Aareschlucht

The Aareschlucht is a gorge formed by the Aare river between Innertkirchen and Meiringen in the Bernese Alps. To get there you can take a little (and recently upgraded) train from Meiringen, and hop out a few minutes later at an underground-lair of a station. You emerge directly from the rock face at the start of the gorge.

Train station or bunker? Or both?

A narrow path built onto and into the cliff face lets you walk above the rushing waters of the Aare as you go through the gorge. On the day we went there, my Mum was visiting from Australia, and it also happened to be election day back home. I checked the election results as we walked -- the news wasn't good, but the water kept flowing.

The Aareschlucht.

At its narrowest point, the Aareschlucht has only about a metre between the two tall rock walls, and the pathway through takes up the entire space. As we got to the end of the gorge, the warm air from the sunny fields on the other side washed over us.

Coordinated colours in the Aareschlucht.

Tall cliffs!

Looking at a glacial mill.

After we emerged from the gorge, we took a little funicular up to the Reichenbach Falls, where the (entirely fictional) detective Sherlock Holmes (both supposedly and fictionally) fell to his death. Everything in Meiringen and at the falls is Holmes-related. There's even a sign pointing to the (hypothetical) spot where he (at no time actually) fell. The waterfall is very pretty.

This is actually just above the main Reichenbach falls. You wouldn't set a detective fight here.

We took a post-bus up into the exceedingly pretty Reichenbachtal, along the same route that Tanya and I previously biked up to get to Grosse Sheidegg. Up there the flowers were starting to come out after the snow melt, but there was still too much snow up high for the bus to continue to the pass.

Back in Meiringen, all that was left to do was to walk past the Sherlock statues to get to the train and head back to Bern.