We managed to get ourselves to Bern quite easily. It’s just 52 minutes from Interlaken by train and we took our time at the hotel this morning. We dawdled over breakfast, had a wander up the street, finished our packing and caught a cab to the Interlaken OST train station for our midday train.
View of Lake Thun out the train window as we travelledViews of the mountains as we travelled.
We had lunch near the station and caught a cab to our AirBnB where our landlord, Jürg, met us. It’s quite comfortable but there’s no washing machine and no TV. We haven’t had the TV on in our hotel rooms so we won’t miss that but a washing machine would be useful
David had a nap while I unpacked and then we walked around to the Coop where we stocked up. So tonight we had our first home cooked meal since we left Wiltshire. Tasty, it was too.
Nice to see some trees out the window of our apartment.
Early night tonight, I reckon. This time next week we will be up in the air on our way home. We will be ready for it.,
Yesterday evening we wandered down to the station at Interlaken Ost to buy our tickets for Bern and then Zurich so we are organised now for our remaining eight days in Switzerland. On the way back we went into a Chinese restaurant called Bamboo. It was very busy and we enjoyed our prawn dishes.
Today we decided to go for a wander through the shops in the old town and, of course, we stopped for ☕️ and 🍰 at the famous pastry maker, Schuh’s.
Beautiful & fragrant roses all over town.
We then caught the funicular up to Harder Kulm which is 1323 m above sea level. It took about eight minutes to reach the top and seemed to go straight up. We had a perfect day for it! Actually the weather has been wonderful the entire time. We had lunch at the restaurant there – a burger for David and fish and chips for me – both true to form. Both very nice.
The view of Jungfrau from there was incredible and I loved it .
Paragliding is very popular here and you can see many hanging about in the sky at any time. That’s definitely not for me!Many people took photos beside these characters beside the walk from the funicular to the viewing platform.
Being someone who finds going down on an escalator scary, I was worried about coming down in the funicular. I didn’t get a seat but I gripped the railing very hard and even managed to look down as we slowly moved back to ground level. I was very brave!
We crossed the River Aare by bridge to reach the funicular. There are beautiful flowers everywhere here. It’s very pretty.
I let David go on ahead and went to spend a few minutes of calm in the Japanese garden next to our hotel. It is lovely and if we open our window we can hear the waterfall.
Rest time now before our final dinner with our friends on the tour.
Yesterday we left the hotel early and boarded our train. It was a spectacular journey. We were served our lunch of chicken stroganoff and apple pie at our seats as we tootled along. David is not enjoying being served chicken all the time so somehow managed to get himself a salad and a frozen yoghurt.
We changed trains a few times which was no problem since our luggage had gone separately. We went through a 15km tunnel through the mountains. Building that would have been interesting! David was impressed.
This is a remnant of the ice ages.
When we arrived in Interlaken, we walked the 500m to our hotel and then organised ourselves for the three nights here before going down to dinner at 8. The tomato soup starter was better than Heinz Big Red and it was followed by a piece of pork served with mashed potato and green beans. We didn’t wait for dessert as we were too tired. We were all weary but all we’d done all day was sit on the train. It was a long 10 hour day!
I was very distressed last night to learn that I wouldn’t be able to go on today’s excursion- the train to Jungfraujoch, Europe’s highest railway station as there are no toilets on the train. Our tickets meant that we all had to travel as a group. There were two changes of train and toilets on the station but each stop was only five minutes. So that situation was unsuitable for me. David decided to stay with me in Interlaken. A few others also decided not to go.
Last night we cancelled our lovely five days in Montreux on Lake Geneva which also upset me but we are way too tired to manage our luggage on the three little trains we would need to use to get there. There’s no luggage storage areas on the train. We tried to organise a transfer by car but it would have been well over$1000 to get to Montreux and back to Zurich to fly home. Instead we have booked a place in Bern from the 22nd to explore there for five days. There’s just one train and then one to get to Zurich so we think we will be able to manage.
This morning was wash day so after a very leisurely breakfast, we set off to the laundromat which I’d found. Google Maps sent us astray ( it wasn’t my fault at all) and after a few hours of waiting around, the washing was done and we followed Apple Maps back to the hotel
Our lovely depot for coffee whilst we waited.
I definitely think it’s time for a rest before we go to buy our train tickets for the last part of our travels.
Dapper Dave and Dinky Di 