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I'm Just Wengen It

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So we have found "our" place in Switzerland - Wengen. I decided we needed a trip to the Alps to celebrate David's bday. How had we lived in Switzerland for half a year and not been there yet, right? So we did a frantic search and found a place for September in Wengen.

Wengen is a car-free village in the Alps, only accessible by train from Lauterbrunnen (only a mere 15 minute train ride so quite easy). It is part of the Jungfrau Region. Some mountains you may see here are Jungfrau, Eiger, and Mönch. It's a great hiking and skiing area.
Just doing some Fall hiking
There's a playground on top of the mountain
Mooooooo

Anyway, we went twice. Once in September and then again in early December, and both times were amazing for different reasons. In September, we were able to really take in the views and the waterfalls. We arrived late-ish on Friday after work (only 2 hour drive from Basel) to Lauterbrunnen and parked our call at the Bahnhof (rail station). We bought our tickets and waited for the train. However, we heard a lovely noise of water and lo and behold, lit up behind us was an amazing waterfall. And that is how we learned that Lauterbrunnen is the valley of 500 waterfalls! More on that in a bit.

Our apartment was right in town overlooking the Lauterbrunnen valley, a great view. We were just minutes from everything (not that anything is far away in this little town). We took the cable car up to the top of Mannlichen early the next morning and got some hiking in but unfortunately the rain moved in so we ended up going back down and enjoying the rest of the day in the town (the Jungfrau Marathon was on so that was cool to watch - how they run up there is beyond me though!)
My only activity in the mountains - bowling!
On our way out, we decided to visit the valley and the waterfalls. Stabauch falls is the most obvious huge one but there are a lot of other little ones. All I can say is WOW. This little town and the waterfalls are just awesome and well worth the visit to see yourself. We didnt walk up all the way behind the waterfall because the steps get steep and slipper so not great with the little kids but the view from outside was grand. We also saw some guys jump off the huge wall and it turns out it's very popular for the wing-gliders and paraglider.

Fog rolling in (or maybe out) of the valley

Hiking behind Staubbach Falls

Daddy - daughter in front of the waterfall

Lovely little Swiss chalet

Kids enjoying the walk to the waterfalls

Beautiful! We spent way too long in front of this quaint little house taking pics

On our trip back in December, it had already been snowing all week and was actually the season opener for skiing. We were too early to get A lessons so we enjoyed sledding instead. You can actually sled around the town (since it's car free) and it turns out to be a fun way of transporting yourself!

Much colder this trip - need a pod! 
A little snowball fight

Walking right down the main street in Wengen

Sledding home!

We also went up to Jungfraujoch - the Top of Europe. Beautiful views but man was it cold! Z started crying just going outside. At least we had our winter gear on but it certainly showed us that things can get a lot colder than what we were already experiencing in Basel!!!

It's not the highest mountain I've been on but it's definitely high and you FEEL it

I think it's Eiger

Kids look flabbergasted by the whole thing!

Amaya loved watching the skiers on the way down the mountain
We will definitely be back to this place - in fact, David was looking into getting a long-term rental and just staying up there for a while so clearly it's a hit!

Beautiful Wengen from the train coming down the mountain! We'll be back!

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