Tag: Swiss Alps

Swiss Alps: the turquoise waters of Lake Brienz

Daniel Greenwood2 Comments

Lake Brienz, Switzerland, May 2024

You’ll have to forgive me this blatantly tourist blogpost, but I’m sure the images will be pleasing on the eye. I think about these mountains often (the Swiss Alps near Interlaken) and have posted about them previously:

Swiss Alps: Grindelwald’s magnificent meadows 🦗

These photos were taken after taking a tourist ferry from Interlaken onto Lake Brienz, across the water to visit Giessbach Falls, of which the Reichenbach Falls is famous for Arthur Conan Doyle’s depiction of Sherlock Holmes’ death there.

A tranquil lakeside scene featuring lush green trees and a sandy shore, with boats moored nearby and clouds hovering over distant mountains.

The trees were beginning to show their leaves, with this beautiful willow catching my eye.

Scenic view of a green mountainous landscape with clouds hovering over the peaks, reflecting in a calm lake below.

As the boat moves out into the lake, the village of Ringgenberg comes into view at the bottom of the mountain slopes. I’m not going to attempt to name the peaks as there are so many and I don’t know them.

A scenic view of a mountainous landscape with lush greenery, featuring a small village nestled among trees and fields, with a calm lake reflecting the surroundings.

Ringgenberg Castle appears surrounded by chalets looking out onto the water.

A historic church with a bell tower, nestled among lush green trees and mountains shrouded in clouds.

The rocky heights above Brienz Lake were first occupied and fortified by the Late-Bronze Age.

Wikipedia
A stone church with a distinctive tower and clock surrounded by lush greenery and misty mountains in the background.

What confuses me about the building is that it looks like a church as much as a castle.

View of a church tower peeking through lush green trees under a cloudy sky.

Especially with what here looks like a belltower.

A scenic view of lush green mountains with rocky cliffs under partly cloudy skies.

I love this view and would love to walk the footpaths up there. I wonder what flowers appear in the summer, and how diverse the fungi are up there in the autumn.

A serene view of a lake surrounded by lush green hills and mountains, with quaint houses nestled along the shore and clouds partially obscuring the peaks.

A wonderful view across the water. The boat turns off to the south shore of the lake to dock at the Giessbachbarn – the funicular railway that takes tourists up to the Giessbach Hotel.

The Giessbach funicular was designed by the Swiss engineer Carl Roman Abt. When it was opened in 1879, it was the first funicular with a two-rail single track layout with a relatively short passing loop in the middle. Its turnouts had no moving parts, which was a remarkable achievement for the time.

Wikipedia
A scenic view of a waterfall cascading down lush green mountains, surrounded by dense forests and foliage, under a cloudy sky.

The first view of the Giessbach cascading down the mountain after taking the Giessbachbarn. I had a wonderful meeting with a Liverpudlian couple who I learned grew up a street away from my lovely dad, and whose house my aunt used to visit when she was a child! Liverpool is a village, really.

A picturesque building surrounded by lush greenery and a meadow filled with wildflowers.

A grand abode.

A picturesque view of a grand historical hotel nestled amidst lush greenery, featuring distinctive spires and balconies, set against a backdrop of cloudy mountains.

The Geissbach Hotel. This makes me think of the sanatorium in Thomas Mann’s The Magic Mountain.

A serene forest scene featuring tall trees with moss-covered trunks, lush green foliage, and a forest floor adorned with fallen leaves and mossy rocks.

As you can see from other photos, woodlands cloak the mountain sides below the peaks. This woodland looked native and broadleaved, with beech, lime, and ash, among the spruce.

Cluster of yellow orchids growing on the forest floor, surrounded by greenery and trees.

There were communities of bird’s nest orchid dotted around.

Close-up of a yellow flowering plant against a soft green background, featuring a tall spike with intricate blooms and a contrasting brown section.

This orchid, like others, needs a fungal partnership to live.

A cluster of yellow orchids growing in a forest setting, surrounded by blurred greenery and forest floor debris.

They have no chlorophyll (the green pigment that contains chloroplasts that can photosynthesise sunlight into sugars), as they don’t need it. The orchid is parasitic on the roots of trees, which is where they gain what they need for a fungal partnership.

Close-up of a tree stump covered in moss and small mushrooms, surrounded by lush green foliage.

There was a nice amount of fungi in the woodlands. I wrote a post dedicated to fungi in the Jungfrau mountains back in 2024:

Fungi in the Jungfrau, Switzerland 🇨🇭
A waterfall cascading down a rocky cliff, surrounded by lush greenery and mist. Large boulders and a small chair are visible in the foreground.

The Geissbach Falls with a slow shutter speed.

A view of a waterfall cascading over rocks, with a lush green forest and a charming hotel visible in the background, near a serene lake and mountains under a cloudy sky.

This is a photo millions of people will have taken. The position is an iron walkway behind the falls, looking back to Lake Brienz and the Geissbach Hotel.

A scenic view of lush green mountains partially covered by clouds, overlooking a tranquil lake surrounded by foliage.

Delicious.

A scenic view of green mountain peaks partially covered by clouds, displaying a lush valley and a mix of forested and grassy areas.

The treeline seen vividly from across the lake. There is a footpath that runs across the very top of the mountains here.

Scenic view of lush green trees with a lake and mountainous landscape in the background, featuring a pedestrian sign on a walking path.

A helpful sign warning about the sheer drop at the edge of the track.

A scenic view of turquoise water surrounded by lush green trees and majestic mountains under a partly cloudy sky.

We were walking west towards Iseltwald to take the return ferry to Interlaken. The woodland ebbed away as meadows appeared, clearly used for livestock grazing and hay.

A rustic wooden storage building featuring various vintage tools, decorative items, and baskets displayed on shelves, surrounded by greenery.

A charming display of old Swiss crafts. I think the bottom right had square contains old heaters?

A person walking along a scenic path surrounded by greenery and mountains under a partly cloudy sky.

This looks back east on the path we had come from, the meadows cut on one side. If you look closely you may spot the beehives on the middle-left, which is why Rosie wanted us to turn back – so she could see what the beekeeper was doing!

A picturesque landscape featuring a wooden cabin surrounded by greenery, with mountains in the background under a partly cloudy sky.

A beautiful setting but no doubt tough in the winter months, if people do live here all year round.

A scenic view of a lake surrounded by lush green hills and mountains under a partly cloudy sky.

Our progress along the path can be seen here as the Geissbach Hotel comes into view. The lines in the water show the movement of the boats.

A yellow wooden sign on a post indicating a hiking trail, labelled 'Wanderweg' with a bear emblem.

‘Wanderweg’ is a much more pleasing word than ‘footpath’ (which is funny because it has Germanic roots). It has more in common with ‘desire line’.

A person standing on a gravel path in a lush green forest, surrounded by tall trees and bright sunlight filtering through the leaves.

Back among the lime woods. It’s likely there was small-leaved lime here, which is something now very uncommon in Britain because it has been grubbed out over the centuries. The limes in the UK are a hybrid, known as common lime.

A picturesque view of a lake surrounded by greenery, featuring a charming castle on an island with mountains in the background, under a partly cloudy sky.

The view to Iseltwald as we began to descend into the village.

A historic building situated on the edge of a lake, surrounded by lush greenery and towering mountains in the background, under a partly cloudy sky.

This iconic building is Schloss Seeburg, another photo that many people will have taken.

A traditional Swiss wooden chalet featuring intricate carvings, large windows, and a steep roof, situated on a street with a parked bicycle and surrounded by lush greenery and mountains.

This chalet dates to the 1730s. I like the decoration. These buildings are so different to those of a similar age in Britain because these Swiss chalets need to be able to protect their inhabitants from snow. I presume this is why the roof extends as far as it does. I wish we built houses more like this nowadays.

A serene view of a lake surrounded by lush green hills and mountains under a blue sky with clouds.

Looking back towards Interlaken across Lake Brienz. The water in this area is turquoise because of the mountain snow melt. The glaciers grind down the bedrock creating what’s known as rock flour. This travels down with the snow melt and provides this turquoise in lakes such as Brienz. That’s as far as my knowledge (and research) goes.

A scenic view of mountains and a lake under a blue sky with fluffy white clouds.

The view east as we returned to Interlaken on the boat.

A scenic view of mountains with patches of snow, overlooking a tranquil lake under a partly cloudy sky.

And one final view of the northern mountains around Lake Brienz.

Thanks for reading. More blogs about my visit to Switzerland:

Swiss Alps: where sycamore trees feel at home
Swiss Alps: mountain woodland flowers at Pfinstegg, Grindelwald🚡
Swiss Alps: Grindelwald’s magnificent meadows 🦗
Swiss Alps: alpine wildflowers on Männlichen 🇨🇭

Swiss Alps: where sycamore trees feel at home

Daniel Greenwood2 Comments

Continuing my series of posts about visiting the Jungfrau region of the Swiss Alps in May 2024, this one focuses on the sycamore trees which are so abundant there. They were seen on a short but constantly ascending walk at the foot of the Wetterhorn.

If you want to do this 3-mile walk for yourself, it begins in Grindelwald and ends at the owl sanctuary/mountain café with a return bus available at the end. This is the route we took (ignore the starting point, just begin anywhere in Grindelwald):

I’ve posted a couple of times about the sycamore tree (Acer pseudoplatanus) as I think it straddles that special boundary between human culture and wildness that is probably my creative sweet-spot. In Britain sycamore is at once reviled by nature conservation puritans, accepted by rewilding pragmatists, and held as a symbol for the British love of trees in the form of the illegally felled and now martyred Sycamore Gap tree.

In the Bernese Oberland I saw sycamores playing a fundamental role in cultural landscapes at the foot of the Wetterhorn, one of the Jungfrau’s towering peaks.

What do I mean by cultural landscapes? My understanding and use here indicates a landscape that remains wild or ‘natural’ but with a heavy human influence still. English national parks are cultural landscapes, whereas those managed by wolves and grazing animals without human management plans in North America, are ‘wildernesses’. That in itself is questionable from a Native American perspective, but another blog.

There isn’t a lot of information about sycamore wood pasture as a cultural landscape but for this dissertation about sycamore wood pasture in the Northern Alps.

The Wetterhorn seen above meadows of yellow rattle, and kidney vetch, both growing in profusion.

I posted more generally about the meadows of Grindelwald (a mile west of this location) here:

Swiss Alps: Grindelwald’s magnificent meadows 🦗

A reminder that you shouldn’t pick flowers, trample on them, or knowingly disturb wildlife or livestock in these extremely sensitive places. In terms of you being trampled, cattle were behind electric fencing where present.

The cattle are an iconic element of these landscapes in the Alps, and provide an important role in grazing the grasslands.

The signage is impressive in Switzerland, some provide hours and minutes route descriptions of destinations. Not something I’d seen before, but now there’s no going back, or at least if there is, you will know how long it takes!

The walk crosses the Horbach river at least once.

A large, moss and lichen-covered ash tree (Fraxinus) showing no signs of ash dieback disease, thankfully.

It was nice to see some roughness and history in what is an otherwise ‘spick and span’ setting. I presume the huts are built on stone to prevent rising damp decaying the timber frame.

Spiked rampion was a new plant for us. Apparently it’s endangered in the UK. It was growing in woodlands and meadows around the Grindelwald area.

His a mighty view of the Horbach looking towards the Eiger.

Red-banded polypore is common in continental Europe but not as easy to find in the UK, so I always enjoy seeing it.

I love woodland ponds, especially ones as wild and dynamic as this one. This is probably an ancient pond.

After this point you reach a hotel which I didn’t take any photos of. It’s a good place to have a hearty meal. Just don’t expect to charge any devices, we heard an English couple seemingly fall out with the staff over that. Oops.

After stopping at the hotel you pass this incredible cut in the mountain side. The rock looks twisted and dramatically compressed. There’s a small quarry in operation, glimpsed in the right hand corner.

These walks always involve huts belonging to local people. What a life that once would have been.

After this hut we turned into the sycamore wood pasture.

I know very little about mountain hydrology and the role that meltwater plays in feeding ecosystems lower down. But looking at the lushness of this meadows makes me wonder about how the ice melt provides such a fertile location for grassland, and sycamores. Sycamores do well in damp conditions, but not too wet.

Other lifeforms that enjoy wet conditions are of course mosses. They’re thick on this trunk. I didn’t spend any time attempting to identify any.

Fairy foxglove (Erinus alpinus) is another new plant we encountered. It was growing on the footpath.

A view into what I think is the Upper Grindelwald Glacier (Oberer Grindelwaldgletscher).

Walking in such an awesome location can feel rather overwhelming.

View north-east with a group of moss-darkened sycamores before growths of spruce. I think the peaks beyond the snowy tops can be reached by walking into the Grindelwald First gondola, accessible via the town centre.

A view south-west towards the Eiger ridge.

An old pollard sycamore coming into leaf for another year. The trunk is thick with moss and no doubt with lichen and algae too.

The Eiger Trail passes up here over the snow but it was closed due to rockfall.

Early-purple orchid was not a common sighting during our time in the Alps, so seeing one against the vista of Grindelwald was nice.

Looking west towards Männlichen (see post here).

I was intrigued by these stone walls, reminding me of forgotten settlements seen in Ireland, Scotland, Dartmoor or Yorkshire. It’s a contrast with the tidy timbers of Grindelwald.

The walk ends at this lovely cafe on the road, across from the bird sanctuary.

Some old shoes on display. Made with sycamore wood?

Just a few of the treats on offer.

There aren’t many cafes that can beat this view.

The Alpine Bird sanctuary (Alpenvogel Park), home to capercaillie, eagle owl, snowy owl, long-eared and tawny owls.

Thanks for reading.

Swiss Alps: mountain woodland flowers at Pfinstegg, Grindelwald🚡

Daniel Greenwood4 Comments

Continuing my series of posts about the landscape of the Jungfrau mountains in Switzerland, here is a look at some of the woodland plants seen above Grindelwald.

Just to say: picking or trampling on wildflowers is not advised, and may be illegal in some locations. The meadows shown here form part of people’s livelihoods as well as being sensitive habitats. Woodlands are extremely sensitive to our footsteps so stick to designated paths where you can. Check the regulations around foraging before you go and show respect for people and wild plants, animals and fungi when you visit. There’s a lot of livestock around, usually behind fences, but they’re so noisy you can’t miss them.

The photos here are a mix of mirrorless camera and phone. The plants photos are mainly taken with my Pixel 7a, the landscape photos with my Olympus EM1 Mark III. All have been lightly processed.

The walk

The walk was a fairly short one in length, mainly due to the altitude and general tiredness from travelling. It would be a good one if you’re visiting from Interlaken on a day when it’s not worth going higher or it’s too early in the season.

The walk is about 2.5 miles and can be done more quickly if you’re not taking photos of plants!

All the high trails, including the Eiger Trail, were closed when we visited. Climate change may be making rockfall more common and therefore the higher trails are more dangerous.

It’s possible you can do this walk and see absolutely no one, but for a farmer or two, after you pass the toboggan run.

We took the Pfinstegg cable car up to the Berghaus restaurant, had some chips, and walked down to the village, past the toboggan run.

What you can’t hear is the sound of middle-class Americans talking about their Adriatic travel plans.

One image I wanted to share was this exhibition of alpine heritage. Here you can see the array of bells used in the Jungfrau for cattle management. The sound of the cowbells is one of the signifiers that you are in the Swiss Alps. Of course the same can be said for many mountain regions, but each one has its cultural differences. That’s a different blog entirely!

Alpine flowers (1300m)

One of the more common sightings in the alpine zone was alpine butterwort, (Pinguicula alpina).

Another common one was shrubby milkwort (Polygaloides chamaebuxus).

A regular of this habitat was leafless stemmed globularia (Globularia nudicaulis). They look like little lilac mops.

At this point the views of Grindelwald began to be swallowed by the spring woodlands.

In the woods

As you can imagine, the water was crashing down as the snow melted. A lot of work is going into observing the changes in the glaciers in the Swiss Alps, which is happening at an alarming rate here.

You can get views of the Lower Grindelwald Glacier from this walk (though this was taken lower down). This glacier shrunk by over a mile between 1973 and 2015.

I love a new violet species that’s easier to identify than ours at home. This is twoflower violet (Viola biflora) and was only seen in the woods at the edge of lanes.

It’s always nice to find globeflower (Trollius europaeus), a species of buttercup.

This was a new species for me – may lily (Maianthemum bifolum). It looks more similar to something like black bryony or bindweed to the untrained eye (this one).

This cranefly was resting on the leaves of yellow archangel, a woodland plant we seem to be losing in the UK.

It’s always a joy to encounter herb paris (Paris quadrifolia). I think the columbine (Aquilegia vulgaris) seen here is probably a garden escape, though it is an ancient woodland plant as well, so I may be wrong. I hope it’s the wild one!

There was more herb paris, but only in the woods.

There were a couple of valerians. This one is three-leaved valerian (Valeriana tripteris). It was growing in wet areas.

I also saw marsh valerian (Valeriana dioica).

Now, there weren’t a lot of orchids out at the time as it was probably too early in the season. But this is bird-nest orchid (Neottia nidus-avis), which I’ve only really seen in the chalky woods of the North Downs in England.

This is fly honeysuckle (Lonicera xylosteum), a strangely shrubby honeysuckle compared with the climber we have in the UK. It’s been introduced to Britain but I’ve never bumped into it.

Hillside meadows

Let’s just take in the views of the Wetterhorn for a bit…

I’d like to be out walking in World Heritage landscapes every week, but alas, it will just have to be once or twice in life.

Looking south-west towards the Eiger.

Mountain sainfoin (Onobrychis montana) was one of the most eye-catching plants, growing at the edges of the lane if I remember rightly.

The spring really glows in this image, despite the misty conditions. The sycamores are coming into leaf.

This is a view down the valley where the train returns to Interlaken.

This is something I’d never seen before – a totemic welcome for Aaron who was born on 4th May 2024. Perhaps this is a tradition in this part of Switzerland?

The views across towards Grindelwald First come into view as space opens up on the woods. You can see all of the chalets that dot the meadows.

I was intrigued by these rustic chalets that were more indicative of a rural way of life, compared with the guesthouses in the valley. It looked lived-in or at least used by people who made use of wood products. What a lovely place to be able to escape to in the summer. Of course communities would have developed from these single dwellings across the Alps.

This image looks north towards the other side of the valley. The yellow hue in the meadows is either kidney vetch or birds-foot trefoil.

The lovely spiralling shell of a snail roosting in a tree.

These umbellifer-rich meadows were a joy to behold.

The lower we got (c.1000m) the more abundant yellow rattle become. This is probably Rhianthus serotinus.

This is the Black Lütschine, one of the rivers that flows into Lake Brienz. It was very powerful. Its source is the Lower Grindelward Glacier, pictured earlier in this post.

The meadows around people’s houses – this looks like an orchard – were in fine condition.

Thanks for reading.

I write these blogs in my spare time because I want to raise awareness about the beauty and diversity of our landscapes. If you enjoy reading them you can support my blog here.

Swiss Alps: alpine wildflowers on Männlichen 🇨🇭

Daniel Greenwood10 Comments

The Jungfrau, Switzerland, May 2024

Carrying on from the magnificent meadows of Grindelwald post, this post covers some of the alpine plants my wife and I saw on our honeymoon hike around Männlichen in May 2024.

The view from Männlichen

It was rather wintry atop the peaks of the Jungfrau with snow still covering grasslands above the treeline.

The Jungfrau peaks left to right: the Eiger, Jungfrau and Mönch

The Peaks of the Jungfrau

Männlichen is accessible via gondola from the Grindelwald Terminal station. The Grindelwald stations can be confusing so do look into it to ensure you don’t get off at the wrong station, wherever you’re going.

View into the Lauterbrunnen Valley from Männlichen

When you reach the gondola station you alight at 2220m. Here you get fantastic views of the major peaks of the Jungfrau – Eiger (Ogre, 3970m), Jungfrau (Young Girl, 4105m), and Mönch (Monk, 4107m).

As it was still snowy and we were only kitted out for ice-free hillwalking, we walked down to the middle gondola station on the road.

Along the way we saw a lot of nice wildflowers, most of which we hadn’t seen before.

Wildflowers near Männlichen (2200-1800m)

The most dominant flower was a species of crocus that was appearing from under the snow.

This shows that rather nicely.

White crocus (Crocus vernus), and a purple variety:

Meadow saffron always come to mind.

A nice surprise was this spring pasqueflower (Pulsatilla vernalis) close to the top where the first rocks were appearing from the snow.

They are rather hairy.

Pasqueflower is found on chalk and limestone grassland in England, though I’ve never seen it. The Cotswolds is a stronghold.

It’s almost as hairy as a bat, or a tarantula.

Appearing from the snow was another new plant for me – rusty-leaved alpenrose (Rhododendron ferrugineum).

I’ve never seen any species of rhododendron in their natural habitat. I’m used to seeing the ornamental versions either in gardens or when they escape and cause harm in other habitats.

Snowbell (Soldanella alpina) is a plant I’ve seen in the Bavarian Alps but I’m not there often, so this is a nice thing to see.

The flowers are very ornate, though most flowers are! They look like paper lampshades.

Purple mountain saxifrage (Saxifraga oppositifolia), not well represented in these pics, and probably quite early in its growth.

This is probably mountain everlasting (Antennaria dioica).

Now this has a great name – sweetflower rockjasmine (Androsace chamaejasme). Sounds like a James Taylor song.

One of the joys of the Alps for us was seeing the range of gentians. They are a stunning blue colour, the kind of vibrancy that only wildlife can muster naturally. This is probably trumpet gentian (Gentiana acaulis).

Birds-eye primrose is a species I’ve only ever seen in the Yorkshire Dales before, near Malham Tarn. The slopes down from Männlichen did have a moorland feel to them, like the Dales does.

Colts foot is one of the first spring flowers and these were very high up. Hardy daisies indeed.

Bright little lion’s manes, though not purely alpine in their habitat preferences.

This is probably cow berry (Vaccinium vitis-idae), a relative of bilberry.

I’m fairly sure this is bilberry.

Oxlips are no longer common in England, and I can only ever remember seeing them in Germany or Czechia in spring.

I think these may be oxlips, but their abundance has thrown me. This was near to the middle gondola station on the way down.

Jostling for prominence.

Nearby to them was this lovely plant, yellow star of Bethlehem. If only peace could come to that part of the world today.

Next I’ll be covering more woodland finds around Grindelwald, and later in the mountains around Lake Brienz. Then it will be what everyone seems to navigate to this website for – sycamore content.

Thanks for reading.

I write these blogs in my spare time because I want to raise awareness about the beauty and diversity of our landscapes. If you enjoy reading them you can support my blog here.

Swiss Alps: Grindelwald’s magnificent meadows 🦗