THIS valley might look like your average spot in Switzerland with towering mountains and pretty chalet adorned villages – but it has a whopping 72 waterfalls.
It’s called Lauterbrunnen which literally translates to ‘loud springs’ after the crashing sound of falling water.
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The little-known valley in Switzerland has 72 waterfallsCredit: AlamyThe Staubbachfall Waterfall is almost as tall as the Shard in LondonCredit: Alamy
It’s known for its car-free mountain villages filled with pretty chalets and shops – but what draws visitors to it is the sheer amount of cascading waterfalls, of which there are over 70.
One of the largest and most well-known is the Staubbachfall Waterfall, which sits in the village of Lauterbrunnen – named after the valley.
It’s 297metres tall and is the highest free-falling waterfall in Switzerland.
In perspective, this is almost as high as London’s Shard, which stands at 309metres tall.
There are lots of viewpoints to see the Staubbachfall Waterfall, and those who want to get up close and personal can take the small path to the foot of the falls.
During the summertime, the falls are illuminated in the evenings.
Another waterfall is called Mürrenbachfall, which is even taller, and the water falls from a height of 417 metres.
There’s also the Trümmelbach Falls which a series of 10 unique underground waterfalls – and the largest of their kind Europe.
These impressive waterfalls have made their way through a mountain valley over thousands of years.
Visitors can see them on man-made paths, which are ticketed and cost around £15.
Thanks to its position at the base of the Swiss Alps, Lauterbrunnen is also a sought out ski destination.
As part of the Jungfrau Ski Region, it’s a great place to hit the slopes with 275km of runs and 40 ski lifts.
The best time to visit depends on whether you want to see the waterfalls in all their spring glory, or explore the village in time for ski season.
For those who want to take advantage of hiking, visit between June and September.
Or for a winter wonderland experience, go between January and February.
The Lauterbrunnen Valley sits at the bottom of the Swiss AlpsCredit: Alamy
Unsurprisingly, visitors have described it as “breathtaking” and like “stepping into a storybook”.
The valley has also been compared to J.R.R. Tolkien’s Middle Earth.
And it could have been the inspiration for the author, who visited in 1911.
Not only can you explore the village of Lauterbrunnen by foot, you can also see it and its neighbouring villages by cableway.
Just opposite the main train station is a 100 person cableway that runs from Lauterbrunnen to Mürren.
In just four minutes it climbs 686 metres and has been said to have “breathtaking views.”
Other nearby mountain villages are Wengen, Mürren, Gimmelwald and Stechelberg.
Imagine waking up early, eager to peep dazzling carpets of brilliant orange flowers at the Antelope Valley California Poppy Reserve. Instagram posts promised a spectacle.
You drive to the reserve north of Los Angeles, but the rolling hills aren’t alive with color.
Bummer. The bloom is over.
Thanks to AI, and a local scientist, such disappointment may soon be a thing of the past.
This year, Steve Klosterman, a biologist who works on natural climate solutions, launched a “wildflower forecast,” powered by a deep-learning model, satellite imagery and weather data.
In a sense, Klosterman, of Santa Monica, developed the tool to meet his own need.
Last spring, the Midwest transplant was hankering to see some wildflowers. He assumed there was some online resource that offered predictions or leveraged satellite images.
“Surely, there must be something,” he recalled thinking. “But there was nothing.”
There are tools. The state reserve operates a live cam trained on one swath of land. Theodore Payne, a California native plant nursery and education center, runs a wildflower hotline, where people can call in and hear weekly recorded reports on hot spots.
“These are all essential resources,” Klosterman said. “At the same time, they’re limited.”
Klosterman isn’t green when it comes to plants. His PhD, at Harvard, focused on the timing of new leaves on trees in the spring and color change in the fall.
For a class project, a team he was part of built a website that predicted those leaf changes in the Boston area. It was a hit.
California poppies bloom in Lancaster, near the state natural reserve, in mid-March.
(Kayla Bartkowski / Los Angeles Times)
To create the poppy bloom predictor, Klosterman turned to AI initially developed for medical imaging. He has harnessed it to instead analyze satellite images of the Antelope Valley.
The model scans 10-by-10-meter squares of land to determine whether poppies are present by their telltale orange color. (It also identifies tiny yellow flowers called goldfields.)
The model is trained on satellite images — which go back nine years — along with past weather data.
It then uses the current forecast, and recent flower status, to peer into the future.
If the mercury is going to hit 100 degrees and wind is picking up — and in previous years that led to withering flowers — that will guide the prediction.
Right now, the model can forecast five days out and is, as Klosterman puts it, “very much a work in progress.” It would be better, more powerful, if it had 100 years to learn from.
As more data are collected, it might someday be able to forecast a week or two out.
Right now, poppies are popping at the reserve in the western Mojave Desert.
It rained throughout the fall and into winter, and poppies need at least seven inches of rain to make a good showing, said Lori Wear, an interpreter at the reserve.
Snowfall in January seems to push them to another level, but that didn’t happen this season. So it’s a good bloom, but not extraordinary, she said.
Still, poppies — California’s state flower — blanket swaths of the protected land.
“It almost looks like Cheeto dust,” she said, “like somebody had Cheetos on their fingers and just smeared it on the landscape.”
Poppies here have typically peaked around mid-April, but variable weather in recent years has made it hard to predict, she said. Klosterman believes right now is likely the zenith.
Also blooming now: goldfields, purple grape soda lupine and owl’s clover. Wear described the latter, also purple, as looking like a “short owl with little eyes looking at you and a little beak.”
An SUV drives through blooms near the reserve. “It almost looks like … somebody had Cheetos on their fingers and just smeared it on the landscape,” said Lori Wear, an interpreter at the reserve.
(Kayla Bartkowski / Los Angeles Times)
On Sunday, Klosterman experienced the blooms for himself, using his technology as a guide.
It offers predictions in two forms. The first is the amount of the valley — shown in a satellite image — covered in poppies and goldfields, expressed as a percentage. The other is an overlay of orange and yellow splotches on the land.
The map showed a fairly high concentration of poppies near a stretch of Highway 138. He went there and, lo and behold, vibrant flowers awaited him. He sent proof: a smiling selfie in front of a sea of blossoms.
Klosterman’s tool may help answer arguably more complex questions than poppy or no poppy, such as a more precise understanding of the conditions the flowers need to thrive.
Experts know rain is key, but it’s more complicated than that.
Steve Klosterman takes a selfie in a field of California poppies.
(Steve Klosterman)
Heavy rain can supercharge invasive grasses, crowding out the blooms. Natives actually tend to do better after several years of drought, once invasives not adapted to the arid climate die out. That’s what led to an epic superbloom in 2017, Joan Dudney, an assistant professor of forest ecology at UC Santa Barbara, told The Times in 2024.
Klosterman wondered if the recent heatwave would desiccate them. But his model didn’t show that, and neither did his trip. So it’s possible other factors play a significant role in their persistence, such as length of day.
The model could also shed light on what could happen to the flowers as the climate warms. Will they migrate to the north? Will there be fewer blooms?
To game that out, Klosterman said you could invent and plug in a weather forecast with higher temperatures.
For now, Klosterman’s forecast is limited to the Antelope Valley. But if it expands to other areas, and other flower types, it could help people like Karina Silva.
Silva woke up at 5 a.m. last Wednesday to travel from her Las Vegas home to Death Valley National Park, hoping to beat the heat and the crowds to the superbloom.
But several hours later, she and her husband, David, were still trying to find it.
The hillside behind her was sprinkled with desert golds, but the display fell short of the riotous eruption of flowers posted on social media. The superbloom ended in early March, according to park officials.
“I was just thinking it was going to be this explosion of different colors,” Silva said by the side of the road overlooking Badwater Basin.
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Gina Gershon considers herself a storyteller, first and foremost. When we connect via video call, Gershon admits this is the first interview she’s done since submitting the manuscript for her latest book, “AlphaPussy: How I Survived the Valley and Learned to Love My Boobs.”
“I don’t have my spiel yet!” she warns, inquiring for the first of a few times what I thought of it and whether I enjoyed it. Despite the many decades Gershon has been treading the boards, starring in indie films and Hollywood star vehicles, and stalking the stage as a singer-guitarist, she still really cares about what you think, even if it won’t change her own mind. Perhaps that’s the key to her professional longevity.
“AlphaPussy” is neither a memoir nor a guide to self-betterment, but elements of both feed into Gershon’s stories. Each wittily titled chapter plunges readers into Gershon’s freewheeling 1970s childhood, defiant adolescence, burgeoning performance career and collaborations with some of the biggest names in film (including Sharon Stone, Paul Verhoeven and Tom Cruise). Most of the stories take place in the San Fernando Valley, where young Gershon was discovering weed, mushrooms and rock ‘n’ roll. This is not a titillating tell-all, and all the better for it.
“AlphaPussy” by Gina Gershon
(Akashic Books)
“This book realistically started during COVID,” Gershon explains from her New York home. “I’d told my book agent, a friend, some stories one day when we were drunk, and he kept prodding me to write a book. I was hesitant, though. I’m not a tell-all gal, that’s not my MO.”
She adds, “It was during lockdowns, and I think his mother was sick and he was having a hard time, so when he said, ‘Just write me stories to keep me cheered up,’ I started to write stories in no particular order, whatever bubbled up, because otherwise I figured I’d forget them one day.”
At the same time, Gershon had observed that young women weren’t feeling empowered to advocate for themselves in their personal relationships and workplaces.
“I noticed that especially with younger women friends of mine, they’d tell me about things they were going through on set or with their bosses, and I don’t know if it’s a millennial thing, but I said, ‘Why don’t you just look him in the eye and tell him to stop?’ and there was this sense [for me] of ‘Why can’t you do that? Because if you don’t, you’ll always be prey to these guys.’ ”
She clarifies that she means “annoying” men rather than abusive men.
“I’m not that tough,” admits Gershon. “But I’d learned how to maneuver a lot just from growing up in the Valley, and it was a crazy time to be living there. So I thought about the stories that led me to be able to steer myself through toxicity.”
In her new book, Gina Gershon recalls the industry vitriol toward her 1995 erotic film “Showgirls.”
(Evelyn Freja / For The Times)
And also to steer herself through well-intended advice, both personal and professional, to follow her instincts.
“Listen, it’s not like I’ve had the most normal career. I’ve done most of my projects despite warnings from other people and from my agents saying, ‘You can’t do this, you’ll ruin your career.’ I’m like, ‘Why? I like this project!’ ”
One of those projects, most infamously, was “Showgirls,” which gets plenty of mentions in the book.
As Gershon recalled, it was 1994, and an astrologer had predicted her major breakout role would arrive in October that year, testing the young actor and her ability to cope with notoriety. Great, thought Gershon, bring it on.
Months later, Gershon was hanging from the ceiling, dressed in bondage gear, reflecting upon her early acting goals to perform Chekhov, portray Medea and stun audiences into silence.
She was on the set of “Showgirls” (or “Survival of the Titties,” as she nicknames it), dressed in one of the many glittering, spangled, flimsy outfits that her character Cristal Connors parades about wearing as a veteran of Vegas striptease. That role, and the vitriol from within the industry toward the movie (a flop turned cult favorite), still stings.
“I was super excited going into ‘Showgirls.’ As I talk about in one of the chapters, it was just very different when I got there. It was a completely different show than I thought I was going to be doing. … I thought it was gonna be one of [director Paul Verhoeven’s] dark Dutch films.”
Realizing that it was something else, to say the least, Gershon pivoted.
“I learned how to deal with an insane environment while keeping focused on what it is that I was trying to achieve with the part, without getting swallowed up by the insanity, which is a valuable lesson, you know? I mean, it’s a good lesson to learn no matter what you’re doing.”
Last year, Gershon watched the movie for the first time in decades.
“I hadn’t seen it in a zillion years, and when I saw it, I understood it a little bit more. It made me feel tense, but I also thought, ‘Oh, interesting.’ Some scenes that I thought shouldn’t have been there and others that absolutely have to be there. I saw it with a different lens.”
She says, “Weirdly, I feel like I’m not supposed to be talking about ‘Showgirls,’ although I think I have five chapters about ‘Showgirls’ [in the book]. I did the ones that I thought were kind of funny and fun and had some sort of growth in it for me.”
Having recently wrapped filming on “an independent film, a trans love story” in Palm Springs, penned a script and midway through writing another, Gershon doesn’t intend on writing another book anytime soon. Still, “there’s so many stories I left out,” she concedes.
“I could write three more books with things, but I really wanted to stay on point with the themes of manipulation, survival, and moving around and being able to stand on your own two feet and know who you are and to have agency over your life, especially as a woman, especially as an actress, especially in this world.”
“I’m not that tough,” says Gina Gershon. “But I’d learned how to maneuver a lot just from growing up in the Valley, and it was a crazy time to be living there. So I thought about the stories that led me to be able to steer myself through toxicity.”
It’s late March and the villagers of the Jerte valley in Extremadura, Spain’s wild west, are twitchy – as if they’re hosting a party and wondering if all the guests will show up. The event they’re waiting for is the flowering of the valley’s cherry trees, which number about two million. So far, only a handful – a variety called Royal Tioga – have dared to don their frilly spring frocks. The rest are still clutching their drab grey winter garb.
Predicting the arrival of blossom is always tricky, but thanks to an unseasonably wet March the trees are three weeks late when I visit. With snow still cloaking the surrounding sierras, the tourist office in Cabezuela del Valle, halfway up the valley, is hastily finding alternative activities for the coachloads of blossom-seekers from Madrid. As with any nature-reliant activity, such as whale watching or aurora hunting, timing is challenging. But unlike hit-and-miss spectacles involving wild animals, at least I know the blossoming will happen eventually. (Sadly wildfires later affected parts of the Jerte valley last summer, but thankfully few cherry trees were affected.)
Cherry trees growing on terraces in the Jerte valley. Photograph: M Ramirez/Alamy
The nation most associated with cherry blossom is, of course, Japan. There, the sakura, or ornamental cherry blossom tree, has for centuries symbolised the transient nature of life, and for a few weeks in springtime, its delicate pink confetti blossom sprinkles streets and temple gardens. Millions join hanami, or flower viewings across the country.
Spain’s display is different. This is a rural spectacle rather than a mostly urban one – and has the big advantage, for me at least, of being a lot closer to the UK. I’ve travelled by train from my Devon village and I’m also hoping the journey might be as fun as the destination.
It is. There’s the sunrise over a milky River Teign as we glide through Teignmouth, and by teatime I’m in Paris, eating a glossy coffee religieuse – doubledecker eclairs that look like nuns in habits – on a sunlit boulevard. A dawn start the next day takes me, via TGV, along the French Riviera, past palm-fringed resorts, onwards to Barcelona and finally to Plasencia, in Extremadura. It’s 11pm, yet the Plaza Mayor in its historic walled heart still echoes to the chatter of animated locals digging into raciones of Iberian ham and paprika-flecked grilled octopus.
Next morning, I ascend the valley to the peaceful village of Jerte and its hospedería – one of Extremadura’s network of hotels which, like the national paradores network, are all housed in restored historic buildings. The squat white-washed building was once a leather-tanning factory, but later became an oil press. My room looks out on the vocal River Jerte, and beyond to hillsides crisscrossed with terraces planted with cherry trees. At least I have a ringside seat as their buds strain to unfurl.
A mural at one of the growers’ co‑operatives. Photograph: Clare Hargreaves
I join the collective waiting game, passing the hours by roaming Jerte’s cobbled streets beneath the geranium-draped balconies of its half-timbered houses. One afternoon I tackle the rugged mountain trail taken by Holy Roman emperor and King of Spain Carlos V to reach the monastery he chose for his retirement in 1556. The poor emperor was so riddled with gout he had to be carried on a sedan chair over the mountains and across a vigorous river at a point now marked by a stone bridge known as the Puente Nuevo. My circuit culminates in the high drama of Los Pilones, a jumble of granite boulders that have been eroded and bleached by the river to form crystalline bowl-shaped pools.
Back in Jerte there are cherry products to sample – from liqueurs to jams and bottled fruit. In the hospedería, a knockout cherry and pistachio dessert rounds off the regional tasting menu – remarkable value at €45. In summer, local people marry cherries with tomatoes to make a variation on gazpacho. Edible cherries, of course, are the big difference between the Jerte and Japan: Japan’s trees are ornamental, whereas the Jerte’s are fruiters, and the main source of income for the valley’s inhabitants. Had I time to linger another couple of months, I could witness the area’s second annual spectacle – trees laden with the lipstick-red fruit. That calls for more festivities so, from a tourism point of view, Jerte has two bites at the cherry.
At the processing factory down the valley towards Plasencia, I see white-coated workers cleaning the machinery, ready to wash, grade and pack Jerte’s cherries from late May to late July. “This is family agriculture,” says Mónica Tierno Díaz, who directs a collective of 15 local cherry farming cooperatives. “Cherries are our way of life. Picking them is how I learned to count as a kid. Most growers in the valley have just a few hectares and pick the cherries by hand into chestnut wooden baskets. But marketing and selling their fruit is difficult. So we do that for them, our key markets being Britain and Germany.”
Alongside commercial varieties, such as Lapins and Van, Jerte produces a small stalkless one called Picota, which is unique to the region and has protected designation of origin certification. Pop into your local supermarket in June and you may well spot these tiny, slightly crunchy jewels. “Many people got used to black gobstopper cherries, so getting them to buy these smaller, paler cherries was a challenge,” says Mónica. “But once people taste them and realise how sweet they are, they’re hooked.”
The River Jerte runs through Cabezuela del Valle. Photograph: Maria Galan/Alamy
Next morning, I drive down the valley to the hillside village of El Torno and witness a Jerte transformed; it’s as if snow has silently fallen during the night. The trees have finally put on their floral finery, the party has begun. I explore the orchards on foot – the best way to experience them – following one of the valley’s many well-marked footpaths, and settle beneath the blossom-laden trees for a hanami picnic, Spanish-style. I’m grateful for my early start, for I’m soon joined by a boisterous crowd of blossom-baggers who have followed one of the tourist office’s cherry-viewing driving routes and are now posing for the ultimate floral selfie. As well as El Torno, the 50km motoring circuit takes in neighbouring Rebollar and villages such as Valdastillas, Piornal and Cabrero on the other side of the valley, while the equally spectacular 30km linear route traces the main road down the valley.
With each passing day, the blossom edges up the valley like a frothy white wave, finally reaching the village of Tornavacas at the top. Donning my walking boots again, I head there from Jerte along the Ruta Cerezo en Flor (the cherry blossom trail), and from its mirador (viewpoint), I gaze at the sea of blossom below. (Incidentally, if you tire of blossom-gaping, the tourist office runs a two-week Cherry Blossom festival – part of a six-week spring festival – with an ambitious lineup of events across the valley’s villages, from folk dancing to concerts and exhibitions; 27 March-11 April.) Returning to my hotel in Jerte, I notice the streets and bars are buzzing. Time, I think, for a celebratory tot of the local cherry liqueur.
I’m sad to leave this magical valley. But as I journey home, I console myself that in a few months I’ll hopefully be savouring Jerte’s Picotas at home, a sweet, equally fleeting reminder of Spain’s very own sakura.
One killed and 29 others wounded in latest Israeli attack in violation of ceasefire.
Published On 26 Feb 202626 Feb 2026
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Israeli strikes on Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley have killed one person and wounded 29 others, the latest in a series of ceasefire violations.
Lebanon’s Ministry of Health announced that a “16-year-old Syrian boy was killed”, the National News Agency (NNA) reported on Thursday. He was named as Hussein Mohsen al-Khalaf and was killed in a strike on Kfar Dan near Baalbek, the L’Orient news outlet reported.
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At least 13 air strikes were recorded, four in Shmestar, five in Boudai, two in Harbata and two in the Hermel and Nabi Chit mountains, according to NNA. Several shops were damaged in the Baalbek Souk in Tallet al-Ajami.
The Israeli military said it targeted eight camps belonging to Hezbollah’s special operations unit, the Radwan Force. It said weapons and missiles were stored there and training was conducted “as part of preparations for emergency situations, and to plan and execute terrorist plots”. It said this activity was a “violation of the understandings between Israel and Lebanon”.
Ceasefire violations
Israel’s military has continued to carry out attacks in Lebanon, despite a November 2024 ceasefire with the Lebanese armed group Hezbollah that sought to bring an end to more than a year of fighting. More than 300 people have been killed since then, including 127 civilians, according to the United Nations.
Last week, at least 12 people were killed in Israeli strikes on the Bekaa Valley and the Ein el-Hilweh Palestinian refugee camp near the city of Sidon. Israel said it was targeting Hezbollah and Hamas command centres.
Lebanon filed a complaint with the UN in January, detailing a total of 2,036 Israeli violations between October and December 2025 alone. It called on the UN Security Council to compel Israel to end these actions and to fully withdraw from its borders.
Israel continues to occupy parts of Lebanon, blocking the reconstruction of border villages and preventing people from returning to their homes.
Lebanon’s government has said it has almost completed its ceasefire commitment to disarm Hezbollah south of the Litani River. It said it will need four months to complete the second phase.
However, Hezbollah has rejected this, saying it believes the disarmament in the ceasefire agreement only applies to areas south of the river.
