Author Archives: borysSNORC

Jungfrau Railway

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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! 😀

Lauterbrunnen

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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.

Lucerne

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Lucerne, (Luzern), is a small town in Switzerland just an hour south-east of Zurich. I visited here in 1995 when doing the 70 day, ‘Grand Tour of Europe’ with Big Sal, Bloody Mary and the adorable Slapper. We didn’t have a lot of time here back then, but I remembered it as a really pretty old market town and was keen to see some more of the place.

The Old Town (Altstadt) has a nearly 1km long Musegg Wall which is part of the old 14thC ramparts. Mr K was immediately excited and exclaimed that he hasn’t seen a real castle before – which took me by by surprise, but when I think back on the travels we have done together, there’s been plenty of palaces, but not many medieval castles. Only one we could come up with was Blarney Castle near Cork – and that’s more a crumbly than a castle, so we will have to fix that in a future trip to Scotland or somewhere equally overrun by castles.

The famous Lion Monument of Lucerne, (Löwendenkmal), was our first port of call on the way into town this afternoon… I wanted to see if in the afternoon light as the morning was a bit ‘meh’, from (my admittedly fuzzy) memory. The dying lion that is sculpted into the rock face of the cliff that overlooks the little town, and was made to commemorate the Swiss guardsmen who died in 1792 during the French Revolution. It’s a beautiful and evocative monument… though slightly less moving when surrounded by 30 or so Chinese tourists all angling for the best selfie!

The Altstadt is right in the centre of town, and full of beautiful old buildings painted in a charming, and very Swiss, style. Just wandering around town is full of beautiful old buildings that mostly house modern shops or restaurants and cafes in them, and accomodations above.

This clock tower chimed the hours and thankfully, (after Bruges!), didn’t have a full on carillon playing a five minute rendition of, ‘Somewhere Over the Rainbow’ several times a day!

The gorgeous Chapel Bridge, (Kappelbrücke), was originally built in 1333 and links the Aldstadt to the Reuss River… like Australians can even get their heads around a wooden structure build by people from 700 years ago! Several sections of it have burned down over the years, but they have always rebuilt it – it is a unique bridge and is truly such a strong symbol of the town, I’m glad they have kept it. At home it probably wouldn’t have been replaced with a concrete monstrosity with steel girders looking like dropped Pick-Up-Stiks!

The construction of it is even beautiful… as are the artworks that have remained in tact. Unfortunately, many paintings were lost during the various fires, but some remain.

Just a stunning even for a stroll through such a quaint medieval town.

Yes, I couldn’t help myself and took way too many photos… the one below is our version of a selfie: you can see our shadows on the ironwork of the bridge we were standing on.

Lining the river near the bridges are a long row of old hotels that have fantastic local restaurants in the basements ands hotel rooms above them… this is where you find our exactly how expansive Switzerland is as a tourist. Even though this is a small town, it has LOADS of accommodation options, but staying in one of these hotels facing the bridge can set you back around $600-800 a night – and we aren’t looking at high season pricing! And for that price, most of these hotel rooms don’t include breakfast, are not air conditioned and might not even have a lift to get you to the higher floors!

Hotel Schiff is a hotel I decided was definitely *not* in our budget, but they have an excellent restaurant, so we thought we’d go check it out for our first Swiss dinner.

The staff were friendly, and didn’t even seem to mind my mangled attempts to order in German. We did manage to get a recommendation for a local beer for Mr K – the Eichhof Kloster, which is some sort of unfiltered pale ale. He was so fond of it, we had to go find some in a local bottle shop the next day.

Dinner was a hearty (read: stodgy) affair of meat a pot-ay-toes! I went for the beef cheek, (Sorry, Slapper, I know you hate tertiary cuts!), and it was super tender and delicious.

Mr K opted for some pork meatballs, also served with a huge serve of mashed potatoes. I loved that he crockery, cutlery and glassware in the place didn’t seem to match, and we had little blankets and braziers even though we were undercover.

Thanks to indulging in a few glasses of rosé and possibly one beer too many, dessert sounded like a good plan tonight and we tried some apple fritters. These were super tasty – but also super sweet, so Mr K got to finish most of it.

Next morning – we woke up to a simply gorgeous day! Unexpectedly so – the weather forecasts had told us it would be miserable and we were nonplussed by that, as we were checking out transport for most of the day…. Lucerne, though it is a small and compact town, has an extensive public transport network which was why we were here.

We took a walk along the river and across the small section of medieval bridge, similar in design to the Chapel Bridge that is close to a really cool little hydro plant, in order to get to the main train station.

This small section of bridge has more of the old paintings in the rafters…

There are massive beams in the construction – I assume they are oak, but that’s just a guess.

The hydro system – more towns should put these in their rivers.

Such a pretty town. Love it!

We spent most of the day with work stuff around trains and the mass moving of passengers – Lucerne does their tourist thing really well, we were impressed. In the evening decided to ferret out a raclette or fondue dinner somewhere… now, I’m all about the cheesy goodness, but not super fond of the fact it’s usually served with bread, bread and bread, or potatoes, potatoes and potatoes … or sometimes loads of bread and potatoes.

So, we did a bit of research and found the highly rated, Fondu House du Pont! Booked a table and got ready for a rich, but hopefully not too bread and potato-y fondue.

Such a cute little spot by the river.

Booking a table gained us the best seat in the house and we had to suffer with this marvellous view for the duration of our meal! Blue skies, mountains, old buildings… gorgeous altogether!

Our five minutes of research paid off – there was indeed a cheese fondue on the menu that could be ordered with yummy meat sides. The fondue was called a Moitié Moitié, and was made with Gruyère, and Michael Tell Alp organic cheese and a splash of garlic, and we were able to order it with a serve each of sliced chicken breast and sliced beef.

The claim on their website it’s that it is ‘The Best in Town!’, and while we have nothing to compare it to – it was fantastic. 10/10 would do again. The service was excellent, the wine list was extensive and reasonably priced and the fondue was really, really good.

So much gooey, stringey cheese! I am we looked like complete savages trying to tame the cheese, but didn’t care – it was delicious!

Back towards the town after a long day of work and a yummy evening of fondue… this town is so pretty.

I did make the mistake of looking up Lauterbrunnen though… we are supposed to be taking the cog railway, (yes, more trains!) up to Jungfrau one day this week – but bloody hell! Maximum temperatures of MINUS 19°C or 20°C that feels like MINUS 34°C… I think this may be taking Mr K’s enthusiasm for transport way too Farr

Screenshot

And scary room chicken* agrees with me!

  • We stayed at the Magic Lantern Hotel and had a room called, “The Farmer”. The hotel has all these weird themed rooms… it was covered in chickens in a most disconcerting manner! In hindsight… maybe we should have shelled out for a Pirate Room; no pesky chickens!

Tournai, Waterloo and ABBA, oh dear.

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We are headed to work in Brussels tomorrow and decided to go via the city of Tournai and the Battlefields of Waterloo. Tournai is a cool little town of about 70,000 people, and it lies in the westernmost reaches of Wallonia, (a province of Belgium which rests right against the French border). It is actually far closer to the French cities of Lille and Roubaix, than it is any other major Belgian city and the primary language spoken in Tournai is French.

Tournai also has the distinction of being the oldest city in Belgium, alongside Tongeren. Surprisingly, its heritage stretches as far back as the 1stC BC. For much of its history, the city of Tournai belonged to France, from the Merovingian kings to the Hundred Years War.

Clovis I, who created France(TM) originated from Tournai and made Tournai as his capital city. Having said that, Tournai’s glory days were in the late Middle Ages when it prospered as a centre for culture and trade.

The Grand Place is the central square (or in this case, triangle) of the town. It is surrounded by gorgeous old buildings that housed the many guilds and merchants of medieval Tournai.

Christine de Lalaing, a governess who rose up and led the people in the defence of the city, against Parma in 1581.

The Notre Dame Cathedral of Tournai is a UNESCO World Heritage listed building, constructed in a high Gothic architectural style. Like many cathedrals that were built and expanded upon in the 12thC-14C, it was built on top of early Roman church ruins.

The building has seen much better days – I think being in such an obscure little town, it has been left to decay over many centuries. There are renovation efforts underway at the moment, and it looks like they’ve been at it for well over a decade – but there are some things that are going to be near impossible to ever restore to their former glory.

Inside, we arrived just after a morning service. Many parishioners were just leaving the church and we noticed there were gas heaters throughout to keep them comfortable – it is about 14-15 degrees Celsius outside, but I swear a good 7-8 colder than that inside.

An interesting model, showing the cathedral’s five famous spires.

This gorgeous pulpit looked like like it could have been carved from a single piece of timber, but there is no information plaques in this church, except for those that were giving a small bit of information about the Roman crypts being worked on at the moment .

The church also contains a beautiful organ in front of this stunning stained glass rose window. All up, well worth popping in to have a look at, especially as we had the place almost entirely to ourselves one the congregants left.

Outside in a footpath, I found this pilgrim’s mark… I’ll have to keep an eye out to see if there are more in town.

The Belfry at the centre of the Square… you can normally go up the belfry, but not today as the visitor entrance was closed by midday.

We found a local place to stop for lunch – have to keep my driver watered. I managed to dazzle the serveurse with my spectacularly bad French! But it was adequate enough to ascertain that yes, the kitchen was open, and to order us some drinks and meals, so … mission accomplished, I guess.

The Parc du Jardin de la Reine… freshly green as the spring brings fresh foliage .

Across from the Parc is the beautiful Pont des Trous – or Bridge of Holes. It is a medieval bridge built in the late 13thC over the River Scheldt and is a typical example of medieval military architecture from that period. I had seen images of it before – and was expecting darkened stones, all covered in moss – seems the town has cleaned it up and I fear it’s lost a lot of its character!

After heading out of Tournai, we drove the 20-odd kms to get to the Waterloo Battlefields. The Domaine of the Battlefields covers

The Lion’s Mound is a monument that stands 40 metres high and was erected between 1824 and 1826 by William I, King of the Netherlands, to commemorate the spot where Prince William of Orange, heir to his throne, is thought to have been wounded while he served as Commander in Chief to the first Corps of Wellington’s army.

The Panorama is a vast, circular building that contains a huge canvas painted in 1912 by Louis Dumoulin, a renowned professional painter whose ‘Panorama du Tour du Monde’ (voyage around the world) was originally presented at the Universal Exhibition in Paris in 1900, before being housed here.

There is a stairway with 226 steps that lead to the top of the Mound, from where the entire battlefield domaine can be see. The lion is protecting a globe, representing the earth and symbolising the return of peace to Europe. Weirdly, it is designed such that you can’t actually see the lion once you are up there.

The panorama has seen better days…

From the top, you can see the entire Battlefield, and markers show were the British, French and Prussian troops were positioned.

There is a very large 2000sqm underground museum, that has been built into the landscape in such a way as to not disturb the important lay of the land above where thousands of soldiers fought and died. This model was created by a civilian who spent 30 years faithfully creating a representation of the battlefield and troop placements.

Inside the museum were many multimedia displays designed to acquaint newcomers (?) to the major players in the political landscape at the time.

Of course – Mr Napoleon was quite prevalent.

There were also displays of pistols, rifles and sabres from the period. I am reminded of Becky Sharp sending her husband off to Waterloo, and him dressed in his least-best uniform with his second best pistol, so she could sell his more costly things if something should happen to him.

Of course, a museum around the Imperial French couldn’t be complete with out a discussion on the revolution and the guillotine’s part in that.

There is so much written on Waterloo – documentaries, novels, TV shows, movies… I’m not going to re-hash it all here, when Wikipedia has everything anyone might want in a neat TL;DR.

This era of history just doesn’t interest me as much as the medieval period… Sean Bean would be disappointed, but there it is.

Some cool political cartoons…

And then suddenly … there was this.
*blink blink*
An unexpected temporary exhibition of ‘50 Years of ABBA from Waterloo to the World’. Interesting long bow drawn there, but… okay. Whatever. *shrug*

These look like some of the same costumes that I saw at the ABBA Museum in Stockholm – I wonder if they’re on loan or they just made some more… we’d never know!

Poor Agnetha – not looking too good here. :/

Much memories, so cool.

Woo-hoo! Back in the late 70s, we thought those little knitted caps were all the rage. Image the complete lack of stage presence an old ABBA video would feel like it has these days.

I still don’t know why they were so huge in Australia… but it is kinda like the P!nk phenomena. Huge down under, way bigger than in Europe or the US. There must be something distinctly Australian that these two diverse performers have tapped into.

More tacky outfits.

And a section on the huge revival in the late 80s, early 90s with the use of so many fabulous ABBA tunes in movies and musicals for the stage. Fun… completely out of place here, but fun.

Still in Bruges

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Today was mostly work, but we did find time to pop out for some breakfast – I had a waffle and realised I have never had one before. Not in a restaurant, not on a cruise ship, not at home… it was ridiculously sweet.

There are loads of waffle houses here, so you can pick and choose by Google ratings which one you want to visit.

Sweet and savoury offerings at this place.

After breakfast we went back to the hotel and worked until about 4pm when we went out to find a drink by the canal and watch the world go by. We ended up at Jan Van Eyck Square in a tapas bar? Ok.

There’s some cool civic art in these old cities and then some weird civic art in these old cities.

The Bruges Belfry that was built in the 13thC is 83m tall and is one of the three iconic towers of Bruges, (this and the Church of Our Lady and the St Salvator’s Catheral). There are 366 steps to climb to the top to see the famous views of the city. At the top, there is an enormous impressive music roller that controls the carillon, and a lower room where there is a keyboard which the carillon bells are played with now – since we got here, I’ve been wondering who I write to, to ask them to stop playing ‘Somewhere Over the Rainbow’ on the damn bells! Seems such a weird fucking choice, but it here it is, every hour on the hour.

Mr K went for the walk up the top to check out the view for me… no way my knee is having any part of this.

On the way up, is the city’s schatzkammer – or the imperial treasury. Here is where the city hallmarks, the city seal and the city treasury were kept in the Middle Ages… in a teeny tiny coffer, they’d have us believe.

The views look amazing.

The carillon mechanisms.

Back on the ground, we went to find a place for dinner and ended up at a Flemish restaurant (after vaguely toying with the idea of going for sushi, lol) called Vlaminck.

The food was delicious. Beef carpaccio, cheese croquettes, the obligatory frites and the Flemish stew was the best one we have tried.