My connections to Engelberg were: Hoechst to Frankfurt, Frankfurt to Mannheim, Mannheim to Basel, Basel to Lucerne, Lucerne to Engelberg. The train at Mannheim was late and messed up my other connections, which put me an hour late getting into Engelberg. In fact the trains stopped running and the last leg was a bus ride. Fortunately Jean and Paige were waiting for me at the station. I guess it was about 10pm when I arrived. (the same time I got back to Kelkheim on Sunday) I would have never found the hotel if they hadn't been waiting for me. The hotel was nice. I had a room right beside theirs. I got my stuff in the room and was ready to stay up for a while, but it was past their bedtime.

The next morning I got up and had a window facing the mountains - well it was hard not to - since they were all around us. But my window was facing some rocky snow-capped peaks beyond the tiled rooftops of Engelberg. It's nice coming into a place like that at night because the next morning you get a really nice surprise with the views. We ate breakfast about 8:30. It was included with the room. They had juice, cereals, yogurt, bread, cheese, coffee. Really good stuff. I've had the best yogurt and cheese in Switzerland. The bread is good everywhere.

We set out hiking about 9 or 9:30. It was pretty chilly. I had on fleece and a jacket. Once we got on the mountain and started hiking I shed that down to a t-shirt for the rest of the day. Engelberg is in a valley and is at 1050 meters. It's surrounded by 3000+ meter peaks. We took a cable car up to about 1600 meters and hiked up to around 1900 on Saturday and then hiked all the way back down to Engelberg. On the hike down, we took to calling it Heidi-Land because of the grassy slopes and the mountains. It is classic Switzerland there. There are farms and cows all over the place. The cows all have bells around their necks and you can constantly hear  the bells ringing.

On the way back down we stopped and had lunch on some grassy moguls on the ski slopes/pastures. Both days we had cheese, bread, apples, and water. Perfect meals for the time and place. Almost back to town, we stopped at this hotel that had a open air balcony and had some wine. We watched the para-gliders coming off the mountain. They were awesome to watch.

After a nap and a shower, it was dinner in the hotel restaurant. I had a dish that was a pile of hash-browns and onions with tomatoes on top and cheese melted over the whole thing. It was great! Of course anything would be good given how hungry I was. We turned in early because, you know,  the seasoned hikers had to get their rest.

On Sunday, we did a more difficult hike (no cable car up) that was from Engelberg up to this lake called Trübsee on a plateau at 1800 meters. Towards the top it was snowy and icy and kind of slick on the switchbacks. Once we got up there it was nice. There was this lake with perfectly clear water and a path all around it (about a mile). We hung out there for a while and then headed back down.