Today’s Brig itinerary contained two items – a lecture on the Alps and a visit to the Stockalper Castle with the rest of the day free for our own adventures. But a surprise, optional activity presented itself which made this day extraordinary.

The walk to the lecture on the Alps, it’s geography, culture, and climate change challenges took us past this street musician. I looked for a hat or a bowl or somewhere to leave a tip but couldn’t find anything. What a lovely public service this gentleman is providing.

The Stockalper Castle is a 17th century castle built by a gentleman with delusions about his own importance. The castle has three towers, possibly as an homage to the Three Wise Men, but more likely as a tribute to himself, Kaspar Stockalper vom Thurm. Unlike many European castles, this one is used for city Council meetings, for concerts, for community gatherings of all sorts. It has been renovated and restored until there is only one room in the castle left that in the same condition in which it was built.

Our surprise optional outing required another short train trip followed by two gondola rides. I paid 1 Swiss franc ($1.77 CAD) to use the washrooom at the rail station. No wonder they charge for it! Here’s the process involved.

And then go back to step one to push the unlock and exit button. I came away thinking that one Swiss franc was cheap for all the technology involved!

As the title of this post suggests, our optional surprise activity was a visit to the Aletsch Glacier. This was not on the list of suggested activities, but our wonderful group leader, Sergio, asked if anybody would like to go and 14 of the 20 of us said yes! The train to the glacier runs on narrow guage tracks – about 1 metre in width – while most other tracks are 1.435 metres apart. This allows the train to climb to heights inaccessible to ordinary trains. The video below is typical of the scenery on the way to Aletsch Glacier.

What a wonderful experience and breath-taking view we had at the Aletsch Glacier. It is at about 4,000 metres above sea level and is 14 1/2 miles long making it the largest glacier in the Alps. The weather and visibility were good initially with clouds starting to come in after an hour or so. I took so many photos and some may appear as duplicates, but I’m posting them anyway because the the light kept changing during our time there. I felt like I was on the top of the world. I also had two puffer jackets on which makes me look a little bit like a Ghostbuster! 🤪

We are going to Zermatt tomorrow to view the Matterhorn, but the weather report is not great. Fortunately, we got a little peek at it from the Aletsch Glacier.

Zeit zu gehen. Morgen geht es nach Lausanne.