mountains & medicine.: Neuchatel: Above the Clouds

After spending a lovely morning playing in lakeside parks and exploring the festive and quaint downtown Neuchatel, we decided to stop by the Neuchatel Tourism office. Despite the less-than-ideal weather, we were hoping for a recommendation of a more outdoorsy way to spend our afternoon. As we expected, snowshoeing was out (bummer!), but the lady at the tourism office did recommend a nice hike. We were to take a bus to a funicular (a small, steep-tracked train), ride to the top of a mountain, and then hike back down. It sounded like fun, so we set off.

at the funicular station

riding into the clouds

When the funicular brought us to the top of the mountain, we were shocked. During the course of our ride, we had traveled from the damp and overcast Neuchatel, through the clouds themselves, to the sunny and blue-skied mountain top, high above the clouds. The difference was incredible.

at the top of the mountain: blue skies and
sunshine. who knew?

funicular station at the top: sunny and snowy

starting across lake neuchatel, covered in clouds, to the
swiss alps on the other side.

above the clouds

we couldn't see the water at all-- for all we could tell,
the lake could have been made of clouds.

Just as our funicular ride up the mountain brought changes in both scenery and weather, our hike back down the mountain was also full of variety. When we began, we were hiking on snow-covered trails (though sadly, not enough for snowshoeing) under blue skies. As we descended, the snow disappeared, and we found ourselves hiking through leaves and mist once again.

Days later, when my parents were talking about their favorite parts of their Swiss vacation, they both agreed that our hike above the clouds was definitely near the top of the list.