Interlaken II

Justin and I planned a last minute trip to Interlaken last weekend and it was awesome. Geneva has had absolute crap weather ALL summer and it seems the only time it is not 60s and rain is when we are out of town, or on the weekends. This weekend was no exception and it was great. I will post pictures and videos for this post shortly!!



We arrived on Friday night to our lovely two-star hotel, which was like a 15 minute walk from the train station, uphill (only one way). It was kind of nice though because it was away from all the college and tourist "rif raf" which Justin and I get very tired of. We decided on Saturday to suck it up, get out of bed at 530am, walk 1 mile and a half to the other train station to catch the 6:30 train to the Jungfraujoch, the "Top of Europe." Supposedly one of those once in a lifetime things you have to do, it is Europe's highest trainstation (over 3500m) on top of the Jungfrau mountain and draws a LOT of tourists. It took over 2 hours to get there but I have to agree that the view from the top was pretty amazing. You definitely feel like you are on top of the world, albeit part of that world is a freezing, glacier covered world, that was peaceful until an entire trainload of tourists was dropped upon it.



There were a lot of cheesy and fun activities, so we got to go sledding on the side of the glacier, and also try to hit a "hole in one" off this golf tee into the snow. That was the most I have ever played golf in my life so I also got a little golf lesson from Justin. After our games we decided to hike to the Monch restaurant (45 minutes away) across the glacier. OK seriously, it was UPHILL, IN THE SNOW and it was so freaking hard. We were dying and getting dogged by old people with those fancy schmancy hiking poles. Abou 45 minutes later, huffing and puffing, we finally reached the spot which was well worth the hike (although the wind was threatening to blow us off the mountain and therefore Justin didn't care too much for the view). We had lunch there which was great as there were not too many other idiots making the hike that far, and then we headed back downhill in the snow, happily enjoying the views this time around.



On our way down from the Jungfraujoch, we stopped in Kleine Schidegg for a beer. This was worth it because 1) the views were incredible and 2) an army of mountain goats, bells clanging madly, invaded the town. There was a small brown army of goats which were show-offs and posing for photo ops, and there was a larger, more confused black army of goats which seemed to do nothing but run back and forth to make their bells ring really loud and occassionally "maa-a-a--a-a-a-a."



On Sunday, we allowed ourselves to sleep in a bit later and then headed to First, where I had gone hiking with Aimee and Chris in May. On the way our train broke down which in my opinion, is a truly rare occurence in Switzerland and deserves to be documented. First was way more crowded, but also a lot more green, so that was cool. And there were cows grazing up at the top of the mountain making nice music with their bells (I know, I agree, sometimes I also wonder if this place is for real). We had lunch on the beautiful Bachalpsee (our lunch was marginal but the views made up for it) and then took a more difficult, out of the way hike down to Bort which was completely worth it. We had the trail almost entirely to ourselves and just shared it with the cows here and there. Our legs were exhausted by the time we made it back to Grindlewald and then to Interlaken.



Now on Monday, I was sick. In fact, I couldn't go to work. So, if I hadn't been sick, Justin and I would have spent Monday relaxing for an extra day in Interlaken. We would probably go up the Harderbahn funicular for lunch over Interlaken with great views of the lakes Thun and Brienz. Then we would head across town to Lake Thun (its called the Thunersee in German, and I of course really like the ads which say "Thuner-see you soon!") and take advantage of the cheap Monday boat rides, buy first class tickets and sit on the sun deck, drinking cold beers while relaxing in the views of the Thunersee and Swiss Alps. Maybe on a last minute decicion, we would stop in Bern and have dinner. Although Bern is not really much to see.



But I don't know, because I was sick. So I probably didn't do any of those things...