12072008 BLOG

December 7, 2008

Our foray into Switzerland to head off any potential problems with not having a Visa was the only unanticipated part of our whole trip. To keep to our original plan of celebrating Christmas in Rome and Midnight Mass at the Vatican, we had only two weeks outside of the Swengen Countries before we needed to start back toward Rome. Since going to Switzerland was a spontaneous side trip we didn’t have definite plans. We talked about going to Zurich from Luzern but our friends, Bob and Joyce Ryan, who had lived in Germany for 4 years suggested we might like to go to Interlaken.

For us, our stay in Interlaken was such a significant departure from the rest of our trip that it totally absorbed us and became a cherished place where figuratively and literally our moments there will forever be frozen in time.

The last part of the drive to Interlaken from Luzern took us through steep mountain gradients and curvy roads. Even though it had recently snowed and there was a significant amount of snow in the higher elevations, the roads were clear and the day was sunny making the drive pleasant. Some of the scenery through those mountains was so beautiful it is unbelievable even today.

Interlaken is a small but fairly affluent resort town. It sits between two large lakes which draws summer vacationers and is just north of a range of the Bavarian Alps with some of the best ski slopes in the world that draws winter enthusiasts. Even though it is a small town, it has top notch hotels, the Linder Grand Hotel Beau Rivage, the Ritz Carlton, Hotel Royal St. Georges (an English “Top Hat” hotel that was magnificent) and the hotel we were fortunate enough to stay in, Hotel Metropole, plus 3 or 4 others.

We arrived around 2:00 pm and stopped for a late lunch at a restaurant on the north side of the lakes at the base of a fairly high mountain range. Looking across a long meadow, we watched hang gliders take off from the mountain tops and glide down to the meadow. It made you really want to give it a try. Instead we opted for a sandwich. In looking over the menu, we both decided a ham and cheese sandwich sounded good. But, when the waitress came to take our order, we learned the menu price was for either ham or cheese, not both. If we had been fully alert, one of us would have ordered a cheese sandwich and the other a ham sandwich and then married the two. But, the guy next to us with his golden retriever eating off of his plate preoccupied our thinking.

Our first impression of Interlaken was that it was a small, sleepy mountain village. In looking over the brochures of attractions, we found you could take a rail trip up to the “Top of Europe.. O.K., we’ll see the sights and take a train trip through the mountains. Wow!! What a surprise.
The train trip took a couple of hours, and if you wanted to spend any time at all at the top, you had to leave early. The train station was only a few blocks from the hotel and right across from a bakery and coffee shop. Any bets on what we had for breakfast? Yep, a couple of delicious Swiss pastries and hot coffee consumed on the 9:00 a.m. train headed for JungFrauJoch (the Top of Europe).

The first train took us through prime ski slopes to Kleine Scheidegg. The area looks like big time ski country and the trains and community are set up to cater to the skiers. In Kleine Scheidegg we changed to a cog wheel train built in 1896 that took us to the top of the world. The grade up to the top was so steep and slippery, riding on a rail with teeth was the only way to get there. The 45 minute trip entirely on the inside of the mountain had 2 stops on a rail siding that allowed descending trains to pass. These sidings were close enough to the outer wall of the mountain that observation windows provided incredible views of the landscape below. See photo of houses that look like fly specks.

At the top, the train station is a multi-story building with restaurants, observatory, research station, observation platform called the Sphinx terrace that you reach via a 111 m (364 foot) elevator, access to the “Ice Palace” (really cool), a snow covered peak a stone’s throw from a glacier and a trail to a mountaineer’s cabin. From our vantage point of 3454 m (11,332 feet), we could see Interlaken and the entire top of Europe! It truly is a “once-in-a-lifetime” experience.
At that elevation, climbing around was strenuous and breathing difficult, not to mention it was -9⁰C (15.8 ⁰F). We had a hard time catching our breath after walking up a single flight of stairs or small inclines. How mountain climbers do what they do is remarkable. Why they do it is even more unbelievable. Speaking of living things managing to survive in those conditions, the birds we saw up there didn’t seem to be having any problems. I don’t know what they do for food. It’s not like there’s a lot of bird seed on a mountain peak covered with snow and ice. The Research Center has a Solar Neutron Event counter (another one is at the Einstein Museum in Bern) which shows the events optically as a red flash, part of their cosmic ray research.
We were at the Top for over 4 hours and had to leave in time to catch our connecting train back to Interlaken. When we got to the place where we changed trains, the moon had just crested over the peak of Mt. Eiger, and I strained to see if Clint Eastwood was on the North face taking part in the Sanction.

When we were getting nearer to the lower elevations of Interlaken, we both started having headaches that were almost unbearable. I know mountain climbers get headaches when oxygen deprivation is prolonged. I don’t know why we got them when we descended. The next day we both were fine with no lasting after effects.

Seeing the beautiful ski slopes whetted my appetite to try skiing. We got in touch with a couple of ski schools and were just about to commit to a lesson when we heard the area was in for a nasty snow storm. Getting into and out of Interlaken isn’t bad if you don’t have to contend with icy and snowy roads. We had to head back to Italy in a couple of days to make our apartment reservation in Rome so we couldn’t afford to get stuck in Interlaken with no way to get back. If we could make it to Bern, we could take a major, non-mountainous road back to Luzern and then to Italy as long as Gotthard Pass was open.

When we headed for Bern, it was overcast and snowing and it looked like the snow clouds were going to be there for awhile. By the time we got to Bern, snow was quickly accumulating and slowing traffic to 40 mph (guardian angel didn’t send us a snow plow this time). After a hectic drive through the middle of Bern we opted for the outskirts. Finding a new Holiday Inn that was part of a new indoor shopping mall next to a train and bus station eliminated any doubt of where we were going to stay.

Ed and Dorothea