A ROOM WITH A VIEW TO DIE FOR

            Our travels to the Swiss Alps have led us here, to a cosy upstairs apartment in a house in Wengwald. This photo was taken out of the bedroom window - the edge of the wooden windowframe is just visible in the upper right corner.  This is the view this apartment looks out onto.  Wengwald is not so much a village as it is a collection of people’s homes that are clustered on a shelf of land jutting out above the Lauterbrunnen Valley and facing the massive Jungfrau Mountain.  Wengwald isn’t even a routine train stop.  When we’re on the train and want it to stop at Wengwald, we have to press a stop request button on the wall of the train.  That will cause the train to stop at the lean-to by the side of the road that is the Wengwald “train station.” 

            If we’re in Wengwald and want to go somewhere, we go to the Wengwald lean-to and attached to it are two small panels.  One reads “Wengen” and the other “Lauterbrunnen.”  Below each village’s name are a vertical series of 3 buttons.  You push the center one to ask the next train to stop.  Once you push it, the top button lights up. If you change your mind and want to cancel a train, you push the bottom red button that turns off your request. Somehow, our request is magically transmitted to oncoming trains, which will slow to a stop by the lean-to and allow us to clamber onboard while curious passengers watch, trying to figure out where the hell we’ve come from.

            Sometimes, we press the button on the wall of the lean-to asking for the next Wengen-bound or Lauterbrunnen-bound train to stop but it goes right by us.  The conductor motions to us through the windshield, holding up his hand and displaying a certain number of fingers:  1, 2 or 3.  It’s to indicate that there are one or more trains coming right behind him, and rather than have him stop at Wengwald and hold those trains up, the last one behind him will stop and gather us. So we stand and watch the train go by, and a minute later, then next train, and then another, and then the last one stops.  This is only when it’s very busy.  Otherwise, the train comes just once every half-hour and if you miss it, you wait.

            I chose to stay in Wengwald rather than the much fancier and well-known Wengen because I found a listing for this 2-bedroom apartment, on the top floor of a 3-floor rustic chalet.  The apartment is fully equipped so we can cook, and there’s ample space for the 3 of us. But what made me choose this place was the view from its windows.   The low ceilings of the apartment are knotty pine, and inset in the walls are windows that you can throw open on wooden sashes and marvel at the view:  you are nose-to-nose with the mighty, 14,000 foot high Jungfrau Mountain.  Wengwald occupies a spit of land that juts out above the Lauterbrunnen Valley and faces the glacier-encrusted slopes of the massive mountain.  From the bedroom and living room windows we stare out directly onto glacial peaks.  We overlook the verdant length of the Lauterbrunnen Valley, with waterfalls sliding down the craggy rock walls.  And stare directly onto the Alps. 

            As far as I was concerned, this apartment could have been one-room constructed of slime.  The views are what drew me, and the fact that the apartment is well-equipped and comfortable is gravy.

            When we get off the train at the lean-to, we walk along a gravel path to the collection of wooden homes that is Wengwald.  A farmer puts his tractor into low gear and laboriously climbs the hillside, almost vertical, dragging a load of freshly cut and raked hay.  He nods to us.  The path winds among the houses, which have lovely flower and vegetable gardens, with hollyhocks standing tall, and geraniums in flower boxes below the windows. The houses are made of dark wood.  Everyone knows everyone else in this clutch of 20 homes, and they nod and smile at us as we crunch along the path.  Kids play, and as we walk, we look down upon the valley and onto the face of the snow-encrusted Alps.

            We get to our apartment and fling open the unscreened windows.  Nothing is between us and this million-dollar view.  The only sounds are cowbells ringing as cows and donkeys graze below the house.  A constant dull roar sounds from the waterfalls sluicing their way down the rock faces of the mountains, including the famous Staubach Falls, which is illuminated with floodlights at night.  The cowbells jingle, the waterfalls are a subdued hum in the background, and the sun glints off the glaciers and refracts into a perfect blue sky.  Below the snow-laced granite mountain tops are rocky hillsides covered in deep green fir forests.  I can see brightly colored red and orange para-sailers floating down from the sheer rock walls where they leap out above the valley, to veer with the breeze and sink slowly down to the valley floor.

            Although this is not a house exchange, our trip to Belgium to exchange homes in Brussels, followed by a trip to Germany to exchange homes in Freiburg, has allowed us to add a week in Switzerland where we can afford to pay for this apartment in the Bernese Alps.  Which is set squarely in the middle of heaven.