We drove from Lucerne via Interlaken to Lauterbrunnen and wasn’t exactly expecting this:
Immediately, I’m wondering if we needed snow tires!
Insert random American Christmas music here!
Ok, enough snow photos (pick the Queenslander who hasn’t seen snow in forever. No, wait… I lie, not since last November in Japan). Anyway, we arrived in Interlaken and while we seemed to be just below the snow line, it was still bloody freezing and just for fun, raining.
We had diverged off the highway on the way into town to get a better look at the lake, and found us a swan, not of the ‘Threatened’ variety.
Interlaken is a resort town in central Switzerland in the Bernese Oberland mountain region. It is often a jumping off point for people who come to the area for winter sports if they’re looking for more amenities than the smaller villages might provide. It is built in a narrow stretch of valley between two lakes – Lake Thun and Lake Brienz – hence, Interlaken. Lots of traditionally Swiss timber houses, alpine forests and skiing areas.
I love the colour of glacial rivers… you see them in Iceland, Canada, New Zealand, Chile. It’s just such a beautiful teal/grey colour that looks inviting, but is so dangerously not!
Having skipped breakfast we were looking for lunch and again turned to the Google, ‘Restaurants Near Me’ function to find somewhere to eat… it’s got me wondering, I use this feature *every* time I travel because if I am going to spend money of a restaurant meal, I don’t want to end up with with a really ordinary experience. But I’m wondering – who actually gets on Google and leaves these reviews? There must be loads of people who do, but I don’t think I’ve ever left a Google review for a restaurant…?
Anyway, we ended up at a restaurant called, ‘Gleis 3’, (which had a 4.6 on the Googles), and an indecipherable Swiss German menu. Mr K ordered a traditional Swiss meal consisting of a potato roesti with ham, cheese and egg, and I had a chicken Cordon Bleu. The foood was beautifully presented and really good.
And because we were planning on skipping dinner, we split an apple strudel as well.
Interlaken is a pretty town, even in the rain.
Tulips!
Lauterbrunnen and more snow! Lauterbrunnen is a village of around 2500 people nestled in a valley surrounded by high rocky cliffs. It has a cable car that runs up to nearby Shilthorn Mountain and the town subsists mostly on tourism, so it is full of lovely quaint little hotels with neat little restaurants.
We chose to stay in the village at the Hotel Silberhorn. I chose a room with a view in case ‘we get crap weather and end up spending a lot of time working in the hotel’. And I think in doing so, I’ve kinda put the mockers on us! Last week, this area was in the low 20°Cs every day and sunny/party cloudy… this week: fucking cold and snow or rain all day every day.
The hotel has had a recent make over apparently – the room smelled like freshly milled timber and has beautiful views down the valley (when the clouds aren’t in, that is).
Old habits came back quickly… popped the beers and bubbles out on the balcony because it’s more efficient than a fridge!
In every direction the mountains looked gorgeous – this is literally the view from the bathroom!
We had some work to get onto, so got stuck into it, while watching the snow falling in large flurries outside and enjoying a nice cup of port.
The next morning, the entire village was covered in a thick blanket of snow! It was still snowing so much you couldn’t see the mountain – behind that tree is a small waterfall somewhere!
We did head out to try and visit Trummelbach falls, which are supposed to be open, only to discover they have had to close the walkways this week due to the excessive amount of rain and snow that they’ve had making entering the falls dangerous. Bummer. I came here back in 1995 an was looking forward to going to see these waterfalls again – the Trummbelback falls have an enormous volume of water coming through them, as they crash down through a crevice *in* the mountain – not tumbling over the side of a cliff like you usually expect. My most vivid memory of them was they were soooo loud and you got quite wet walking around the various levels of the winding pathway that goes through/into the mountain to see them.
So we had a little tootle around the village instead, and went back to the hotel to do some work.
The snow burned off relatively quickly – not because the sun came out, but things warmed up just a couple of degrees and most of it melted away.
As the weather cleared, the view from our room improved – there is the mountain and the waterfall I knew was out there somewhere.
The 300m high Staubbach Falls which is just outside the village. Lauterbrunnen is only about 800m above sea level I think.
There are far more hideous views to work with for the day… 🙂
At the end of the day we treated ourselves to a nice bottle of champagne that we had picked up on the way into town and had dinner in the hotel restaurant.
These last two photos were taken at 10pm – it was pitch black, but my iPhone did a brilliant job with the low light conditions. The waterfall is lit up in the evenings; we couldn’t see it at all last night the weather was so snowy and cloudy… but tonight, it looks lovely.
