Day 6-7 Berne & Interlaken, Switzerland

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And so onto Switzerland as was next on our list of countries! We took the bus between Lyon - Berne (almost half the cost of train) which was about 5.5 hours via Geneva.

Good journey all up and arrived at Berne (Capital of Swiss) at lunchtime and decided instead of heading straight there to lock our bags and take a chance to check out Berne as from the bus it looked like a cool city. And have to say we were pleasantly surprised it is well worth a look. The old town was pretty but very small, just 3 streets really but enough and plenty of views as it is quite high up. City itself had a really good old feel to it and the buildings had a lot of character. Found everything there to be so clean and the people extremely helpful, really good change after coming from France! One funny thing we found was this fountain in the big square, check the pictures but random jets fire walter anywhere in the square and was amusing watching people getting soaked. 😊

From there we took the Intercity to Interlaken (45 mins) and easily the best train we had taken to date (well the first class to Lyon was pretty darn good I guess) , though the IC trains to tend to be more expensive it is a really smooth ride. Interlaken is in the South West wedged between the Alps and is a great place for peace and quiet with amazing natural views all around. We we surrounded by mountains as well as two lakes which had an amazing blue color to them and were soooo clear. Totally not what I expected as from all accounts it is normally humming with tourists but definately not the case at the mo. I'm guessing April is pretty much out of season but the weather was really good with temps between 17-23. We stayed at Walters B&B and fully recommend, we had a massive room and both windows had views of the mountains. Pretty nice and was so quiet, has cheap beer and also worth mentioning is Wally cooks up an amazing breakie in the morning for you.

As we arrived pretty late on the 1st night in Interlaken took it easy and got stuck into the heavy bottle of Polish vodka I have been carrying around for the past week!

Day 7 - Interlaken

Woke to a beautiful day in Interlaken, really expected it to be much cooler there but today tempartures were expected to be up around 23+ which is good for April. Sorted out a plan and went to Lauterbrunnen to start with which is slightly higher up in the Alps at around 786 meters. Basically LB is a valley that has been carved out of the glaciers over hundreds of years. There are supposed to be some 78 waterfalls all along the valley which is pretty impressive and the valley walls themselves are upwards of 600 meters high, perhaps more. So we did a hike along the base of the valley checking out the waterfalls but what we did not realise is we were on the kiddies track, was wondering and complaining to Ania that the hike was not particulary challenging! When I hike I like to actually follow some sort of track not a gravel road, anyway we powered on until we reached Trummelbach Falls. These are easily the most impressive as the waterfalls are ACTUALLY inside the mountains the only downside is you have to pay to get a lift to get in the mountain, from there you can walk up the 10 flights or so checking out the waterfalls as you go. It was also really dark and wet at times but the immense power of the water could be heard everywhere!!. Definately something to check out if you are in the area but the downside is the cost about 11 Sw Francs pp, remember these are waterfalls, the swiss know how to make their money.

From there we continued to the cable car which took us up to Merren (no way to walk up unless you take very dangerous trails at this time of year). Merren is a tiny village at about 1650 meters, the cost was a pretty insane 10 Sw Fancs for this journey (about £6) and was only a few minutes. You can take one for 1/2 the price to Gimmelwald but that will add about an extra 45 mins to your hike across the top (which is already 3-4 hours and no doublt you will be walking on a gravel road, no thanks!). Note you can also go all the way up to the summit of Jungfrau and check out the James Bond 007 restaurant via cable car. Cost though per person was about 160 francs return from LB which was out of our price range, though if you go at 6:35 am I think it is about 50% cheaper, we however are certainly not morning people!!

Once there the views were again stunning, all around as we had a perfect day though at this height it was a little cooler and down from 23 to 13 degrees. You can view all the summits around you (Eiger, Mönch, and Jungfrau) which vary up to around 4200 Meters. We then decided to take a spot of lunch in the swiss countryside with the amazing views, what we didn't realise was once we started eating next to us a fertiliser tank started up and began ploughing the hills with NATURAL fertiliser (if you know what I mean). Boy what a smell, not what you want when you are eating, Ania had already mentioned this is probably not the best spot but I stubbornly stuck it out. Now I know how all those swiss fields looks so grassy and green 😊
After taking way to many photos were hiked along to a point where we started to go up and ran into some snow. Not exactly prepared as neither of us had proper hiking boots (too heavy for our trip!!) and lost the track several times but eventually reached the far side of the valley. We took the quicker route down which was sooo step and treacherous, instead of an hour down it took us close to two hours or more. Constantly running into snowed up areas and broken bridges, trees fallen in front of us etc!! Never saw ANY peoplke whatsover, was begining to wonder if we would spend the night here..
When we eventually reached the bottom, totally exhausted we found a sign saying this track was closed
😞 How typical, I have to say again that the swiss and their trail signposting is pretty non-exisitent, we battled that hill for a few hours only to be told it was closed!

That was it for Lauterbrunnen, really recommend the place though I probably would still say Interlaken is a better base, especially at this time of year as most things in LB were closed. Also the transport in Switzerland is so expensive so you do not want to be going back and forth between towns to often!

Day 8 - Interlaken, Lake Thun

For our last day in Interlaken we again had some amazing weather and decided to do a hike around Lake Brienz. Unfornunately as we wanted to hike around it and take the boat back we found the boat ONLY works on weekends, great so in the end we decided on my 2nd choice which was Lake Thun. Still pretty impressive we got a daily boat ticket for around 17.50 each which gives unlimited boat travel for the day.
We firstly took a walk to a neaby town through a nature reseve where we saw some 1 deer and some fish and an old roman castle, better than nothing. Pretty nice views again around the lake and arrived in Newhaus after about 1.5 hours to take the boat to Thun. Unfortunately the boat was not exactly what we expected and more of a very slow cruise. Full of children and older people constantly taking pictures on the deck so you could not move. It also stopped at every stop and it was a painful 2 hours or more before we reached Thun. Also it did not give us much time to get back and hike any parts of the lake so I was really gutted. Pretty sure Ania didn't mind as meant I was not dragging her up anymore mountains today.

We decided to come back on the boat again after advice from Tourist information that there were no other boats. You can imagine my expression no not again (more pain!!!) about 1/2 way and got off at Merrigen. From here we walked the rest of the lake, but again we had probs with the swiss trails, they are extremely difficult to find and follow at the best of times!. Managed to get back to Interlaken early evening but if I had the chance to do it again I think I would have stuck with Lake Brienz and just walked it and forgot about the boat trip. Another thing to mention is that in one week in April lots of trains, cable cars, shops, anything are closed for maintenance. Just happend it was that week we were there, lovely.

After this day it would only be lifted by getting stuck into the polish vodkda but at least my bag was finally getting lighter!

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Photos

Bern fountains
Water jets popping up everywhere and a rainbow by luck.

View from Wallys
Views from our room in Interlaken, awesome.

Trummelbach Falls
Amazing set of falls.

Cable car to Merren
Steep car up the valley in Lautenbrunnen, stunning views.

Murren village
Views of all the mountains around us.

Snow on our track?
Where did this come from, totally not expected!

Murren
Walking the top of the LB valley, loads of flowers.

Interlaken at dusk.
Nightfall in quiet Interlaken.