Day 17-19 Interlaken, Lauberhorn and the Top of Europe!

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Day 17 We decided to get the bikes out. All who know me know I’m not a competent cyclist, but I really enjoyed the ride into town and beyond to the edge of Lake Brienzersee. So blue! Picked out a couple of nice houses for when we have the lottery win (come on Marlene, we must be due for a win soon!). After a lot of deliberation we decided to buy train passes for the region, and stick around here for about a week. There is so much to see. We also opted not to do the paragliding, so prolific here ..... we thought it too early in our trip for injuries!

Day 18 You can’t keep us off the bike now. We were off again to the station, everyone cycles here and there are lots of places to park bikes. Caught trains to Lauterbrunnen, and then on the Kleine Schiedegg 2061 meters up. Decided we would walk the Lauberhorn ski run today, 20 mins up to the start- hard going at altitude, then 3 hours down to Wengen. Followed the route of the skiers ¾ of the way down marvelling at their bravery/ lunacy when hitting the jumps, tight corners and even tunnels. Seemed to lose the route at latter stage, but picked up a group of unruly Anglo-American kids, who shattered the peace of our last stage of decent. Wengen was predominantly shut, but I’m sure it really buzzes during ski world cup season.

Day 19 Aching today! Took the bus to the station to catch trains to Junfraujoch , also known as the Top of Europe, 3454 metres up. We had picked a beautiful clear day and were looking forward to the view. Unfortunately half of India had also chosen to visit today (an awayday for Amway India we believe). Walking through the tunnels at the top station Kim suggested we could equally be on a busy Tube ! But we were not disappointed with the views, a Sphinx viewing station had amazing magical views. We were looking at the peaks of Eiger, Monch and Junfrau amongst others . Below the viewing station we walked the glacier for a few hundred meters, very hard going at this altitude, but all on snow. (Please see the picture of my snow angel, for which I got a wet bum!). Weather incredible, we were in t-shirts in the sun, yet it was -15 degrees C below. The viewing station also had ice caves, you walked on the ice, but it wasn’t slippery- how did they do that ?? Found ourselves quite exhausted by the excitement, and took the train back down into Interlaken, where we found an excellent pub for several beers and a good (reasonably priced ) dinner.

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Comments

[lesley mcmahon]

hello
you look like your having a brilliant time, its so great to see whay you are up too ! the photo's are excellent, it all looks very exciting. Dont think the heights would be any good for me!! bit scarey!! cant wait for the next blog, love to you both xxxxx