Gimmelwald, Switzerland is high in the Alps. It takes a long hike or a ride in a cable car to get there. There are a few jeeps puttering around from time to time, collecting trash or hauling milk around, but mostly there are cows, goats and people. And there are not that many people.
I visited Gimmelwald eight years ago when I was traveling across Europe and got stuck. I like to think that Gimmelwald is to Europe what Cuesta College is to a number of its students: a black hole, once you’re there you don’t want to leave. Comfortable. Enchanting. So enchanting that last time I was visiting Gimmelwald, I didn’t leave. Found a job washing dishes and lived at the hostel until it was time to go back to California. And I probably wouldn’t have left if my dad wasn’t getting married in a week. Anyhow, I did eventually pry myself away from the land of fairydust and Alpenglow, but I have always thought it was the most beautiful place in the world.
So, as we drove from France into Switzerland, the anticipation built. I don’t think I have ever been as excited to revisit a place (except San Luis Obispo when I was a kid) as I was feeling heading up towards Lauterbrunnen. The Lauterbrunnen Valley is beautiful in its own right. Giant cliff faces soar up to the sky and dozens of waterfalls cascade down their sides. Makes Yosemite look like a toybox. Driving along, I could actually envision the glaciers at work, carving the lakes and valleys. We parked the car and caught the bus to Stechelberg, where we hopped on a gondola to Gimmelwald. I was nearly manic with excitement!
I stepped off the cable car to the best view in the world. Gimmelwald was still amazing. More than amazing really. Within an hour or so of our arrival, the fog and clouds rolled in and the rain began. Luckily, we were able to see the view of the Jungfrau region unobscured for a while, and watching the clouds and fog was very cool. The hostel was much the same and it was nice to do a little catching up on what had been going on around the area since I’d been there last. Petra, who owns the hostel now has an almost teenager and a college student, not two little girls who were running around and teaching me Swiss-German swear words. The folks who had been working the hut high in the hills over summer had dissappeared on horseback one day, no one knows where they went. The hostel was still full of young people, and while I found them a bit standoffish at first, overall, it was a friendly place as it had been before.
As a general point, I almost always would rather go somewhere I’ve never been before over somewhere I have, but Gimmelwald is an exception. For some reason, I think I could stay there forever. I know that this block of text, and certainly the photographs barely begin to explain what Gimmelwald is really like.
Part of me expected to be let down, to find the place just a bit less than expected, and to have been under some I’m-21-and-having-the-time-of-my-life-spell, which inevitably would be broken now that I’m 29 and heading towards having the work of my life in front of me. But it was as magical as remembered. I am thankful I made it to Gimmelwald again, and I honestly can’t wait to return in the future.