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Bernese Oberland
August 2017From our 2017 housesit on Lake Lucerne, we made four visits to the high-mountain area where the Bernese Oberland (in the Bern canton) meets the mountainous canton of Unterwalden. In Engelberg, we twice rode cable cars up the sides of the valley to hike past little mountain lakes. In Ballenberg, we strolled through a big open-air museum of historical houses and trade buildings brought from all over Switzerland. And in Meiringen, we experienced the awesome power of water. We visited torrential Reichenbach Falls, a place of pilgrimage for Sherlock Holmes fans because it was there that Holmes wrestled with his archenemy, Professor Moriarty, and supposedly plunged to his death. In the valley below the falls, the Aare river cuts through a deep, narrow gorge, in some places only a few yards wide. A walkway built into the cliffside let us marvel at the racing river below and twisting rock faces above from the safety of a broad, flat path.