Since learning we’d be in Paris leading up to the 2024 Olympics for work, I’ve been following some Americans who moved to Paris on YouTube – their channel is called “Les Frenchies”, (yes, I know… but what can you do?), and they have some great, up-to-date content for people visiting Paris. One of the things they highly recommended, was something I thought would be way too touristy for my liking, but based on their frequently voiced dislike of highly touristy experiences, I thought we’d give it a try. So, I booked us a dinner cruise on ‘Le Calife’.
Seeing we are now staying in Saint Germaine (*wipes away faux tears* – it’s lovely, but it’s not the Georges V!), we had only a short 350m walk to the Pont des Arts, where ‘Le Calife’ is berthed.
I love this! I wonder if this was dedicated before she passed away in 2020… ‘On 23rd September 2021, “The ‘Place Juliette Gréco’ was inaugurated in Paris. It can be found beside the Church of Saint-Germain-de-Paris, in the 6th arrondissement of Paris.” Bummer.
This is not out boat.
This is our boat. Le Calife was originally built in Belgium in 19as a cargo carrying ship and has large twin stream engines, but when this type of transportation became less popular it was sold to an enthusiast for restoration. It apparently took 18 years to restore and transform it into a restaurant; it has its original engines still operating. The ship is all fitted out with red mahogany, brass and other decorative details, including seriously vintage stained glass lamps from 1789… which I will no doubt mention later!
Square du Vert-Galant…
Pont Neuf…
We were welcomed aboard at 20:00 with a glass of champagne, and a set menu with several delicious choices for each course…
Our delightful waiter asked us if we would like a bottle of red wine or white wine, all chosen by the chef… we had both chosen meat for dinner so opted for a bottle of red. Which may or may not have been a bit of a mistake, because we didn’t realise that we weren’t going anywhere until 2045, and the first course of dinner wouldn’t be served until roughly 21:30..!
Cathédrale Notre-Dame de Paris… still under masses amounts of scaffold as the restoration after the 2019 fire, but expected to reopen December 2024.
A nod to the teams of people working on the Cathédrale…
L’entrées… the vol au vent of chanterelles with foie gras and morel mushroom sauce for me, the Label Rouge salmon fillet gravlax with fresh cheese and herbs for Mr K:
Ah, there they are, the fabulous antique stained glass lamps through the verandah of the boat. A lovely touch, but perhaps not so practical when it comes to photography reflections!
The mains… Rossini style beef tenderloin, with foie gras, Dauphinois potatoes and roasted vegetables for me, and Lamb shoulder confit, with seasonal vegetables and baby roast potatoes for Mr K:
Just as dinner was being served we sailed into view of the Eiffel Tower. Gorgeous! I particularly love the stained glass motif they have incorporated into the lighting! 🙂
It is a striking element of the Parisian skyline for sure. A little after these pictures were taken, we swung around and the tower started to ‘sparkle’ as they have the flashing lights going for five minutes on the hour every hour… kinda gave up on the photos by now though.
The underside of one of the several bridges we went under… complete with reflections of someone’s dinner. 🙂
Dessert… Lemon cheese cake, with lemon cream, lemon sorbet and limoncello for me, and Chocolate lava cake, custard and Madagascar vanilla ice cream for Mr K. The lemon on lemon with a lemon motif was really quite good!
Alas we were back to the quay all too soon; not really it was just before midnight. The dinner cruise was really lovely. The food was nice, but we made the mistake of doing this *after* we’d had the fanciest meal of our lives at Le Cinq! When will we learn… you don’t go China straight after you go to Japan and you don’t go to a *good* French restaurant the night after going to a internationally famous three Michelin star’d French restaurant!
Concierge: Oui, madame? Kate: Yes, bonjour. Do you speak any English? Concierge: Of course. This is the George V, not some backpacker hovel.
Ever since seeing those hilarious and famously snobby lines in the 1995 movie, French Kiss, with Meg Ryan and Kevin Kleine, I’ve wanted to come check out the Georges V hotel in Paris… and here I am nearly 30 years later finally getting a chance to do so.
The hotel has an artistic director, and one of his responsibilities are the famous floral arrangements that are found throughout the hotel’s foyer, restaurants, bars and rooms. The flowers are replaced every 21 days like clockwork and they order between 12,000 to 14,000 stems per week with a budget of around $.1.4M (and I assume that is USD) per annum! Seeing that it is spring, I was expecting bright colourful displays something akin to what we saw at the Kukenhof only, indoors… instead it was a rather understated affair with the boldest element being masses of yellow roses:
Juliette checked us in and let us know that she was available to assist us with anything we might need. She congratulated us on our silver wedding anniversary, and showed us to our room personally. Along the way, she confirmed that our dinner at Le Cinq was confirmed and should we need anything at all special at dinner, to please let her know so she could take care of it for us.
The room was beautiful – and enormous. We booked a standard king room, but Juliette led us to a superior room with a balcony. As a general rule, the hotels of Paris are busiest in the high season, but in the shoulder season, like this, the busiest time of the weeks is Wednesday to Sunday with many rooms remaining empty on Monday and Tuesday nights… so hint for new players; best chance for a room upgrade on Monday or Tuesday nights.
Juliette was sure to let us know that the Georges V wished us a very happy anniversary and they offered us a bottle of champagne with their compliments, (a bottle I later spotted on the room service menu for €170)…
Also was a piece of chocolate cake that I am sure Mr K will enjoy later…
And some very pretty love heart chocolates filled with liqueur…
It seems sweet treats are the favourites in this part of the world, as we were also bestowed a box of delightful macarons, and a special chocolate and pecan brownie from the hotel’s patisser.
Juliette wished us a very nice stay and handed us our keys, and I got to poke around properly. lol. The keys, btw… beautiful.
We had a delightful space to make tea and coffee with a ceramic and leather kettle, a coffee machine and a huge variety of teas and coffees to choose from.
We also had a well stocked mini-bar, and the fridge was bursting with goodies also… though I’m wary of the price point on some of these! That’s the problem with hotels of this level of luxury – they’re usually catering for people who don’t care what the bill comes to! Not people like us, who are splashing out as a one-off!
The bathroom had a beautiful and deep bathtub, which I took full advantage of!
The bathroom was as stocked with amenities as a minibar – loofah, bath salts, dental kit, sewing kit, nail kit, shaving kit, cotton buds, make-up wipes, comb, hair brush, shower cap, mouth wash, dental floss, shampoo, conditioner, shower gel, hand wash, moisturiser… you name it, it was probably already here for you.
This is *half* the walk in closet, complete with safe, slippers, bathrobes, laundry bags and god knows what else.
The bed looked so good, I almost didn’t want to jump on it… but I did!
Complete with monogrammed pillow shams…
Every little detail was beautiful… I had a lovely hour relaxing in the tub followed by the decidedly thoughtful champagne; felt thoroughly spoilt.
Dinner was booked months ago when we booked the hotel. The Georges V is famous for its Le Cinq restaurant… of course with claims like this, you wonder if it will live up to the hype.
The restaurant is actually quite small, seating only 60 guests and very elegantly appointed. I snavelled some stock photos of the restaurant as it was quite dimly lit and I forgot to stop and take a picture.
Before we even saw a menu or the wine list, (which btw, is like a 200 page book!) we were presented with some delightful canapés… the caviar was the really good stuff!
The degustation menu looked really good, so we decided to order that. Given we have no allergies or anything, the only information we provided the staff, was that I don’t like chocolate, so would be grateful if the chefs could find a different dessert course for me.
Mise en Bouche: White asparagus and carrot and champagne foam.
Foie Gras poached like a pebble in a iodised broth…
Truffled Gree Asparaus, with a Château-Chalon wine mousseline…
Matured Ossetra Caviar and Bulltermilk with warm smoked salmon… (this dish was my favourite).
Pistachio Sorbet with Citrus Flavour and lobster bisque…
Black Pudding scented with passion fruit and coffee…
M. Roman came along at this moment with the highlight of the meal… le chariot à fromages magique! We chose about six different cheese, and they were all delicious.
Mignardises…
Dairy Iced with yeast flavours…
Crunch Grapefruit, preserved and raw…
Chocolate and Hazelnut Crisps with malt whisky ice cream…
Vanilla mousse served with Strawberries and pesto…! Which sounds bizarre, but tasted amazing.
M. Roman with a Chocolate trolley also filled with ‘Pastry from My Childhood’. Mr K took a selection of chocolates, truffles, marshmallow and other sweet things, but I well and truly felt I had exceeded my sugar quota for the month by this point!
We were also presented with a small chocolate plaque beside some vanilla ice cream to acknowledge out special occasion.
Mr K looking happy and relaxed* (*He hadn’t confronted the bill yet, lol… oh, and I should mention this, as you don’t see it much anymore – my menu had no prices in it, only his did! Que c’est démodé?
Even when we thought dinner was over, we were presented with two little boxes full of fudge to take back to our room…
… which another staff member promptly put into bag with two more little boxes of fudge and another box with a breakfast pastry, ‘in case you need a little something in the middle of the night!’
All up we had an amazing night. The staff were attentive and super friendly. The sommelier was generous, down to earth and told us she is doing an apprenticeship in wine so she goes to study wine one day a week. I realised after dinner that I had expected this to be a stuffy affair – but everyone was friendly and their English was certainly fluent enough to be bantering with the guests, so that kept the atmosphere light and entertaining… and the food was amazing! I don’t know that we would ever do this again, but it was certainly an experience we won’t forget in a hurry.
My mum has alway said, “I wonder what the poor folk are doing today?”, when she was in a luxurious mood… and now I feel like I know what the really rich people are doing!
Mr K posted this on FB:
🌿 Celebrating Our 25th Anniversary 🌿
On this day, a quarter of a century past, we entered into the marrriage, witnessed by our friends and family, to embark upon a partnership of profound affection and mutual respect. I could not have imagined a greater setting to celebrate our love and 25 years of marriage than to be with you now in Paris. This is a significant occasion, and I am compelled to reflect upon the years we have shared, each marked by trials and triumphs that have but strengthened the bonds of our union and have deepened my love for you.
These 25 years have been as full as my heart if of my love for you, as we made a wonderful home together, built multiple careers and now a business, studied, laughed, loved, and grew a family through the blessing of our dear son, Angus. Everything I cherish, and everything I have done of worth in this life was only important to me because you were there and only possible because of your love, belief, and support.
I have always loved you, (and told you so in the first three weeks after we met) but I never believed that anyone could love another more than I did you then. Yet here I stand by your side 25 years later loving you more every passing day as our adventures continue, my love for you deepens, and our friendship grows.
So today know that there is no limit to how ardently I admire and love you, and with great joy can express my deepest gratitude and love on this, our silver jubilee.
May we continue to walk together, guided by affection and esteem, through whatever our future may hold and to embark as soulmates on new adventures until we can no longer travel and then, we can sit together and reflect on what amazing lives we shared and enjoyed together.
To our next adventure, and our next 25 years. Love your dedicated (and hopelessly in love) husband.”
The next morning we decided to just sleep in and luxuriate in the beautiful room. Juliette had given us a late check-out… 3pm! Which is unheard of, (again Monday or Tuesday night bonus apparently!), so we decided to take advantage of the down time before we had to face the work that would be taking over this week. We are here to meet with bus people and Olympics transport organisers for the 2024 games, which happens in less than 100 days, so there was going to be plenty to do. We ordered in breakfast around 10:30am.
Eggs Benedict. I loved the little stamped cultured and uncultured butters… you guess which is which.
We had an amazing stay… the hotel really pulled out all the stops. I’m not sure I would want to stay here a week, even if we could afford it, mostly because this area doesn’t really reflect my perceptions of ‘typical Paris’, but it has definitely been an amazing anniversary interlude in the middle of a work week – even if we did end up on zoom meetings this morning!
Just when we thought they couldn’t exceed expectations any more with the personal touches, Juliette came to see us as we were checking out with yet another gift, this time containing a candle that has the Georges V’s signature scent – and indeed, the box smells just like the entire hotel does! I❤️ Paris!
Bern today! Bern, apparently so named because Berthold V, who established the city in 1191, held a hunt and the first animal that was killed was a bear (‘bero’ being Old High German for ‘bear’). Bears are the most popular decorative motif throughout the city, appearing on statutes, and monuments, and of course the town’s heraldry which is everywhere! The most famous Bern landmark is probably the bear pit, where bears have been kept at the city’s expense, since 1480! Bern’s Old Town (Altstadt) has been designated a UNESCO World Heritage site since 1983.
The Bärengraben or Bear Pit was first opened in 1857, the current iteration is the fourth bear enclosure to be by the Nydeggebrücke and the River Aare.
As animal enclosures go, it’s very old fashioned and a little sad (though not so sad as the Barcelona Zoo!). Luckily for the bears that live here, they have tunnels in and out of this pit to enormous wooded enclosures that line along the Aare riverbank, and they have space to run and hide and interact with the other bears.
I think this cutesy statue has probably been deliberately placed by the bear pit to stop people from doing dangerous things to capture a photo of themselves with a bear in the background! Here have a photo with this cute bear statue instead, why yes, you will have to line up for it!
Mr Bear, shitting in the woods.
The visitors are actually quite close to the bears as you look down into their large enclosure by the river.
The Aare River.
View towards some terrace houses from the Nydeggbrücke…
Bern is actually the capital city of Switzerland where the Swiss Parliament sits, and diplomats meet in the Bundeshaus (Federal Palace). It is not a large city (population approximately 120,000), and it’s easy to think the capital is Geneva or Zurich, as those two much larger cities are much more well known. The city is built in a large bend in the Aare River and has its origins in the 12thC – the Old Town, (Altstadt), here is remarkably well preserved… with it’s tiled rooftops and cobbled streets, it’s like something out of a Disney cartoon.
Berthold V, Duke of Zähringen who founded the city in the 12th century.
With some cool plaques extolling his many deeds and martial victories – he apparently died without a living heir, so his line ended with him; which no doubt was a huge disappointment for a medieval Duke.
This monument had the coolest little Bear Squire holding his helm… such a cool addition to the statue.
Berthold, Bero, Bern… I am sure he loved the bear being the mascot/device for the town.
Mr K, ever the transport nerd…
The Altstadt is very cool, with loads of cobblestone streets, and lots of fancy shopping (homewares and fashion rather that touristy souvenir stores – though there are a couple of those too). There are also basement shops under each side of these rows, which seem to house quite a few barbers, alternative stores and other less lucrative or salubrious establishments.
Bern has over a hundred of these incredible fountains spread throughout the city. The fountains existed since the establishment of the town and were originally made from timber to allow citizens easy access to clean drinking water… but were replaced around c.1550 with these elaborate stone fountains. They are stream fed from the Aare River and the water is still clean and drinkable. Most of them are positioned in the middle of streets and make for the most truly charming traffic calming I’ve ever seen.
One touristy shop – first cuckoo clocks we have encountered since we have been in Switzerland – weirdly. Tbh, I don’t like them. Never have.
And as I was saying, interesting basement establishments…
More statues clinging to buildings – no doubt this one had something to do with one guild or another, but I couldn’t ascertain the origins of this rather odd looking monkey.
Each fountain is unique…
Walked by so many fountains, Mr K had to stop for a coffee, which turned into an affogato, which turned out to be a dessert???
More fountains… note the bear on the heraldry of Bern.
The Zytglogge Clock Tower, located at the very centre of town, was built in the early 13thC and was a was a multipurpose tower gate, serving as a guard tower, prison and clock tower.
The clock is 15thC but of course has been maintained and reconstructed in parts over the centuries.
Just around the corner from the famous Zytglogge was the famous Zur Käshutte Cheese shop! In situ for over 125 years, this famous little speciality cheese shop with it’s 100% local produce and the most famous Swiss cheese sourced from right around the corner in the Emmental Valley.
Cheese Heaven!
After a quick stop by the smelly cheese shop… we had to get going to make it to Geneva for the evening.
So today is going to be full of cable cars and trains… because that’s why we are here! Mr K is keen to go to the top of Jungfrau via the cog railway even if the weather is still promising to be utter shite, because it’s the highest railway line in Europe. It has a 9km long line that passes through a tunnel dug into the mountain of Jungfrau that connects Klein Scheidegg to Jungraujoch, which is the top most accessible point in all of Europe.
The view front he breakfast room was leading us into a false sense of security – the snow had disappeared overnight and it was looking positively balmy out.
First we had to go find the park and ride at Grindelwald… I was amazed at the enormous facility they have here. A four story parking building with thousands of car parks, a shopping centre, and ticketing outlets to buy all the cable car and train and cog railways tickets, to get around the area. To take a train from Interlaken to the top of Jungfrau takes about 2 hours in total. To get to Jungfraufrom Grindelwald is about 20 mins on a cable car to Eigergletcher, and then another 20 mins on the cog railway. The network is extensive…
We were taking the 360° panoramic cable car up to Eiger where we change to the railway. Each cable car carriage seats about 24 people and I imagine in busy periods, they’d be packing every seat. We travelled up with about 12 people and back with about 8… so there was heaps of space for swivelling around and taking photos.
The views were surreal… the snow made everything look black and white, even though I haven’t dumped any colour info from any of these photos.
The Eigergletscher station where we transferred to the cog railway.
Travelators, cable cars with plush leather seats, smooth concrete walls, modern trains with video monitors and a voice over in multiple languages, and no noisy ker-chunk, ker-chunk, as you went up the mountain??? This doesn’t match with anything I remember from 30 years ago!
Once we got into the tunnel, things started to look familiar… but man did this train move fast!
Got a better view of it once we arrived at the top and got off for a walk around. Jungfraujoch is at 3,464m above sea level and is the saddle between two major mountains – Jungfrau itself, and Mönch (both at close to 4,000m). This facility is the highest accessible point in Europe, so they call themselves ‘Top of Europe’.
I’m a little concerned at this point with the blue lights and the chain curtains (trying to look like moving aurora) that the experience up here has been ‘Disneyfied’. >.> We shall see!
And the weather outside is absolutely frightful! Snow piled up beside every door and temps of -14°C but with winds of 40kmph, it says it feels like -35°C with the windchill…. and I’m so not stupid enough to go outside in that!
No, nope, no fucking way!
Food options were surprising limited – oddly a canteen that was selling shit tonnes of cup o’ noodles to Chinese tourists, a serve yourself Indian curry cafe and a ‘Swiss cafe’ that turned out to have all the deep fried food in the land. Lunch choice made entirely based on where had the most seats and the quietest children! lol.
So I remember this place as having an ‘ice palace’ with some tunnels of ice, and carvings of eagles and bears and a few other things, and various exits to the mountain so you could go tobogganing or dog sledding (neither of which activity was available today – understandably!). But now it’s all full of neon lights and smooth graded paths.
And then there’s this… which I am unsure what it is supposed to be? Glowing yellow edelweiss and timber deer, and…
… a weird arse snow globe the size of a fridge! Yeah, all the stuff in it moved and the lights changed and I have no idea why it is here as such a huge feature in the Discovery tunnels.
There was a little bit of history, mostly about early explorers and the hardships of building the first tunnels.
This is Mr K’s, ‘confused tourist’, face.
Then the Ice Palace section with the Ice carvings … I quite liked this one.
Penguins in Europe make no sense!
Someone on the design team has a sense of humour:
He actually went outside… however briefly! I, did not. Mountain weather report included below so I can pull this up as evidence next time I am questioning either, 1) his sanity, or 2) his intelligence! (PS: he never reads anything I write here anyway.)
The Saddest Ice Bar at the Top Of the World with No Barman. :’(
They have convenient provided this wall sized backdrop that you could stand in front of for an excellent selfie if the weather was as dreadful as it is today.
Eventually, it was time to head back to Grindelwald… at one point a train conductor came along and punched our tickets – I wasn’t expecting that given we had to scan ourselves in and out through turnstiles on the way up and down. Unlike any other train conductor I’ve ever seen – he was giving passengers chocolates after the exchange!
The views on the way down were just as beautiful…
Grindelwald…
Thus ended our train adventure to Jungfrau.
In the end I was kinda glad we couldn’t go out cavorting in the cold… when packing for this trip, I was super distracted, visitors in the house and things were a bit hectic. I pulled out my hiking boots (twice) and swapped them (twice) for these little Blundstone farm boots; rationalising that they are good for walking around town in wet weather when full-on hiking boots aren’t needed.
I haven’t worn them since GNW last year and hadn’t noticed at all that the rubber soles had completely deteriorated! Fair enough too- I bought them at Yass in 2005, they were a boy’s size 3 and cost me barely $70, but have done great duty… but today they just gave up the ghost and I must have been dropping bits of sole rubber everywhere I went! Nearly every trip, I take old sneakers with me and say I’m going to throw them out and I rarely do – they always come back home again, and some have even gone on multiple long trips with the intent to throw them away. But these ones were so totally trashed, there is no way I was wearing them another day, let alone taking them home. So into the bin they went!
I need new shoo-hew-hew-hew-oos! Luckily we are heading to Paris next week, and I understand this might be a nice place to go shoe shopping! 😀
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.
