Abenteuer Siebenundzwanzig: Meiringen

(If the following few blogs make now sense, it's because I'm writing them at 7:00 in the morning after an all-nighter in the library after a night of five hours of sleep after a weekend in Berlin.  I don't know what is going on right now).

My first weekend back, I visited Meiringen with a couple of friends. Meiringen is cool because it is
     A) the cite of the invention of meringue cookies and
     B) the cite of Reichenbach falls.

How could any self-respecting Sherlock Holmes fan resist? 

The first thing to greet visitors to Meiringen is a Sherlock Holmes statue in front of the train station. Supposedly, it has clues about Sherlock Holmes hidden all over it, although frankly, I couldn't find any.

The town of Meiringen also has a really neat old church which one can visit (should one choose to). This church is also the cite of literally the only cemetery I've seen this trip.

I liked the Saint Christopher mural--paintings like this on the sides of buildings are all over Switzerland

A beautiful little town

Our next stop: the bakery, to try some of the famous meringue cookies. They were super fluffy and almost too sweet to eat.

100% Gary approved.

After warming up in the Cafe, we set off hiking.

The majestically galloping Alpine Alpaca--why not?  

The Alpaca had a fantastic view

Gary has relatives all over Europe

Posing for the cameras

The further we hiked, the more and more beautiful it became.

It was the middle of snowmelt season and we'd just gotten a week of rain. There were a LOT of waterfalls.

 On our way up the hill we stumbled across a swing set that was set on a 60+ degree incline. It literally felt like you were about to swing off the side of the world.

We also found a splendid assortment of lawn gnomes:

After that, we came to the goal of our journey--Reichenbach falls.

It was truly stunning:

I can see why Watson thought Sherlock drowned--it was a looooooong way down

After enjoying the waterfall for a little while, my friends and I headed back down to the town. 

 On the way we met some lovely, very friendly sheep: 

This is what a typical Swiss farmhouse looks like, believe it or not.

Since we had a bit of time before our train, we decided to get some dinner. What did we have? Gemueseroestli, of course!

Roestli=Swiss hash browns, smothered in cheese. Gemuese means vegetables, sometimes also smothered in cheese.

And for dessert? Raspberry pannacotta!