Day 22: Interlaken - Lauterbrunnen / Murren

Today was a wandering day in the Bernese Oberland. We didn't have any plans or schedules, and decided we would take the train to nearby areas and explore as we pleased. We woke up around 7.30 (though we had planned on sleeping in, this did not work with noisy people in the hostel), and headed down for our continental breakfast included with the hostel. We also fried up 2 eggs to supplement the breakfast. We ate breakfast a little later than yesterday, and it showed. It was much busier than the previous day. We've also noticed that the majority of people staying here are Asian or from India. As a result, I find it a little interesting watching them try to eat a very European breakfast. Many of them dipped their bread into a pool of jam on their plate, rather than spreading it on top. They also seemed to think that breakfast was interesting enough to deem it photo worthy. I suppose that Jeff and I take pictures of our dinner most nights, and sometimes our lunch, so I guess this isn't too strange.

After breakfast and other morning activities, we made our way to the train station. We were hoping to get some fruit from the small grocery store attached to the train station (since it was the only thing open in town), but they did not have any fruit. So we bought a litre of pineapple juice instead. It would have to do.

We caught a train almost immediately to the Lauterbrunnen Valley. The ride was not too long. When we got there, we began our wandering. The area was beautiful - a small town between two mountains.

We quickly focused in on a waterfall that we could see a little ways down the road. We decided to walk down the road to see whether we could get a better view. When we eventually got close to it, we discovered a walk way that would take us up directly behind the falls inside the rock! There was no charge to visit these falls, so we decided to go up the fairly steep path. Other falls in the area are very touristy, and have a charge to take special elevators up through the mountain to see them. We decided we weren't very interested in these falls, but a nice walk up to one would be fun.

The pathway went up to a nice lookout area, and then through a tunnel to a narrow stairway. From there, you had to walk across a pathway cut into the side of the cliff until you were directly behind the waterfall. Once we made it there, it was quite wet, so we were pretty careful about taking any photos. Jeff did manage to get a couple.

When we made it back down to the bottom, the wind must have changed. The water was no longer running overtop the viewing area, and was instead running down far to the left.

We continued a little further down the road in Lauterbrunnen, and then turned around when we were out of the town to head back to the train station. When we made it back, we noticed that there was a cable car that went up the mountain, so we decided to check it out. The trip was included in our Swiss Pass, so we quickly hopped on (urged by the driver that they were leaving NOW). When we made it to the top, it was still lovely and sunny, so we stopped for our lunch on a bench.

As we ate, the clouds appeared to be rolling in quite rapidly. We have rarely seen dark clouds in Switzerland, but these clouds were definitely indicating an impending storm. We had packed our raincoats and decided to put them on. We thought that everything would be fine, we decided to make our way to the town of Murren by foot, rather than taking the train.

This decision quickly became a bad one. Mary had been nervous about the rain when we started, and Jeff was quite clear that we didn't have to walk if we didn't want to, but they decided that they were sure everything would be alright. Well, everything was not alright. We experienced our first true storm in Switzerland, complete with a bit of thunder. We were able to take shelter under a few trees while it hailed (yes, hail. We probably should have turned around when that happened...), but got caught in a massive downpour while we were in the middle of an open area with no trees or buildings nearby. We were very wet when we made it to the intermediate train station, and decided to take the train the rest of the way rather than walk the additional 30 minutes. Jeff was able to take some pictures while we took shelter under various ledges and trees.

When we arrived in Murren, it was still raining, and Mary was very cold since her pants and shoes were soaked through, so we decided to go to the first cafe we saw, and ordered a hot chocolate and decaf coffee. The cafe had a tv screen showing the latest webcam images from the nearby mountains. We really lucked out by going up the Jungfrau yesterday - it was completely foggy and absolutely nothing was visible in the picture other than a few black figures of the poor people that had gone up the mountain today.

By the time we were finished with our hot drinks, the rain had cleared, and the sun was shining. One thing about Switzerland is that the weather doesn't seem to last long. We walked along the main road in Murren until we reached the cable car that went up the Shilthorn. We knew already that the trip was not included in the Swiss Pass, so we turned around and headed back to the main train station by another road.

We noticed that everything in the area was very ski friendly, and that far up the mountain there were clear ski trains. We expect that the town is hopping with skiers in it's many hotels in the Winter. The town is also so far up that it does not have any cars, so walking around is quite pleasant. One thing we noticed was that many stores are closed from mid April until mid June. (Though nothing was open today since it was Sunday, there were signs posted on many store doors). We expect that this is because May is not a particularly busy month for tourism.

On our walk, Jeff was able to take this image:

At this point it was nearly 3 o'clock, so we decided it was time to make it back to the hostel and figure out dinner. When we got back to Interlaken, we found a Coop Pronto that was open, and purchased some cheese and bread, then headed back to the hostel. We relaxed for an hour or so (caught up on news and such), and then headed downstairs to make our dinner.

Dinner this evening was cheese fondue. We borrowed a fondue pot and gear from the hostel reception, and went through the very finicky task of making cheese fondue. We used 50% Gruyere, 50% Emmentaler, and then a cup or two of white wine (leftover from last night), some black pepper, and a spritz of lemon juice. Once we finally had it made, it was pretty tasty, but it took a while to get it melted and to a good consistency. We had a lot of problems with it being just a large mass of cheese that stuck together. Adding some wine helped a bit with this, but I think we probably didn't have the heat quite right, or perhaps too much "fatty" cheese. It was very stringy, and separated out even when we stirred it constantly.

It was looking pretty good on the stove, and Jeff told Mary that everything in the eating area was ready to go, so she took the pot in and discovered that he had not yet lit the burner, so the cheese got cold and we had to reheat it. It still wasn't right at this point, but we decided to eat it anyway. It was at least very tasty. We dipped bread and a bit of leftover potato from yesterday.

After dinner we did dishes, and then headed up into the common area for hot chocolate and watching of the rain (that started 5 minutes after we went up).

On our way back up to our room we saw a rainbow. We took a detour and watched from the patio overhang. While we were there we talked to some people from Kansas, they were interested in what we had done while we were in Interlaken.

Tomorrow we are going to get up and pack before breakfast. We plan on having a delayed departure time so that we can have a train trip that has two transfers instead of three. We will arrive in Vevey with enough time to check into the hostel and sort something out for a reasonable dinner.