Interlaken and Vitznau

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Another beautiful (and rigorous) day in Switzerland. Unfortunately I’m having real trouble going to sleep still, and this was exacerbated last night by the fact that I could not get my nightstand light to turn off. The lights are hard wired into the wall, and mine decided that it would not go off. I finally put a dark shirt over my eyes around 3 a.m. and slept okay until the wake up call at 7 a.m. Today was a big day- we had a trip to the Five Star Hotel Victoria-Jungfrau in Interlaken and a trip to VCT Hotel Management School in Vitznau. The trip to Interlaken was gorgeous- it looked a lot like the mountains around Wolf Creek Pass in Colorado. The lakes here are crystal clear and blue green, and seem so inviting. Every lake is dotted with white sailboats and larger excursion boats. We have been primarily in tourists towns, and Interlaken was no exception. The Hotel Victoria-Jungfrau is a stunning hotel property. It is one of the largest in Switzerland with 210 rooms and several large meeting spaces. A highlight of the visit was seeing one of the largest chandeliers in Europe and getting an exclusive back of the house tour of the property. Our guide was wonderful and so friendly. We followed our tour with a fantastic three course lunch in the Pastateca. We were able to enjoy their anti-pasti bar then had our choice of fuseli pasta with beef or garlic pesto with prawns. As the pesto dish featured locally grown white garlic basil I opted for it. I was not disappointed. Our dessert was a chocolate ice cream with a biscotti and rum sabayon (sort of a foam). The service was exquisite, and I was very proud of the students for trying new things like pate en croute, prosciutto, pickled zucchini, octopus seafood salad and other beautiful anti-pasti.
We left Interlaken and headed back towards Lucerne (about 1 hour 15 minutes drive) and were warmly welcomed at the DCT School of Hotel Management. The staff was so friendly and accommodating and gave us an overview of the school, its programs and student life. We took a tour of the campus and were able to visit the culinarium where a cooking class was in progress. Talk about high stress! I could see the students were relieved to be done with their culinary courses for the summer!]

We were treated to several research presentations about hospitality education, the connection between the GDP of Switzerland and tourism and a new hotel/art installation concept called Null Stern (Zero Stars). Our students stayed engaged and I know they were all very interested in meeting the VCT students too. The Dean of VCT received her degrees from Texas Tech and also a culinary degree from the CIA. Everyone really was delightful.

We were all beat when we got back to our hotel and many students opted for dinner at a local Engelberg pizzeria. I split a Hawaiian pizza with a student and we felt adventurous to try pizza with ham, pineapple AND peaches. It was delicious. Tomorrow we will get an opportunity to go up to the Ski Resort Mt. Titlus via gondola. We’ll have an opportunity to play in the snow and ride down on something called a trotti-bike. It should be a grand adventure for accident prone me. There is talk of parasailing from Titlus on Thursday, but I think I might opt for the museums of Lucerne. We shall see. In the meantime, if you are keeping count, I have ruined another article of clothing. My khaki pants have a mysterious red-stained rear that looks like pink ink. It is not budging so I am not holding out much hope that they can be recovered. As clothes cost a fortune here, Scott has offered to send some my way- if I lose any more I’ll have to take him up on his offer.

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