Amazing Alps! Wubbish Weather.

Our trip to Interlaken, from Bern, was taken by train. We followed the breathtaking scenery closer and closer to the Alps, until we came to the town which is nestled at the foot, between two lakes (funnily enough). We trundled ourselves along to the hostel we had booked to stay in, Balmer's Herberge, following the handy signposts. It is the hostel in town. We didn't know this when we booked, or we possibly would have opted for somewhere more sedate. Hindsight is a marvellous thing. Halfway along on our journey I discovered I had left a carry bag (containing a blank Venetian mask, an Italian poster for the movie Roman Holiday, and goodness knows what else) on the train. I practically wept. We carried on, however, and arrived to plonk our stuff in our dormitory, charmingly furnished with red gingham curtains and bedspreads. We strolled back into town to have a look at the alarming array of tourist shops stretched along the streets, then back to the hostel, then back to town for dinner supplies, then back again to the hostel. So much to-ing and fro-ing. It was enough to make one dizzy. However, we cooked ourselves a proper dinner in the somewhat limited 'kitchen' and had a nice time chatting to a couple of Kiwi girls in our dorm before bed.

The view out our dorm window in the morning was amazing. Steep rooftops leading up to snowy alpine peaks (it had snowed two days before we arrived) and blue blue sky above. We'd been a little out of touch with family, so made use of an internet cafe just down the road to do some emailing, etc. When one wasn't typing one was captivated/horror-struck/intrigued (strike out those that do not apply) by footage of various of the adventure sports advertised in the area. Some are quite remarkably dangerous looking (see: canyoning). After trotting in to town to try to discover how to reclaim baggage left on Swiss trains (bureaucracy) we bussed out to the Lake Brienz shore at Bönigen where we found a place to hire a pedal boat for an hour. The lake was lovely, and we had a happy time chasing coots and pedalling under the big bridge. Back on dry land we found some benches we had spotted from the water and had a nice hour or two reading and sleeping in the sun. In the evening, after a sumptuous feast of hand made burritos, we employed ourselves gainfully by improving our snooker skills. A necessary ladylike accomplishment. We're fairly evenly matched (Robyn has the skill, I get the flukes) so it's fun.

Friday was raining raining raining. With a spot of rain on the side. We had been hoping to go up Jungfraujoch, but that was well and truly out of the question, so we spent most of the day fluffing around in the hostel, with a brief trip to town to restore our sanity in a coffee shop. All adventure sports being somewhat dependent on the weather, the hostel was inundated with people who had nowt to do but turn to the bottle. So nice for the rest of us.

The weather was much improved down in Interlaken on Saturday, but the live cameras showing the view at Jungfraujoch were still only picturing white (snow, or cloud? both, possibly), so we rethought our plan of action. Trümmelbach sounded a likely spot, so we took a train up the valley in search of waterfalls and sleepy Swiss countryside. We found it! We alighted from the train at a wee town called Lauterbrunnen, then took a bus to the falls at Trümmelbach. The falls drain the glaciers of the Eiger, Jungfrau and Monk, and hurtle the icy water through paths carved inside the mountains. It is a wet experience, but definitely worthwhile. There are twelve or so vantage points to see different parts of the falls from, and one gets to them by elevator and steps and paths inside the mountain. It was gorgeous. We walked back to the town, rather than take the bus again, and saw lovely Swiss cows with bells on and dozens of other waterfalls against the cliffs. Lots of wandering and a game of mini-golf later we returned to Interlaken to have dinner at a local fondue-serving place. The fondue wasn't really that amazing. It would have been nicer with veges to dip in (not just bread) but it was fun to try.

We'd found a leaflet advertising a church that we thought we'd like to go to on Sunday morning, before heading off to Avignon. We decided to book our train reservations, as we were ready early, so made our way to the station. It was a good thing we did, as we quickly discovered that there were no reservations available to go to Avignon, either on the train we had planned or on any other train that day. We had to do some thinking on our feet, and instead booked tickets to Paris. We'll have to see the South of France another time. . .

Bears in Bern

We liked the Swiss capital. We only stayed for two nights, but it was very pleasant, albeit damp. Arriving in the evening, we booked into our hostel and settled ourselves in. It was relatively late and raining so we didn't go out to see anything of the town, but enjoyed a nice early night.

Our first tourist spot was, of course, the bear pits, though we did stop on the way to them to have a look inside a very cool 19th-century church (it had Swiss flowers painted on the ceiling). One bear was out and active and very kindly ambled up and down for us. The pits are fairly Victorian in style, but they are building newer, more natural habitat-y pits to be opened next year, I think. We hung over the edge for a while talking to it, then went into the visitor centre to get transport cards.

Bern was the city in which young Albert Einstein was residing when he decided that e equalled mc². There are all sorts of museums about his life and science, and we decided to start with the Natural History Museum. Unfortunately the exhibition there proved to be temporary only, and hence not covered by our travel and attraction cards. We decided to give it a miss and snobbed them for the Alpine Museum over the road. This was a basic sort of museum, not too interactive, with lots of relief maps of the Alps and stuffed alpine animals. It was here that we, sadly, had our only glimpse of edelweiss, and that dried and in a tacky kind of display case. Still, it wasn't that bad. They had some very good books on alpine things and we watched a sweet, if somewhat soporific, slide show. We then went to the house where Einstein had lived, which is now a museum dedicated to his discoveries in Bern. It was very well displayed, with the rooms set up as they were when he lived there and facsimiles of many of his notes, etc. It was good to learn a little bit more about him.

We decided not to leave Bern straight away on the Wednesday, but took a funicular up to a hill on the edge of town that promised good views and a playground. It was actually a great amusement area, with a little train, a huge wooden activity area, little gypsy caravans and cable cars to sit in, and odd sculptures. The Swiss really know how to do good playgrounds. We had a nice snooze on the green grass for a while before going back down and making our way to the station.

Roadtrip!

After we'd had a brief look around Basel with Andrew and Rob, we set off toward Germany. We were stopped at the border, and our passports checked, which was exciting. Robyn had left hers in her case in the boot and had to spend some time rummaging for it. We were waved through finally and drove on, with an audio commentary from the GPS ("in 200 metres, bear left") (not that kind of bear. That would be silly). Our first stop was in a tiny village where we patronised the gasthaus for kaffe and apfelsaft (a nice apple juice drink). The room we were in had a big ceramic heater just like we'd seen in the Tyrolean Museum in Innsbruck, which was cool. We then drove up into the hills and stopped at a clearing to stretch our legs and take photos. The scenery was gorgeous - hills and valleys with dark shaggy trees and mist and cloud rolling between them. Cameras were kept poised and ready for action the whole way.

The guys had booked accommodation for the first night in Freiburg, and they'd treated us to a hotel! (For their benefit as well as ours). Bob and I were very impressed and, as soon as we got up to our room, simeltaneously squealed "ooh, a bath!". It was terribly exciting, and we swiftly made sure we would be in for the evening to indulge. There were even little packets of sweeties on the pillows! We wandered down to have a look at some of the town before finding a place for dinner. The munster (cathedral) was very impressive, and there were some lovely buildings along the streets of the town. Also an odd thing - small ditches of water running along one side of every street. Nobody fell in, though it wasn't for lack of trying. We found a lovely little eatery in the food area of town where we all tried spätzle - a German speciality. It's a kind of extruded pasta/gnocchi type substance, and was presented to us in individual little cast iron pans with cheese and other flavourings. A good comfort food, we decided, and very nice. Back at the hotel we had our baths (bliss!) and went to bed (only slightly delayed by an acute attack of giggles I had in the elevator), revelling in the hotel-y-ness of it all.

We checked out bright and early the next morning and headed off for Lake Titisee. It's a holiday destination lake, and is very pretty. The weather wasn't that amazing, so we just parked the car and had a little walk, stopping in the town at a little general food store to get some lunch supplies for later on. We carried on driving up country and found a lovely look out point to stop for lunch and a sermon (Robyn had to restrain herself throughout from taking photos of the mist through the trees). Further on we came to an industrial town called Schwennigan, where we found a little clock museum. It was really interesting, focussing not on the clocks themselves so much as the production of them. There was nobody else there when we arrived, and an English speaking chap came out and gave us a personal guided tour which lasted for about an hour and a half! He was very enthusiastic and showed us how all the different machines worked and told us about the history of the industry in the area and the uses of the time clocks and various other things they made. At the end we got to try out a 'build your own clock' kit, which actually worked (once we'd put it together the right way). After leaving there we made straight for Baden-Baden (actually a town nearby where we were booked to stay). We asked for dinner recommendations at the hotel and were directed to a family restaurant with a great range of local cuisine. We had a fun dinner with lots of giggles and tasty food.

On Monday morning we decided to go to France for breakfast. We drove to Strasbourg (after extricating ourselves from the revolving door at the hotel - two people with two suitcases is too much for one compartment!). Parking in a mall, we had a nice pastry breakfast and went for a stroll towards the cathedral, a large pink structure. We didn't stay long, as it was drizzling and not much to do, and headed back into Germany and the Black Forest. We enjoyed our scenic drive and were intrigued, on stopping by the road for lunch, on finding an old Nazi bunker entrance in a hillside. Quite random. Afternoon tea was had at a scenic (spying wind turbines and a cable car through the clouds) spot, sampling Black Forest Gateau. Seeing as we couldn't really explore anywhere we went back to Basel and had a short stroll, before we caught a train down to Bern and the boys returned to the airport and London.

A Short Sojurn in Basel

We next stayed a night in Basel, as we had arranged to meet up with Bob's brother and a friend the next day for a wee roadtrip. We paused in our train journey from Lucerne to Basel in a little town called Zofingen - a pretty place with some lovely buildings and fountains and even a comfortable bench to snooze on!

Basel is a busy place. It was a hot day when we arrived, and we had a very warm walk from the station to an odd little hostel in a converted industrial warehouse. After a rest we did some exploring of the town - we found some cool chocolate shops and had a look inside the church.

The next morning we trundled our luggage into town to sit on some steps and eat breakfast, then made our way to a market square: Petersplatz (there was supposed to be a weekend market there, anyhow, but there wasn't). We appropriated a bench facing the road and took turns going for a wander while we waited for the boys. They arrived promptly in a car (yay!) and wandered downtown with us for a quick look. It was funny - they kept pointing out the lovely old buildings which we had become somewhat blasé about - we only respond to really amazing ones now :o)

Lucerne

Lucerne was our first stop in Switzerland, and very nice it was, too. We arrived by train early-ish in the evening, and had a pleasant time baffling a bus driver by catching the correctly numbered bus to get to our hostel, but in the wrong direction, and hence doing a tour of the city instead of taking a 5 minute journey. The hostel was a little tricky to find - they didn't blow their budget on signage - but very nice indeed once we did locate it. It had a lovely kitchen (yay!) and our two bed room had its own balcony. We were fairly tired, so hopped into bed shortly after 9pm, only to be alerted by the sound of loud booms coming from the direction of the lake. I was convinced Switzerland was being invaded, but Robyn went and leaned over the balcony and spied fireworks through the trees. We jumped out of bed and threw our Oxford hoodies on over our pjs (classy, I assure you) and raced downstairs, out of the hostel, over the bridge, and through the woods (no, not really, I'm just getting carried away). To the lake front, anyway, where we sat on the beach and enjoyed a magnificent view of the best fireworks display either of us have ever seen. The explosions were huge bursts of colour reflected in the lake - they were enormous, and the show lasted for a good half hour. We had no idea what it was in aid of, but discovered back at the hostel that it was the anniversary of one of the train companies. We were very impressed, and thought it was the best welcome to a country we had had yet.

Wednesday morning was hot, and, on our tiki-tour the day before, we had spotted a pedal boat hire place on the lake, which we therefore made for. We hired a boat for an hour and headed our towards the centre of the lake, admiring the lovely buildings on the shore and dabbling our toes in the water. It was very pleasant, and Robyn even ended up going for a swim. Back on dry ground we headed for the Verkehrshaus (the Transport Museum), where we planned on visiting the Planetarium and the IMAX theatre. The Planetarium show was first, and we enjoyed a nice relaxing sit in our reclining chairs and leant back to watch the show. It was, perhaps, a tad athiestic, not to mention horoscopical, but interesting nevertheless, especially as I had never been to one before. Next was the IMAX, where we watched a doco called 'Alpen' (recorded in English, dubbed into German, and listened to by us in the original English via an audio guide. Terribly convoluted). It was about a chap called John Harlin III, who climbed the Eiger's North Face via a route that his father had climbed and fallen from. It was very interesting, showing his preparation for the climb and the climb itself - terribly moving. After we were done here we went to have a quick look at the museum proper before it closed. We were so disappointed we hadn't come earlier to have more time! It is an amazing complex (think of MOTAT, only bigger and better and better). There are units on trains, cars, space travel, air travel, communications, ships, and cartography. You can whizz from one exhibit to another on little scooters that are left along the paths, and the displays are filled with interactive simulations and games. We were running around like little kids until they closed, flying 'copters and manning space missions, recording TV newsreels and directing air traffic control. It was wonderful.

A wander through town the next day revealed an English bookshop - so exciting! We have the ability to spend a good long time in bookshops. . . We'd thought we'd like to have a swim so, as I remembered seeing a beach on the other side of the lake, we walked around. . . and around. . . and a little bit further. . . It turned out the beach was a lot farther round than I had thought and it cost to use it! So rude! We took a bus back to the wee beach near our hostel.

We also enjoyed seeing the Lion of Lucerne. It's a massive statue carved into a cliff face portraying a dying lion. It's amazingly well done.

All in all, Lucerne was a favourite destination. It's a gorgeous town in a lovely country.