Magical Interlaken- Day 1

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DAY 1:
We spent first 3 days of our honeymoon in Rome and Venice- and I loved both cities a lot. But my subconscious (or rather should I say conscious?) mind was eagerly waiting for the day we’ll reach Switzerland- my dreamland for many years.
This morning we started our journey from Mestre to Interlaken in Euro Star. The journey was very comfortable-but the credit does not go solely to Euro Star service. Siam (my hubby) and I were sitting opposite each other and stretched our legs up to rest them on the other person’s lap. I was giving him a foot massage and he was giving me one. After 3 days of walking, this felt like a romantic bliss…
We had to change trains in Milan-it was a couple of hours halt there. We got out of the station and ate at a café- the sea food salad and the tiramisu were delicious. We fed each other the tiramisu and the waiter was sweet enough to volunteer to capture that moment in the camera. We started off for Switzerland again. After some time, the scenery started to change-there was no obvious change in the landscape, but somehow everything looked more organized, more calm and more green.. no doubt, we were crossing the border into Switzerland…
We had to change the train in Geneva and get into an intercity Swiss train that would take us to Interlaken. The train was not as posh as the Euro Star but that didn’t demolish our happiness one bit- I was mesmerized in the scenery that passed by and Siam kept on clicking the camera-even the sealed glass of the window did not stop him from taking pictures of the beautiful rolling landscape of Switzerland.
We reached Interlaken West station in late afternoon. We could take a taxi-that would save our time, but we both opted to take the slow way to the hotel. We dragged the trolleys with us and Siam consulted the map (I have no clue about how to read a map and reach destination-the directions go above my head). We started walking but stopped more often to closely inspect a beautiful flower and take picture of it.
Our hotel was in Unspunnen- a little way up a hilly road. Once we started going up the hill, it got quieter and quieter and as luck would have it, darker and darker. We didn’t meet any living soul on our way up (almost 20-25 minutes) and big trees were looming above the road. I was getting a bit scared actually thinking that Siam might have taken the wrong route but he was confident that this was the only way to the hotel. And as it always happens with roads and directions, Siam was right- after a long way up, the woods on both sides became less dense and we could see a Swiss chalet style hotel. Instantly, the nervousness was a distant memory and I started posing (with the cows that were grazing along the hilly slope) for Siam’s camera. I loved the cows and loved the sound of cowbells even more. There was a barn at the foot of that grazing slope and it was named MMUUHH.. I loved the MMUUHH as if it was a life size picture from an Enid Blyton story book.
We stayed at Wald Hotel Unspunnen. It was run by a friendly Swiss couple. The man was very jolly (had a hanging picture of himself in a wood in Robin Hood style dress up with bows and arrows) and the lady was strict but caring. The hotel was very well maintained, clean and had all modern facilities like internet browsing room and all.
We were given a room on the second floor with a balcony facing the snow capped mountains. The view was breathtaking. The snow changed color with the time of day. We spent some quite time over there but realized that we were pretty hungry. By the time we showered and changed, it was almost 9 pm and we were amazed to find out that the hotel dining was already closed. We were completely shocked that no other place (not that there were many options where we stayed up the hill) were open for eating at that time. We had only one option- to go down to city center where one restaurant was open.
I bluntly refused to walk down the hill again in the dark- even though I was informed that Switzerland is completely secured from robbers/thugs, what was the guarantee that no animal would come out of the woods at night?? We called a taxi and had to pay 28 Euros to the driver for a trip that took much less than 4 minutes to go down and 4 minutes to come up.
The restaurant was barely crowded. There was only one waitress (a heavily pregnant girl) who was attending all the customers. We ordered pasta and something we guessed would be a substitute to pizza but were wrong. The food was ok but the atmosphere was very charming. The weather was slightly chilly, the surrounding was very quiet and the night sky was very clear. Siam and I had a splendid time over there.
After sometime, we went back to hotel and spent some more time in the balcony. There was no noise, but once in a while a car would pass by the hotel. The distant street lights created a soft glow and the mountains were barely visible under the star light. All we did before going to sleep was sent our gratitude towards Almighty for making our dream come true…

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Photos

Road to our hotel
We had to drag the luggage all the way up this hillyroad

City center restaurant
It was barely 10 pm and there were no diners left