds the trail. Like giddy schoolgirls we tore off our shoes and plunged into the first sensory delight…broken glass sharp pebbles in freezing water. Next were the needle-sharp pebbles, then the larger puncture wound stones. I think the razor blade wood slats may have been next but the searing pain in my feet made it all a bit of a blur by this point. Relief came in the big brown cesspool that was either watery cow poop or mud, but who cares as long as it wasn’t more broken glass and razor blades sensations. 
Now I should note that during this whole experience, we were surrounded by the most joy-inducing panorama one could ever hope to v
iew. I’m betting you could have a similar joy-pain experience by getting a massage while lying on a bed of nails if you are interested.
We ended the day at our delightful hotel- Hotel Edelweisse– in Engelberg. This was a last minute airBnB lucky find. A fantastic 100 year old family friendly hotel in the hills of the village where the owners personally greeted us, told us the history of the hotel, and then invited us to go soak in the outdoor tub. 
Much better than the cow poo foot bath on the tickle trail.
