Tuesday 9th August: Weather: 13°C to 28°C: Warm and very sunny
Bern: Train Bern to Kandersteg: 5k walk Cirsuit loop from Kandersteg
Ascent/Descent: Ascent 500m, Descent 500m, Total up and down 1,000m
Accommodation: Am Pavillon
Tricky climb to Doldenhornhutte
Jan and Luca high above Kandersteg
Jan and Ian high above Kandersteg
The ttrout farm Blausee
Luca and his family
Highlight of the day was meeting Luca and his family at Bern Train station at 8.15am Tuesday morning before taking the train to Kandersteg and doing a 6k hike up towards Doldenhornhütte.
We’re up early - really early - it’s 2.15am in the morning. Jet lag. But we feel good, and spend several hours un packing and re-packing before having breakfast in the kitchen down stairs. Am Pavillon was a BnB when we stayed there 8 years ago on a previous visit to Bern, but now it’s called a Bed and Kitchen and you help yourself to breakfast - Muesli and coffee.
At 7.30 am we wander across the road to teh station where I try to figure out how to buy a ticket from Bern to Kndersteg, while Ian returns to Am Pavillon to collect his trekking poles in case it’s a steep. Luca and his family arrive and after hugs all round, we take teh 8.39 train to Kandersteg. Luca’s wife and kids hop off early to take a bus to a Trout Farm at Blausee, a popular attraction with heaps of things for kids to do. We continue to Kandersteg which we immediately recognise as a stop over on our Alpine Pass hik through teh Swiss Alps in 2015.
There’s many day hikers going in all directions but we follow the signs to Doldenhornhütte which Luca wants to check out for a walk with his family the next day. It’s not too steep as we ascend about 500 metres to a balcony and stop for a snack before heading back down via a different route. Walking back through Kandersteg, I spy the Pension Spysher where we stayed in 2015 - a trip down memory lane- and find a small cafe to have Swiss tart and a coffee. A short walk to the train station to catch a 2.31 train and bus back to Blausee where we meet up with Luca’s family at the trout farm for a few hours.
The train back to Bern takes amore than an hour, and we go the Tibits, a vegetarian sizzler style restaurant where you select whatever you want from a large array of really nice vegetarian foods, which is then weighed at the counter - you pay by the gram. We really enjoyed the food was quite varied, washed down with a Swiss beer. We say good bye to Luca and family and walk back to Am Pavillon for an early night.