Touring Interlaken

Bob's parents are in town for the week. We are excited to show them our favorite spots in Basel. The kids have their usual sights to show-off to visitors: our local park, our favorite chocolate shop, and riding the trams. My in-laws have been pleasantly surprised by how easy it is to get around without a car and how clean everything is. This is their first time to Europe, so everything has been new to them.

It's fun to play "tourist" while visitors are here. We all took an extended weekend trip to the town of Interlaken, in the Swiss Alps. Interlaken means "between 2 lakes"; Lake Thun and Lake Brienz are on either side of the town. The scenery is beautiful with snow-covered mountains surrounding the area. The town draws a lot of toursists, so I'm glad that we were staying at a quiet hotel away from the main street. We heard a lot of English around us from other tourists visiting from the US, Canada, England, and Asia. I'm not used to hearing so much English, so at times I felt more like I was at a theme park rather than in Switzerland. But alas, we can see why so many people visit this beautiful place.

We used the best weather day to go up to Schilthorn, which is one of the nearby alpine peaks. To get there, we took mountain trains and cable cars (large gondolas) through small mountain villages. The area is a popular paragliding spot, so we enjoyed watching them sail down from the peaks. We also saw cows at all elevations, and I realized that the large cowbells are not just for show! The older cows use the large bells so that younger members of the herd can find the group, and of course, it's easier to hear where the cows are roaming on the hillsides.

Schilthorn is perhaps best known in the 1969 Bond movie, "On Her Majesty's Secret Service". (I need to put that on my list of movies to watch.) We ate lunch "007-style" at the rotating restaurant at the peak to enjoy the surrounding mountains. And we all had fun making snowballs in May!

Our trip up and back to Schilthorn took us through the Lauterbrunnen valley. The area is known for the many picturesque waterfalls cascading off the steep mountain faces. We stopped at Trümmelbach Falls, which are glacier falls inside the mountains that are accessible through an underground lift. The noise was deafening from the water and the power was unbelievable!

Lauterbrunnen valley with waterfall (left)

We encountered some rain during the weekend, but still were able to get out on a boat cruise on Lake Thun. The color of the water looked turquoise at times (I'm sure it was cold!) and I loved watching the trains go by the edge of the lake. The entire trip was a wonderful mini-vacation for all of us.

Before I say a goodbye, I will mention that today I learned that the formal goodbye over the phone is "Auf Wiederhören" rather than "Auf Wiedersehen". The latter expression means goodbye, literally "see you again". Over the phone, the expression means goodbye, but to "listen again". So, it makes me wonder -- how do I say goodbye online? Perhaps "Auf Wiederlesen"? (To read again?)