Lauterbrunnen - Mürren - Schilthorn
Switzerland has long been on my bucket list, and I was happy to finally get to visit, if only for about a day and a half. - Although most of my birthday was spent travelling from Cinque Terre to the Lauterbrunnen Valley, the crew did provide a nice dinner celebration for me and even bought me a gift of a yodeling ink pen (fun)!
On July 4th (US Independence Day) we had a free day to spend, and I had always wanted to visit the Piz Gloria restaurant on the Schilthorn, as I'm a long-time James Bond fan, and this was the filming location for the 1969 Bond feature movie "On Her Majesty's Secret Service". Austin, Lene and I enjoyed the scenery and visited the Bond museum inside the Piz Gloria building.
Once we had our fill, we rode the tram down to the "Birg" intermediary station and decided to hike back down to Mürren.
We enjoyed a quick lunch and refreshments at the Schilthornhütte and continued hiking down the ski run to the Allmendhubel funicular station. At some point while hiking and gawking at the mountain scenery, Lene stepped on a stone that rolled and turned her ankle. She said that she heard a "pop" sound, and had difficulty putting any weight on the foot. Austin & I took a shoulder each and managed to have Lene hobble and hop another mile down to the station where we luckily rode the funicular's last downhill trip of the day, and made it back to our hotel. The next morning the crew was able to help us get Lene back down to the valley and onto the bus for the drive into France. It wasn't until we were able to get x-rays at a hospital in Beaune that we learned that Lene had broken the smaller "Fibula" bone in her leg. They Beaune hospital staff put a cast on Lene's leg and provided crutches, along with medication to prevent blood clots (especially for the flight home).
Our tour guides were amazing in their help getting us to the finish line of the tour. Yaren spent a good part of the day with us at the hospital helping with interpretation and communication (they didn't speak any English), and Joe rented us a wheelchair in Paris so that I was able push Lene around to visit the Eiffel Tower and other environs. Today she is finally healed again (with some new metal parts installed once she got back to the USA), and walking better every day.
Joe Wray & Yaren Turkoglu definitely deserve the "above-and-beyond" service award for Rick Steves' tours in 2023.
On July 4th (US Independence Day) we had a free day to spend, and I had always wanted to visit the Piz Gloria restaurant on the Schilthorn, as I'm a long-time James Bond fan, and this was the filming location for the 1969 Bond feature movie "On Her Majesty's Secret Service". Austin, Lene and I enjoyed the scenery and visited the Bond museum inside the Piz Gloria building.
Once we had our fill, we rode the tram down to the "Birg" intermediary station and decided to hike back down to Mürren.
We enjoyed a quick lunch and refreshments at the Schilthornhütte and continued hiking down the ski run to the Allmendhubel funicular station. At some point while hiking and gawking at the mountain scenery, Lene stepped on a stone that rolled and turned her ankle. She said that she heard a "pop" sound, and had difficulty putting any weight on the foot. Austin & I took a shoulder each and managed to have Lene hobble and hop another mile down to the station where we luckily rode the funicular's last downhill trip of the day, and made it back to our hotel. The next morning the crew was able to help us get Lene back down to the valley and onto the bus for the drive into France. It wasn't until we were able to get x-rays at a hospital in Beaune that we learned that Lene had broken the smaller "Fibula" bone in her leg. They Beaune hospital staff put a cast on Lene's leg and provided crutches, along with medication to prevent blood clots (especially for the flight home).
Our tour guides were amazing in their help getting us to the finish line of the tour. Yaren spent a good part of the day with us at the hospital helping with interpretation and communication (they didn't speak any English), and Joe rented us a wheelchair in Paris so that I was able push Lene around to visit the Eiffel Tower and other environs. Today she is finally healed again (with some new metal parts installed once she got back to the USA), and walking better every day.
Joe Wray & Yaren Turkoglu definitely deserve the "above-and-beyond" service award for Rick Steves' tours in 2023.