Whew, as much as we enjoyed our adventures, it was getting a bit old packing and unpacking and lugging around our suitcases. You can’t travel light when you’re going to be away from home for 3.5 months. 
In fact, when we arrived in Interlaken, I immediately regretted some of the things I decided not to bring along, in the absurd belief that I could just buy them here.
Hahahaha. Yes, you can buy them, for an arm and a leg.
It was great to unpack, and put the suitcases in the spare bedroom where we don’t have to look at them. The house is charming, comfortable and convenient: only 8 minutes walk to the train station. Grocery and bakery about 3 blocks away, and a view of the Bernese Alps from the front window.
It took a few days to accumulate groceries, since we don’t have a car and have to carry everything home from the store.
Then there is the little problem of language…..I took German in high school, about 42 years ago. Even if I did remember it, they never seem to cover things like food ingredients do they? Can you say Oat Bran in German? (Haferkleie) Fortunately there is a good dictionary at the house, and since most items are marked in French and Italian too, we’re getting pretty good at figuring out what we are buying.
Everything is very expensive here, or perhaps the Swiss Franc is just too healthy, so we are trying to buy everything made by the Migros grocery chain’s “BUDGET” brand, which has no photos on the packages. The frozen “ Spinat, Gehackt,” was not too hard to figure out.
Next time we come, we won’t forget ANY medicines, vitamins or the like. Here, all that stuff can ONLY be purchased in an Apotek, from a real licensed Pharmacist, and the prices are set in stone. No competition from one store to another. Generic brand Ibuprofen: $9 for 20 pills. Saline nasal spray: $10. Vitamins: Priceless.
My sister tells me that when our family lived here in 1970-72, there were 4 Swiss Francs to the dollar. Now they are equal. Actually, since we’ve been here, the dollar has slipped from just over to just under a Swiss Franc. Ouch. So I told Kim, just divide the prices by 4 and we’ll feel much better. We certainly feel much better eating cheese fondue, and chocolate.
Lots of chocolate. And pastries. And Pretzel sandwiches with butter and salami. YUM, I think I’m addicted. I have learned that the Brezel Konig stand is between platform 5 and 6 at the train station in Bern, so I can grab one quick between trains.
On our second day here, we rode our bikes a few miles to Wilderswil, to watch the cows coming home from the summer alpine pastures. They are all bedecked with flowered head-dresses, and they parade down the main street. The sound of the cowbells, and all the mooing is almost deafening.
We followed on our bikes, not realizing they were going all the way into downtown Interlaken! It was a little tiring riding that slowly for about an hour and a half, but amusing when a small group of cows made a break for the ATM!
Later in the week, there were cows coming home to a farm just down the road from us, and Kim thought they were passing here about 3.45, but when we came back from our hike around 3, there was “evidence” in the street that they had passed.
So we made our way to the farm, admired the cows, listened to the Alpenhorn player for a while, and bought some of the Alpkäse they were selling. YUMM!
Kim spends a few hours each evening planning his next day’s hike. He’s in heaven. The first week he wanted to show me how to get to Murren, so we took the train to Lauterbrunnen, then the cable car to Grutschalp, then the little cog-train to Murren; it’s the highest village in the area that is inhabited year round, and there are no cars allowed.
Unfortunately for Kim, there were wildflowers all along the uphill side of the trail, and the Eiger, Monch and Jungfrau popping in and out of the clouds on the downhill side, so I was constantly stopping to take pictures! “Hiking with you is certainly a different experience,” he marveled! 
This is one reason why we don’t hike together very often. The other is that Kim is partial to 6 hour hikes that ascend by 2,000 feet or more.
All the way on our hike there was a helicopter flying over us, back and forth, delivering something.
We think maybe it was cement, because they are putting up stanchions for a new cable car in Winteregg, which we passed on the way down.
It’s “construction season” here; they don’t like to do it in the summer, because of all the tourists, and winter would disturb the skiers, so fall is the time. The roads in Interlaken are all dug up. They LOVE cranes here, every house that is built seems to have its own crane.
On Sunday I woke up to the sound of church bells. Later we walked into Interlaken by a different route and found the old Unterseen parish church, and some really nice old row houses.
When we arrived in downtown Interlaken, the paragliders were landing.
They take off from the cliffs just behind us, and fly around up there, then over our house and into Interlaken, and land on the grass in the city park known as the Hohematte (high meadow). Sometimes there are 20 of them up in the sky. It looks exhilarating, maybe even terrifying.
For more photos, check our “Interlaken” album at http://community.webshots.com/user/pathandpuddle
Don’t forget, you can click on any of these photos to see it full sized.
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2 comments:
So nice to read of your time in Switzerland!
Have some chocolate and cheese for me.
Oh yeah, I've done that. A lot actually!
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