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Interlaken was definally not a let down!!!!!!
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Interlaken is one of those places that you hear so much about on your travels that it can't be a bad place to hit if only for a couple of days. When I was in Paris 4 months ago I had the opportunity to meet a wonderful family from Bern, Switzerland. I contacted them before I made my way into Swtiz just to get some feedback on what to see and what to miss. Markus wrote back, "Do not miss Interlaken". We boared the hour long train to the tiny adventure capital of Europe. We arrived and checked into our hostel. A hostel that has run for 50 years and had the most amazing Swiss charm anyone could ask for. An amzing place to hang out, party and meet people.
Interlaken is know for their adventure sports, Bungee Jumping, Sky Diving, Para Gliding and so much more. I persoanlly had enough adventure when I crashed a scooter on the side of a street, I didn't think I was going to have a lot of luck jumping out of a plane. For my mother's sake I decided to forget about it and stick to the groud.
Markus wrote me and told me to head up to the top of Jaungfrau, the highest train station in the World and "The top of Europe". Jaungfrau is close to 4200 meters high and the train takes you up to close to 3900 meters of that. It was along ride though. The rail system up the mountain was built in 1893 and finished in 1905. A very old rail line and well before its time. Tunneling through most of the mountain during its climb made for a really cool experience. 2 train changes, one in the tiny village if Grindelwald and we were headed to the top. This was going to be Manny's 2nd time in his life seeing snow and I couldn't wait to see his reaction. The train pulled into the station and we got off. Like I said earlier when I wrote about Lucern, I thought Mount Piltus was awesome but the view from Jaunfrau made the other peak look like a ant hill. It was -1 degrees at the top but felt like a nice crisp -10 with the wind. In the sun it got warmer but it was still pretty cold. As soon as Manny stepped foot onto the snow he had arrived. I just took out the carmea and captured as many pictures of him just playing like a little school girl. Throwing snowballs, desperatly tring to build a snowman, it made for some pretty good laughs. I even caugh him skipping at one point.
We took a small 500 meter hike to the huts on the other side of the peak which really wore me out. I am still blaming it on the thin air but I think it is the beer from the last 4 months. We took some of the greatest shots, watched the helicopters fly onto the peak and just hung out for the afternoon in the snow. It was so quiet and peaceful up there except for the Aisans complaining it was too cold, don't get me started!!!!!
We took the train back into Interlaken and watched the sun set as we took the two and a half hour ride back down the mountain. We headed back to the hostel and took advantage of happy hour in the bar, played some piano very badly and then headed to bed. We hadn't figured out what we were going to do the next day yet but I really wanted to go for a hike.
The next moring we stood inline for our free breakfast. Cereal and Fruit. If I die not eating another "Corn Flake" after this trip I will die one happy man. I have to have eaten about 6 tons of the damn cereal since I have been on this trip. The ironic part is, I don't even like them that much. When its Free it is Free. We had the opportunity to meet a couple in line for our most exciting breakfast, Will and Tori. Americans traveling for about a month. We sat and chatted with them over our breakfast and we all decided we were going to take a trek up to the waterfalls.
We put on our shoes and headed to Lauderbrunner where we took the hour long, ( I know, we really out did ourselves) hike to the waterfalls. 6 Amazing waterfalls inside the mountain face. Taking the elevetor to the top and slowly walking through the carved out paths of the massive rock was really cool. Close to 20 000 Gallons of water per minute pour through the mountain and that was in fall. In the Spring time you can't even go up there there is so much water. We toured Lauterbrunner for the afternoon but being Sunday EVERYTHING was closed. We headed back into Interlaken, had dinner and a few beers. Again, only 2 nights in interlaken and we were on our way to the most perfect little hostel up on the moutain side..........................
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