Interlaken - Can It Get Any Better?

Easter Sunday the 16th of April, our final hours in Bern, Switzerland, we had the included breakfast, cleaned up, packed up, checked out but left our bags at the hotel, and hauled a big bag of laundry through the rain, over the bridge, to the opposite side of town in search of the Jet Wash laundry facility. We found it and to our thankful surprise it was open. However, all of the machines accepted only 1 CHF coins, there was no change machine, no stores open anywhere close to the facility, and I had only a few such coins, nowhere near enough to do our laundry. We trudged back across the bridge to the train station where I withdrew some more money, and we went to a little convenience store where we bought a magazine, Time Herald, postcards and water and then asked for our change to be broken down into 1 CHF coins. We figured out that the #20 bus would take us back over to where the laundry place was so we bought our tickets and rode, instead of walked, back. We got the laundry started and after sitting 10 minutes or so reading our new purchases, a french speaking Swiss couple entered the small facility and in between lip-smacking smooches and hollering managed to load up all the remaining washers with their 2 giant Ikea bags full of dirties. Then, as there were only 4 chairs, the guy sat next to me, and proceeded to light up a cigarette, and puff away, totally ignoring the 3 huge signs proclaiming that smoking was not allowed. I took one glance at the cigarette and walked outside where I continued to read the paper. I think he got the hint because soon after, he actually came outside, and finished what was left of the cigarette, and smoked the rest of his cigarettes outside as well. Eventually, we finished with the laundry and went back to the hotel to pick up our bags, repack them, and then head down the block to the corner burger-shop where I got some chicken sandwiches...wow, were they expensive! Then to the train station where we learned we did not need to reserve seats on the trains and just got aboard the next one leaving for Interlocken. Once again, the views were magnificant on the way and I got some good video shots. The ride was just a quickie, at about 50 minutes, and once off the train, had no trouble finding our hotel. We attempted to check in, but no one was there, and so we locked our bags to the handrail posts of the steps that lead upstairs, and went for a walk around town. Of course it was much quieter than normal due to the Easter holiday, but regardless, this town is just so beautiful, and so peaceful. It created wonderful sensations inside of both of us. We made our way back, and were greeted by the extremely friendly Ursula and her dog Monty. Ursula took great care of us, giving us all sorts of information, recommendations, maps, etc., and even demanded to carry Vee's bag to our room where she got us all settled in. She recommended a walk that we could squeeze in before the sun went down, and so after dropping off our bags, we immediately headed back out into town and were rewarded with just some amazing scenery: mountains, rivers, canals, the town center, typical neighborhoods, shops, pubs, sunset, etc. Everytime we thought we saw the most beautiful view of the night, we'd find another one. This went on and on all night. We found a little coop market and loaded up on a few goodies to eat before heading back to the hotel where we snacked on a delicious still-warm freshly baked loaf of bread, a selection of cheeses, olives, macaroni salad and beer. Tomorrow, I think we are doing a combo train ride and hike up to the summit of one of the mountains nearby where the views are to be the best. Hopefully the weather will give us a break.

Monday, the 17th, we enjoyed a simple but delicious included breakfast(excellent granola/mueslix cereal, and even some hand-painted Easter eggs), and had a very nice conversation with Chris and Ursula, the owners of the B&B. They are extremely friendly people, and extremely good at what they do. In fact, later on in the day, we decided to extend our stay for another night due in large part to how welcome and helpful Chris and Ursula are. After breakfast, we embarked on our day trip to Schilthorn, which perches itself 11,237 feet high in the Alps and is to have 360 degree views of the entire area. The trek would include a quick train ride from Interlaken West, to Interlaken Ost; another train ride from Interlaken Ost to Lauterbrunnen; a funicular ride up to Grutschalp; a cog ride up to Murren; a walk through the village, a gondola ride to Birg, and a final ascent to the top via another gondola where we ended up inside of a wonderful circular facility that is Schilthorn. The weather was beautiful, but just above Birg, the cloud cover began, and so from Schilthorn, the views were limited. We had a wonderful lunch inside the spinning restaurant, and got to see the "touristarama" which was a multimedia presentation that explained the story behind the construction of Schilthorn, including a series of movie clips from the James Bond ('007') movie "On Her Majesty's Secret Service", which was filmed there in 1968, the year after construction was completed. We spent alot of time out on the terrace where the sunlight coming from above, and simultaneously bouncing off the snow under our feet, created a very warm convection effect and was actually quite toasty. Luckily we had sunglasses, and strong SPF, or it would have been difficult to withstand. After a few hours, taking lots of photos and video, and watching skiers and snowboarders do their thing, and the other tourists do theirs, we headed back down, eventually into Interlaken Ost. Rather than taking the train to the other side of town, we walked, found a little outside cafe offering a special on coffee and tarts and sat down to enjoy. The weather was still beautiful, and we thoroughly enjoyed our non-direct walk back to the hotel, parts of it by the river, and parts through streets in town that we had not yet explored. After another nice conversation with Ursula and Chris at the front desk, we went to our room, did our chores, and went to bed.

Tuesday, April 18th, after breakfast and such, we discussed our plans for the coming day, and days. The weather looked to be iffy today, so we rearranged things so that we would road-trip to Lausanne today, do a full day in Interlaken tomorrow, and Luzerne the following day, possibly skipping Zurich altogether and on to Munich Germany the day after. We'll see. Last night, I discovered a library of used books downstairs and snagged one called "The Rule of Four" by Ian Caldwell and Dustin Thomason. I told Vee about it, and this morning, she chose one called the "The Deep End of the Ocean". We finally got out of our room, and ran as fast as we could across town to the the Interlaken Ost station, only to see our train pull out of the station. The next directly to Lausanne would not be for another hour. We analyzed the posted departure schedules and found an alternative train leaving in 25 minutes that would take us to Montreux, and then we could take another train from there to Lausanne, and so that is what we did. The ride into Montreux was wonderful. One thing I noted though was that the architecture in the countryside of Switzerland is practically identical. It was not until we got back into the relative urban area of Montreux that the architecture became quite varied, and quite French in fact. Montreux lies on Lake Geneva, right across the water from the French Alps. The Swiss speak French pretty much exclusively here, as we were reminded of this when we tried to order something at a little convenience store, and the late serving us couldn't speak German, or much English, but only French. With France just across the water, it makes perfect sense. We really had no expectations for Montreux, and honestly, we decided at the last minute to explore it rather than getting directly onto the next train leaving in a few minutes to Lausanne. And man-o-man, what a place!!! Vee said that it reminded her alot of Monte Carlo in the Riviera, and sure enough, when I re-read the bit in our Lonely Planet book about the city of Montreux, it was described as very much like the Riviera. It was just absolutely gorgeous, with diverse architecture and grand hotels and palaces, with the glass-topped Lake Geneva, the snow-topped French Alps bursting up from the horizon across the water, the swans and ducks bathing themselves just feet away from the boat docks, the lakefront clay tennis court clubs, blooming flower lined walkway, moored sailboats, sculptures made out of atypical materials, the castle, the terraced vineyards up the hillsides and deep blue sky with big white puffy clouds. We walked along the water down to the castle, and then jumped on board a train that eventually got us to Lausanne. Though Lausanne was written up pretty positively in our book, we found it to be not quite so impressive. Not bad, by any means, just not that nice either. I am very certain though, our impression was heavily tainted by the fact that we had just come from such an extraordinarily beautiful place in Montreux. In Lausanne, we bought a little map, and headed up the steep hill in the center of town to the cathedral. We circled it once from the outside and also went inside. It was fairly plain, but like in Bern, had beautiful stained glass windows. Then we walked over to the "Flon" part of the city, which was to be converted warehouses housing pubs, cafes and galleries. There really wasn't much there, and the places that we found, were mostly clubs that would most likely not open until late at night. It was getting late enough, and we felt we had seen enough, so we walked back down to the train station and rode back to Interlaken, both reading our new books along the way since it was dark, and there was nothing for us to see out our window. After our arrival, we hit up the coop for some munchies, and walked back to the hotel to call it a day.