Bernese Oberland: Grindelwald - First

Today we took the train down and around to the other side of the valley, making the town of Grindelwald the starting point for our exploring. The activities we had planned were tailor made for kids to explore and enjoy the outdoors (and I had a pretty darn good time too). To start, like usual, we took a series of cable cars up, up, up to First. Here, we spent a few minutes on the thrill walk, a metal bridge bolted into the side of the cliff. It was a beautiful day and the valley was sparkling.

We also spent some time with some seemingly friendly goats. That is until Ben approached this guy and took a horn to the head! At that point, we gave the goats some distance.

From here, we went back down the mountain a few stops to a middle-station called Bort. This was a destination I had seen early-on in my planning for this trip and it was one that basically sealed-the-deal for making Switzerland the first stop of our journey. Bort’s first attraction was this ridiculously fun playground with its ridiculously good positioning and views.

Yes, children, you can play here as long as you want. In fact, I think we are going to move to Bort.

Bort is also the starting point for renting Trotti Scooters, or scooter bikes, that you can use to glide down the mountain all the way back to Grindelwald. We lucked out because Ben was exactly tall enough to meet the minimum height restriction and with a little practice, we set off down the path. Both kids declared this to be the best experience of their life, so far.

The view from the trotti path.

Ben has asked that his next bike be a trotti bike…but also that we can live somewhere we he only needs to ride it down hill.